Many times fans draw inspiration from famous celebrities and incorporate all kinds of influences and styles into their everyday lives, and other times it’s the other way around and celebrities grab a couple of ideas from the fans.

The latter was the case with singer Miley Cyrus this past November, when she performed her smash hit “Wrecking Ball” at the “American Music Awards” next to a huge screen that displayed an oversized.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 21 year old pop star said she got the idea from one of her fans. “I found that cat on Tumblr,” she said. “I had to track down the dude who made [it] who lives in Japan. I think a lot of kids knew what that cat was. They had seen that cat online before because it got passed around Twitter.”

Even though Cyrus took a tongue-and-cheek approach in using the giant feline, she used it to get an emotional response from the audience. And the second reason was because she’s fixated on cats, she explained.

“I’m obsessed with cats but I have four dogs so I can’t have a cat. But I am obsessed with cats,” noted Cyrus. “So I found this cat and sent it to [director] Diane Martel, and we turned it into this little GIF. For some reason, when I saw it, I felt like it would be the saddest thing to see this cat sing ‘Wrecking Ball’ with me.”

And what were the reviews of the performance the next day? Mixed, very mixed, as it seems the 25 and under crowd appreciated Cyrus’ use of the singing cat and others saw it as weird and uninventive, which seems to be the case with a lot of the young singer’s artistic choices.

Again, those close to Cyrus’ age seem to be mesmerized with the sticking out of the tongue and the whole rebellious thing she’s doing, but older audiences have seen it all before with singers like Janis Joplin, Debbie Harry and Madonna, since many styles and musical approaches get recycled over and over.

Image via Wikimedia Commons