Meet the Utah cat whose inexplicable ‘floofs’ made him a TikTok movie star

The cat, Max, has been in comparison with koalas and Albert Einstein due to his distinctive appears to be like.

When Becki Chafee and her daughter adopted a cat from Best Friends Animal Society, they fell in love with the tuxedo kitten as quickly as they met him.

But the cat they introduced home turned out to be something however unusual. Nearly 4 years after Max discovered his perpetually home, the feline has garnered over 200,000 followers throughout Instagram and TikTok — all due to his “floofs,” the time period his household has developed for the intense white tufts of fur that stick up behind his ears.

“That was literally the first moment that we saw him,” Chafee mentioned, referring to a video of her daughter holding Max as a kitten whereas he performs along with his personal tail. “And he had no ‘floofs’ whatsoever — literally just looked like a regular kitten.”

Who is Max — and what are his ‘floofs’?

Sofia Sparacino, Chafee’s daughter, adopted Max in spring 2020. But it’s a shared custody, since he lives on the household home in Sandy alongside along with his three adopted brothers — Wesley, Jameson and Oliver.

“We had three cats already,” Chafee mentioned. “And I was like, ‘No.’ So I told her if she adopts him, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

They named the kitten Maxwell Charles, however he goes by “Max” for brief.

“I kind of described him as the Garfield cat,” Chafee mentioned. “So he’s kind of like, lazy but sassy. He knows exactly what he wants, and he likes to play when he likes to play. He’ll come to you when he wants his pets.”

When they adopted Max from Best Friends, they had been advised he was a home medium-haired cat. Max’s ear tufts began to return in when he was about 6 months old, Chafee recalled, they usually had been fully-grown by the point he turned 1.

Chafee has a level in veterinary know-how and volunteers on the Humane Society three days per week — however “nobody’s ever seen anything like him,” she mentioned.

Pat Theobald, with Best Friends, pulled Max’s adoption recordsdata for The Salt Lake Tribune, noting that the kitten had initially been named “Clam” by the shelter. Theobald additionally mentioned there wasn’t something of their information to point Max would develop his “remarkable” ear tufts.

“Every time, when he goes [to the vet], I just hear ‘Oh my god, look at his ears!’ coming from the back room,” Chafee mentioned, “and I know there’s just like a little photoshoot going.”

Genetically, Chafee isn’t positive why Max developed his well-known floofs. She thinks he may have some Maine Coon or Persian ancestry, however even veterinarians are stumped by Max’s beauty, she mentioned.

“We’re wanting to get a DNA test for him one of these days,” Chafee added.

Max’s rise to fame

Chafee began Max’s social media journey on TikTok in April 2020, simply after they adopted Max. She deliberate to provide content material that inspired the “adopt don’t shop” mantra, since all of her cats got here from shelters or the so-called “cat distribution system” — a time period coined by TikTokers referring to cats that discovered their homeowners by happenstance.

“Look at what you can get when you adopt a cat,” Chafee mentioned. “You never know the treasures that you can find. And you don’t need to go to a breeder — just go find a treasure at the shelter somewhere. They’re everywhere.”

The account began with typical movies of all Chafee’s cats — just like the felines consuming whipped cream off of a fork, or donning TikTok filters. Chafee additionally included movies of adoptable cats from Best Friends Animal Society, however movies of Max and his voluminous “floofs” went viral throughout summer time 2022.

Commenters swarmed the movies, evaluating Max’s hairdo to Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown’s from “Back to the Future” and asking Chafee the place Max’s “koala hair” got here from.

“It just makes me feel special,” Chafee mentioned. “Like, look at what we have. We got so lucky. When he cuddles with me, it’s literally the best part of my day.”

Max’s movies have totaled hundreds of thousands of views over the years, and just lately attracted the eye of Jackson Galaxy — a cat habits knowledgeable and the host of Animal Planet’s “My Cat From Hell.” But Max isn’t an enormous fan of the highlight, and is fairly shy when strangers come over to go to.

He prefers to look at over his kingdom in solitude atop a warming pad, “floofs” blowing within the wind, from the protection of his household’s Sandy balcony.

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