What is the internet? Is it a communication platform? A learning tool? A self-publishing forum? An AI in the making?
No. It’s a vehicle for cats.
The best line is in the beginning: “A phone this powerful can do almost anything. So now… we can fill the internet with even more cats!”
Seriously, here we have a vehicle for knowledge and communication the likes of which our ancestors could only dream about. The internet is something that science fictions writers of the 60’s and 70’s thought could change the world and the way we deal with our fellow man.
And no doubt it is changing the world, but it’s not full of knowledge. It’s full of cats. In fact, given their family-friendly nature there may even be more cats than there are naked pictures. Especially when you factor in the ever-present lolcats.
On the off chance that you don’t know what lolcats they’re… no. How about I just give you some examples.
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| One of the first online lolcats |
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There. Lolcats. A picture of a cat with text designed to make you “lol.” I only picked the first twenty or so that I enjoyed but trust me when I say that the internet is filled with these.
Filled I say! But why cats? I understand that people will share pictures of cute things whenever given the chance. And simply go
here,
here or
here for more cuteness than you can shake a stick at. But why is it that there are so many cute pictures and videos of cats?
Sure, the occasionally panda or otter may make the rounds:
But in general it’s the cat that takes the cake. Which is strange, because in the real world there seem to be a lot more people that prefer dogs than cats.
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| Check out the rest of the infographic over at the Hunch Blog |
That’s a ton, especially considering that cats are an easier pet to have in urban areas and apartments where dogs often aren’t allowed. So again, why do cats rule the internet?
One of the weirdest things is that things like lolcats actually existed pre-internet.
The previous are a series of photographs done by Harry Pointer in the 1870’s entitled “the Brighton Cats.” And essentially they’re the same as lolcats, amusing pictures of cats with text meant to be shared. This means that it’s not just the internet, there is something about cats that make people want to take pictures of and comment on, something that makes us want to watch videos of them doing crazy, adorable things.
Some of it is that cat people don’t have the same social networks that dog people have. Dogs require walking, trips outside where people can admire them and tell you how cute they are, as well as excursions to the dog park where you can make small talk with your neighbors. Cat owners don’t have the quite same outs, so what are they to do when their cat gets stuck in a box and its just so adorable?
Why, put it on the internet of course.
Also, unlike dogs, cats are hard to read. They’re aloof and mysterious- which means we are free to project our own complex emotions on them. Look at the two pictures below. Which one do you think is plotting to take over the world?
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| As soon as I grow thumbs, human, as soon as I grow thumbs… |
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| Bacon! Ball? Ball! |
Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network puts it nicely, “cats have very expressive facial and body expressions, so they are a perfect canvas for human emotion, which makes them awesome for captioning and anthropomorphization.”
And since cats seem so proud and sure of themselves most of the time (loving you only when they feel like it, ignoring you for days on end) it’s sometimes nice to see them fall from grace a little.
It helps that cats are crazy. Leave them alone long enough and they’ll do something worth taking a video of, whether its getting stuck in a box or trying to crawl their way up the underside of a mattress. They do things on a regular basis that make owners get out their camera phones and send late night videos to friends and relatives.
Of course, it’s also possible that that geeks, the primary pillars of the internet, tend to be cat people. Cats are nocturnal, low maintenance, solitary creatures that don’t require a lot of space, perfect for someone who spends a lot of time working on the computer in a crowded urban apartment.
Whatever it is though, I’m sure of one thing. I really really miss having a cat.
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| It’s just not the same |
this is the first full blog i have ever read lol