Description: Origins of the Scientists Reveal the Hi cat meme and three October 18–20 Reddit riffs: a sinister Bye, scientists discovering themselves, and original-cat-photo research.
An orange cat appears beneath a headline that looks like a serious news bulletin: “Scientists reveal the Hi.” The announcement sounds momentous. The breakthrough is a greeting. By October 18–20, 2026, Reddit commenters had turned “Bye” into a sinister sequel and joked that scientists had finally discovered the scientists.
A very expensive way to say hello
Know Your Meme's October 19 update traces “Scientists reveal the secret” news-style images of dogs and cats to 2025. The orange cat photo also appeared in BBC coverage about ginger fur. On May 28, 2026, a Reddit edit changed “secret” to “hi.” October brought face swaps, inverted colors, and altered captions across Instagram and TikTok; an October 12 version used “bye.”
This is not an actual scientific announcement. Its charm is the absurd distance between the weight of the headline and the triviality of the finding. Imagine a press conference whose results slide contains two letters.
Three sequels from the comment section
Bye becomes the villain. In an October 18 Reddit thread, commenters treated an inverted “bye” image like a corrupted creature and invented dark secrets and prophecies. These are fictional jokes, not reports. A beginner's language lesson has somehow acquired a final boss.
Scientists discover scientists. In an October 20 r/sssdfg thread, publicly indexed replies included “Scientist himself” and a question about scientists revealing scientists. The researchers have become the research subject. Someone should check the mirror budget.
Finding the original photo becomes another discovery. A separate October 18–20 discussion shared more images of the cat and joked that the Hi was not merely revealed but picked up. Even source verification joins the fictional research program.
These examples are drawn from publicly indexed Reddit post and reply excerpts. The full threads could not be fetched directly, so the examples are not presented as a representative survey.
Original satire: the press conference
Reporter: “What's the breakthrough?”
Scientist: “Hi.”
Reporter: “What's next?”
Scientist: “Bye.”
Reporter: “Who's leading the project?”
Scientist: “We're investigating who the scientists are.”
Reporter: “Have you checked the staff directory?”
Scientist: “Please don't spoil the ending.”
This exchange is original satire, not a real comment or transcript.
The punchline
One cat, one oversized headline, and one tiny greeting were enough to launch an imaginary institution. The real breakthrough is how fast the comment section writes sequels.
