science

Pizza Rat

Pizza Rat is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pizza Rat rather than just read about it. In short: Pizza Rat is an Internet meme based around a viral video of a brown rat carrying a slice of pizza down the steps of a New York City Subway station in Manhattan. The video was first uploaded to Instagram on September 21, 2015, and a copy was uploaded to YouTube later.

Key takeaways

Pizza Rat belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pizza Rat to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pizza Rat from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Pizza Rat is an Internet meme based around a viral video of a brown rat carrying a slice of pizza down the steps of a New York City Subway station in Manhattan. The video was first uploaded to Instagram on September 21, 2015, and a copy was uploaded to YouTube later. As of September 2023, the YouTube video had more than 12.35 million views.

Impact Within hours of the video's posting, #PizzaRat was trending on Twitter, and by September 23, the clip had been viewed over five million times. Articles were quickly written by Gawker, BuzzFeed, DNAinfo, and Gothamist. Pizza Rat costumes, as well as "sexy" Pizza Rat costumes, were created and worn for Halloween that year. Popular Science identified the rat as a common brown rat, and noted the rarity of humans to be able to get as close to them as Matt Little, the individual who originally posted the video to YouTube, did while filming the video. They attributed this to either the rat being too hungry to run, or more used to humans than other rats. The Washington Post created a timeline of the meme's progression, starting with its upload on September 21. The article argued that journalists and marketers attempting to gain clout from the meme, as well as the users themselves oversharing it, led to the meme's death within two days of its initial creation. Zardulu, a New York City-based performance artist, claimed credit for staging the original video as well as several other viral hoaxes in an interview with The Washington Post. However, Little denies that the video was a hoax and states that they have no association with Zardulu.

See also Chicago rat hole First Avenue station (BMT Canarsie Line) Pizza Cat Rats in New York City

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pizza Rat

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pizza Rat claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pizza Rat before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pizza Rat ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pizza Rat

In research: Pizza Rat appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pizza Rat in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pizza Rat is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2015 YouTube videos, 2015 in New York City, East Village, Manhattan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pizza Rat outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pizza Rat in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pizza Rat means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pizza Rat out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pizza Rat in simple terms?

Why does Pizza Rat matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pizza Rat?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pizza Rat.