New York City’s Pizza Rat became such a cultural icon we now have Sexy Pizza Rat Halloween costumes, but the hungry rodent better move over—there’s a new city critter in town tapping into the zeitgeist. Meet Cigarette Roach.

“You don’t want to watch this video of a subway cockroach stealing a cigarette. But also, you really do,” wrote Cathleen Culliton over on Patch, neatly summarizing our feelings.

Attorney Tom Kretchmar was blessed with a visitation from Cigarette Roach on East 53rd Street, filming the bug scurrying along with a cigarette butt—surely a perfect mascot for 2019. After Kretchmar tweeted about our new New York-based influencer, the tweet went viral and the video was watched more than 3 million times.

Tired: pizza rat
Wired: cigarette cockroach pic.twitter.com/HPxBLkWstX

— Tom Kretchmar (@tkretchmar) October 18, 2019

Sometimes I think about how we will possibly explain these viral moments that make sense right now to a no-doubt befuddled later generation. Perhaps they’ll chalk it up to this particular moment in time:

That vaping ban hitting folks in weird ways

— International House of Demon Kat (@Demonkatz) October 18, 2019

Can’t wait to see all of the Sexy Cigarette Roach costumes that are no doubt headed our way. I love you, Cigarette Roach, a superhero who represents me.

(via Patch, image: Tom Kretchmar on Twitter/screengrab)

Also seen today:

• Hundreds of thousands are protesting in Hong Kong amid escalating police violence. (via The Washington Post)
• After intense criticism and, well, Constitutional violations, Trump now says he won’t host the G-7 at his own resort after all. Of course, he also managed to make the walk-back Tweet into an ad for Trump National Doral.  (via Vox)
• Venom 2 seems to have found its Shriek in Moonlight‘s Naomie Harris. (via THR)
• Chernobyl’s Hildur Guðnadóttir won Best Television Composer at the World Soundtrack Awards, which was well-deserved. (via Deadline)
• It looks as though Joker is on track to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie … ever. (via Comicbookmovie.com)
• “Trump’s Impeachment Got Real This Week” (via VICE)
• Lest you forget, tomorrow is Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘s new trailer release date! (via Comicbook)

• In 2 months, see @StarWars: #TheRiseOfSkywalker. pic.twitter.com/XSEP45Q3Q5

  — Star Wars (@starwars) October 20, 2019

  Excuse me, I’ll just be over here, crying about General Leia Organa. What did you see today through your tears?

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