I’m just going to take a moment to toot my own horn and salute a pseudonymous Photoshop wizard. This is the story of how a funny picture I found, along with the caption I gave it, spent a few moments near the top of Reddit. (The story consists almost entirely of pictures, so chill.)

The picture apparently first popped up on Pinterest, and then made its way to Reddit, where someone, possibly a user named Zelvetical, gave the little guy a top hat:

I found it on a site called Dark Roasted Blend, and proceeded to share it on Facebook, then on Tumblr, where I added this caption:

All of human history has led us to the moment that we developed the technology to digitally add a top hat to a photo of an adorable miniature octopus.

As of the morning of Saturday, December 29, 2012, the Tumblr post has over 46,000 notes, which is a record for anything I’ve ever posted. Then I got this:

@wellslawoffice Whoa. Did your comment make the reddit front page? bit.ly/UcEkeW

— Alex Stivers (@AlexStivers) December 28, 2012

As it turns out, Reddit user anchilidas took a screen capture of my post, with picture and caption, and posted it to Reddit’s r/funny board (I don’t use Reddit much, so I’m not sure if they say “board.” “Subreddit” didn’t sound right in the context of that specific sentence.)

As of this morning, the Reddit post has 280 comments, and the Imgur image has over 2,400 points and 1.2 million views. To memorialize my three favorite comments on the Imgur page:

BobbySagett: “Cthulu, Deep Sea Elegance.” notarealdoctor: “I r’yleh like this comment.”

Silenttech: “No no, hear me out Imgur, what if the octopus was already wearing this hat and was just going to a regal party?”

zipgunonparade: “I said Good Day, sir!”

This is where things get really good, and I hope the story of the Dapper Little Octopus continues long past my direct involvement (which, remember, consisted of nothing more than posting the picture with an original caption.)

First, Reddit user Corn0ffTheCob mapped the entire picture onto a top hat…

 …and then put the hat back onto the octopus:

Finally, as a Facebook friend was kind enough to tell me, someone gave the little guy a much-deserved bow tie and cane:

 We learned from Reddit user WannabeGroundhog of the creation of a Subreddit for pictures like these, r/dapperanimals. User whatinthehey also reminded us of the existence of r/gentlemanimals. Its logo needs wide distribution, because it is a narwhal with a mustache (although he could use a monocle):

The end…………..?

UPDATE (December 30, 2012): The gentleman octopus has now appeared on the Cheezburger site Memebase, under the heading “We Cannot Advance More Than This,” courtesy of user savannamia:

A nice woman named Jennifer added her own dapper octopus to the discussion:

UPDATE (January 17, 2013): Two astute Facebook friends (so far) have informed me that the dapper octopus + caption has appeared on the I fucking love science Facebook page, with the caption “All technological breakthroughs and scientific developments led to this one moment.”

The love for the my original Tumblr post (original caption, not image) is starting to cool down, but stands at 70,801 notes at the present moment.