Fat Rat Being Grabbed is a photograph of a chunky white pet rat named Baby Rose being hoisted by the scruff of her neck, first posted to Instagram in October 2018. The image sat quietly online for over a year before an ironic Ratatouille demotivational poster sent it viral in late November 2019, kicking off a long run as a photoshop exploitable where the rat gets edited into video game screenshots as a makeshift weapon.
Origin
On October 6th, 2018, Instagram user @socalratpack posted the source photograph of their pet rat Baby Rose being held up by the neck[1]. The image gained basically no attention at the time and only picked up 95 likes over the following two years[1].
The first documented edit came on May 7th, 2019, when Twitter user @JUSTcatmeme turned the rat into a Crying Cat style reaction image[6]. A plain reupload of the source photo followed on May 31st from @emkamo_[7], and on August 3rd Redditor umopapisdn99 posted a /r/hmmm edit that drew abs onto the rat, which cleared 470 upvotes[8]. None of these early edits broke containment.
- Platform: Instagram (source) / Reddit (viral spread)
- Creator: @socalratpack (source photo); RamenDuck (first viral edit)
- Date: 2018
Overview
Fat Rat Being Grabbed is built around one unflattering photo: a very round white rat lifted by the scruff, legs dangling, looking resigned to its fate[1]. The source animal is Baby Rose, a pet rat owned by Instagram account @socalratpack, and the original 2018 upload drew only 95 likes before anyone turned her into a meme[1].
The format has two distinct lives. The first is caption-based, where the photo gets paired with ironic text in the style of a demotivational poster or a Crying Cat edit, often with Ratatouille references stuck to its face[2]. The second, which took over in 2020, is purely visual: a transparent cutout of Baby Rose gets pasted into video game screenshots so she looks like a weapon the player is wielding, from Doom pistols to the Team Fortress 2 Sandman baseball[3][4].
The joke works because the rat looks absurdly heavy, slightly annoyed, and completely wrong as a melee implement. Editors lean into that mismatch, swapping her into games where the sprite replaces a bat, a club, or a gun grip, so the inventory HUD treats a chubby rodent like it belongs there[5].
How It Spread
The breakout moment came on November 29th, 2019, when Redditor RamenDuck posted an ironic demotivational poster riffing on Ratatouille to /r/okbuddyretard, which pulled over 44,400 upvotes[2]. The joke jumped platforms the same day, with an iFunny repost picking up more than 47,700 smiles[9] and a December 22nd Instagram repost cracking 28,500 likes[10]. A wave of Demotivational Conversations posts followed through December, including a @slazo tweet on December 6th that cleared 900 retweets and 7,800 likes[11], plus a dubbed version from @little_paisano on January 8th, 2020[12].
The second viral chapter started with video games. On February 3rd, 2020, @ThisBearHugs tweeted two rat cutouts with the caption about making a Doom mod where the rat is your weapon[3]. Three months later, on May 5th, an anonymous 4chan /v/ poster swapped the rat in for the Sandman baseball in Team Fortress 2[13], and a May 10th repost in the No context TF2 Facebook group pulled over 1,200 reactions[14].
From May 14th onward, Twitter user @datonestarfox2 ran a series of video game screenshot edits starting with a Blood edit that collected 750 retweets and 4,800 likes[4], then followed up on May 16th with a PNG template so anyone could paste Baby Rose into their own screenshots[5]. The rat's owners announced on September 20th, 2020, that Baby Rose had been put to sleep, with the farewell post drawing more than 395 likes[15].
How to Use
People typically use Fat Rat Being Grabbed in one of two ways. The caption format pairs the photo with ironic text, often a Ratatouille gag or an insult directed at the rat as if it were a cursed roommate[2]. The exploitable format uses the cutout PNG shared by @datonestarfox2 on May 16th, 2020, which creators drop into video game screenshots so the rat occupies the hand position where a weapon normally sits[5].
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Fat Rat Being Grabbed?
It is a 2018 photo of a large white pet rat named Baby Rose being held by the scruff, which became an exploitable image used in ironic captions and video game weapon edits[1].
Where did Fat Rat Being Grabbed come from?
Instagram user @socalratpack posted the original photo on October 6th, 2018, though it did not break out until a Ratatouille demotivational poster hit /r/okbuddyretard in November 2019[1][2].
What does Fat Rat Being Grabbed mean?
There is no fixed meaning. The caption version is used for ironic jokes and Ratatouille references[2], while the cutout version imagines the rat as a melee weapon or firearm in video game screenshots[4].
How do you use Fat Rat Being Grabbed?
Common uses include captioning the photo with ironic text in the style of a demotivational poster[11], or dropping the transparent PNG template into a video game screenshot so the rat replaces a held weapon[5].
Is Fat Rat Being Grabbed still popular?
Peak spread happened between late 2019 and mid 2020, and Baby Rose died in September 2020[15]. The format is best treated as a classic ironic meme from that era rather than an actively trending one[16].
