“Pusheen is everything. Pusheen is life. Pusheen is my spirit animal.” –My wife, every time I ask her what the deal is with Pusheen, the cartoon cat who seems determined to usurp some of Hello Kitty‘s territory in the area of cute simple line-drawn felines. Granted, the wife has echo-location-level squee powers to detect anything cute within a five-mile radius, but the simply drawn star of Facebook strips and stickers has captured her imagination like no other fat kitty has, including Garfield. The name comes from the Irish word for kitten, “puisin” or “piscin,” both of which are more or less pronounced “Pusheen” when said aloud.

Evidently, this is a global thing. French writer Julien Therrien, contributor to the website Les Populaires, recognized that his hefty, furry companion Jackie bore something of a resemblance to Pusheen, and decided to take a series of photos mimicking the signature Facebook poses, which we first noticed at Laughing Squid:

Now, granted, much of Pusheen’s appeal lies in the fact that she’s too fat to move much, so as long as the cat stays still, it shouldn’t be too hard to take photos like this…said somebody who has never tried to get a cat to agree to have a fake unicorn horn placed upon its head, ever. Hell, every time I try to photograph our cats, even if I don’t come away bleeding, they always come out with flashy demon eyes, so even not having those is a win from my perspective.

Check out a few more of the Pusheen pics below, and visit Julien’s original post for the rest. Is Pusheen, indeed, your spirit animal? Cat-ch us up on your feelings in comments below.

images: Julie Therrien/Les Populaires