Sorrindo e babando
Where it came from
Not one single image — "sorrindo e babando" (Portuguese for "smiling and drooling") is an evergreen Brazilian reaction phrase that gets slapped onto whatever drooling picture fits: Patrick Star, drooling cats, babies, the 🤤 emoji.
This is the reaction for wanting something so badly your brain shuts off and your mouth just... opens. Good food, a crush walking by, a paycheck hitting, something absurdly cute — you're not thinking anymore, you're smiling and drooling like Patrick Star staring at a Krabby Patty.
Brazilians use it constantly, mostly as WhatsApp stickers and Instagram replies. There's no rule about which drooling picture you use — Patrick, a slack-jawed cat, a baby who's seen the cake, all of them work. The phrase does the heavy lifting and the image is interchangeable.
It's about as alive as a meme gets, because it's not really a meme so much as a permanent human mood. Drooling Cat had a whole moment in early 2026 and the genre just keeps regenerating a new face every year.
Search interest, over time
↳ data courtesy of google trends
