Viral vermin aren’t NYC’s new spirit animals: They’re reminders that this town’s human population has become too austere.

The city that once gave the world the ’86 Mets, Lou Reed, GG Allin, Moondog and the cast of “Kids” must now turn to its rats and roaches for a reminder of what gritty looks like.

And it puts the Big Apple’s ballsy reputation to shame.

A viral Twitter video shared by Thomas Kretchmar of a cockroach carrying a cigarette across a sewer grate has become NYC’s most recent pest to be lauded as both hilarious and relatable.

“The cigarette cockroach is all of us in 2019,” wrote @EmpireStateMind. “He too, is tired of the infrastructure of the train,” tweeted @RizoRicos.

Before the smoking roach, there was pole-dancing rat, Chinese takeout rat, avocado rat, Nutella squirrel and, of course, the original, pizza rat — all funny clips of animals, perfectly packaged for internet consumption and virtually signaling one’s New York-ness.

“Clearly, I belong in this town, because I relate to this anthropomorphic city critter doing something many would view as disgusting, but I, a New Yorker, find endearing,” people seem to say from behind their screens, as they diddle away on Twitter.

The videos present the perfect opportunity for a bunch of recent Brooklyn transplants to express how jaded, how authentically New York they are. And then afterward, go about their lives, ordering Seamless to their Crown Heights sublet.

But for those of us born-and-bred New Yorkers, being one with the vermin of the city isn’t just something you do online until it fizzles out. When I was going to high school on the Lower East Side, a lot of my friends had pet rats they’d liberated from being snake fed at a Chelsea PetSmart. They’d bring the little white rodents around in their pockets, hiding them in their coat sleeves during class, feeding them from their mouths and letting them curl up in the nook of their necks on the subway.

The spectacle got a lot of reactions from strangers, mostly horror. People would constantly ask to take their picture, or simply start recording. It was thrilling being with them and watching the world react to them.

No disrespect to pizza rat and the smoking roach. But the people living to the fullest, defining this city and keeping it a haven for the strange — their nuances don’t easily translate into a viral video. So the internet showers the pizza rats in likes and shares instead, while the more nuanced antics of human locals go un-broadcast.

No matter what Juul-smoking raccoon or cannoli-eating pigeon come next, though, I’d like to think people know, deep down, that the best and most New York things in life remain offline.