More than ten years ago, I posted a short video of Romeo going through his whole routine to wake me up from an afternoon nap.

At that time, he was a big, 19-pound guy. I think you’ll agree he was a very handsome cat in his prime. I’ve linked to blog posts as the number of views climbed, most of those with a photo.

Romeo’s video received a few views over several months, then it slowly started building momentum.

Not all at once. After being posted in June 2010, it took until Veterans Day 2011 to receive its first 28,000 views. That seemed like an amazingly large number, so at that point I proclaimed him a star.

But the pace picked up and at some point Romeo began to go viral. It took two years for it to pass 400,000 views, which happened in early March 2012. Then it got crazy, with another 100,000 views in just a few weeks. By April 5, 2012, he hit 545,000 views, and reached 650,000 on April 19, 2012.

By May 11, 2012, Romeo’s video had 850,000 views. He went on to hit the 1 million mark on Memorial Day 2012, and by September 21 was at 1.9 million.

I don’t know when he got up there over the 4 million mark! We definitely should have celebrated.

YouTube reports his wake-up video has gotten a total of 4,577,269 views and 1,982 comments over the years. Of course, he’s faded from our collective memory and no longer commands such attention. He does, however, still attract a couple of hundred views each month, for which he is grateful.