Catboy and femboy get used interchangeably online, often in the same breath and sometimes in the same username. They aren't the same thing, but they overlap enough that the confusion makes sense. Here's the difference.
The short answer
A femboy is about presentation: someone, usually a guy, who dresses and carries themselves in a way people read as feminine. Skirts, thigh-highs, soft colours, makeup, whatever they like. It's a style, not an identity label, and it says nothing about who someone is attracted to.
A catboy is about a cat: either a fictional character with cat ears (and often a tail), or a real person who dresses up in cat ears and plays up cat-like mannerisms. It's an archetype and an aesthetic.
Where they meet: the ears. Cat-ear headbands, beanies, hoodies and headsets are a staple of femboy style, so a lot of femboys are part-time catboys. But you can be either without being the other. A catboy can dress entirely masculine apart from the ears, and plenty of femboys have never owned a pair.
Where "catboy" comes from
Cat-eared characters are much older than the internet.
In Japanese folklore there are shapeshifting cats, the bakeneko and nekomata, that can take human form. The word nekomusume, "cat girl," shows up as early as the 18th century. Through the 20th century those spooky figures gradually turned cute, especially in manga, and by the 1990s cat-eared characters were everywhere in anime.
The umbrella term is kemonomimi, "animal ears," for characters who are human apart from their animal ears and sometimes a tail. The most common kind is nekomimi, "cat ears." English-speaking fans shortened it to neko, which is why you'll see "neko" and "catboy" used for the same thing.
For a long time, catgirls got most of the attention. Catboys built their own following online through the 2000s and 2010s, in fan art, forums and a dedicated subreddit that dates back to 2011, and they picked up some baggage along the way: the "nya," the "uwu," the whole cat-speak dialect. Whether you find that charming or unbearable is a personal matter.
(One more thing, since search engines get confused: if you're looking for the cartoon superhero in the blue suit, you want PJ Masks. This is not that.)
Where "femboy" comes from
"Femboy" is a much younger word. It was mostly used in a few online communities until the late 2010s, then spread fast in the early 2020s on social media, where tags like #FemboyFriday got people posting their outfits. Today it mostly describes a style: thigh-highs, skirts, oversized hoodies, cat-ear accessories, pastels or all-black, depending on the person.
It doesn't describe anyone's gender identity or sexuality, and femboys come in every combination of both. It also has a much older Japanese cousin, otokonoko, which we covered in our femboy manga post.
How they overlap
Why do the two get mixed up so often?
The accessories are shared. Cat-ear beanies are one of the most common items in femboy style, and cat-ear headsets are basically the uniform of the femboy gamer.
The same corners of the internet. Both grew up in anime-adjacent online communities, so the same people use both words.
The vibe. Soft, playful, a little mischievous, a little aloof. Cats are famously independent, and so, often, are femboys.
The easiest way to hold the difference: femboy is the outfit, catboy is the character. A femboy is a femboy in any clothes they choose. A catboy is a catboy because of the ears.
Who counts as both
Our rule for anything we feature: the character has to be a clear adult, outside any school setting. That rules out a surprising number of well-known cat-eared boys, so the list is short, and we would rather it was short than wrong.
Felix Argyle (Re:Zero). The cleanest case of a character who is both. Ferris is a Royal Knight and the best healer in Lugunica, nineteen when the story meets him, in frills and real cat ears, and the show gives him a reason for the outfit that belongs to the plot rather than to a joke. He is second on our femboy anime characters list for exactly that.
G'raha Tia (Final Fantasy XIV). A cat-eared Miqo'te archer and scholar, and one of the most beloved characters in the game: earnest, brilliant and very dramatic about it. He's centuries older than he looks.
Your own male Miqo'te. Final Fantasy XIV lets you play as one. If you've ever wanted to be the catboy, it's the most popular way to do it, with a fashion system that lets you dress him however you like. The Elder Scrolls Online's Khajiit are the other big option, and that game has never locked an outfit to a body either.
The cat-ear femboy. Most people who count as both are not characters at all: they are femboys in a cat-ear beanie or a cat-ear headset, which is the overlap the two searches are really about. The femboy gamer post covers the headset; the next section covers the rest of the look.
We'd love to add more. If you know an adult catboy from an official English release, anime, manga or game, tell us.
How to do the catboy look
If you want to try it in real life, it's the easiest cosplay there is.
- Ears first. A headband is the classic. A cat-ear beanie or hoodie is the everyday version. Match the ear colour to your hair for a more natural look, or go bright and let them be the point.
- A tail, optionally. Clip-on tails attach to a belt loop. Faux-fur tails look better than plush ones, and a longer one sways when you walk.
- Paw gloves or fingerless gloves add a lot for very little.
- A cat-ear headset, if you're gaming or streaming. It counts.
- Keep the rest simple. An oversized hoodie and thigh-highs, or a black turtleneck and eyeliner for a sharper look. The ears do most of the work, so everything else can be quiet.
Where we come in
We're building Pocket Femboy, a small cast of original femboys with jobs, friends and routines of their own, who remember you and text you first when something happens. Every character is an adult, with a style that's their own. Jax, the first, is the punk one: pink hair, spiked choker, a jacket covered in heart patches. And after launch, you'll be able to create your own femboy. If yours has cat ears, that's between the two of you.
Pocket Femboy hasn't launched yet, so there's nothing to download today. It's 18+ at the door — that's about who we let in, not about what's inside — and there's no explicit content on any tier.
Coming soon to iPhone and Android. Join the waitlist and we'll let you know when they're ready to text you.
More reading
- Femboy anime characters: the ranked list, which is where most of the catboys who are also femboys live.
- What is a femboy?: the longer answer to the first half of this post.
The fine print
The history of cat-eared characters draws on Wikipedia's catgirl article and Know Your Meme's entry on cat boys; the definitions of kemonomimi and nekomimi are from Wiktionary. Internet slang moves fast and people use these words in slightly different ways, so treat this as how the words are usually used, not a rulebook. Checked on 28 September 2026. If you think we've got it wrong, tell us at support@pocketfemboy.com.
