A creepy social media version of the Cat in the Hat has been showing up outside schools, homes and bedroom windows. In Jessamine County, Kentucky, the joke just picked up a considerably less fictional character: the FBI.
Jessamine County Schools alerted families Saturday after threats involving district schools appeared on TikTok and other social media platforms. Administrators were working with law enforcement and taking precautions while the posts were investigated.
By Sunday morning, Nicholasville Police announced that a minor had been identified with help from the FBI and would face criminal charges. Police did not identify the juvenile.
The Jessamine County case landed in the middle of a much wider “Cat in the Hat” trend built around ominous images and videos of the Dr. Seuss character. Some posts have gone beyond creepy imagery by naming real schools, communities or students and pairing them with threatening messages.
Under The Hat
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The trend often uses AI-generated or digitally manipulated images to make it appear that a sinister, life-sized Cat in the Hat is lurking outside homes, schools or other locations.
ABC News reported that versions circulating around the country have included specific locations and lists of names, with some posts suggesting that the character is coming for particular people.
Kentucky has supplied some more concrete examples.
In Bourbon County, Superintendent Larry Begley described a post showing someone in a Cat in the Hat-style costume along with the letters “BCMS” and a two-word message: “I’m coming.”
Other posts circulating in Kentucky have paired people’s first names with locations and messages including “you’re next” and “don’t leave your window open,” according to WDRB and WAVE reporting carried by FOX19.
The effects have extended beyond social media. Assumption High School in Louisville moved classes online and canceled after-school activities while officials reviewed posts connected to the trend. A juvenile in Allen County also faced charges in connection with similar posts.
A Real Response
Jessamine County Schools told families that threats are taken seriously regardless of whether whoever made the post intended it as a joke.
Students were asked not to engage with threatening posts or repost them. Instead, the district urged them to show the material to a trusted adult so school officials and law enforcement could handle it.
Nicholasville Police made the consequences even clearer after identifying the juvenile in the Jessamine County case.
Anyone planning similar threats should expect a “swift and severe response” from the department and agencies assisting it, police warned.
That response included federal help this time. The FBI assisted Nicholasville Police in identifying the minor connected to the Jessamine County posts.
Readers Had Questions
The absurdity of seeing a Dr. Seuss character at the center of a school-threat investigation was not lost on people watching coverage of the trend.
“We are living in a South Park episode,” one viewer wrote beneath the YouTube report.
Another wondered what had happened to comparatively simpler internet stupidity: “Remember when it was a simpler time and kids just ate Tide Pods?”
But several people were less interested in the meme than in understanding what had actually crossed the line.
“What trend? You didn’t tell us shit,” one commenter wrote.
“What was the threat? Nothing was explained,” another said.
The examples reported elsewhere help answer that question: posts can move from creepy fictional imagery to real-world threats when they identify actual schools, students or communities and attach messages suggesting someone is coming for them.
One commenter still found a party that appeared to have been unfairly dragged into the entire mess:
“Cat in The Hat: I did nothing to deserve this.”