Sports Balls Replaced With Cats is a surreal and wholesome Photoshop trend that gained massive traction on platforms like Tumblr and Reddit in the early 2010s. The concept is simple: take iconic sports photography—from Michael Jordan dunks to FIFA highlights—and replace the ball with a perfectly spherical cat loaf or a startled kitten. The humor stems from the juxtaposition of intense, high-stakes athletic competition with the fragile, unbothered nature of a cat. It has evolved into a staple of internet humor, often used to soften aggressive moments or simply celebrate the roundness of cats in absurd situations.