Cats and the Internet
[2] Some argue that there is a depth and complexity to this seemingly simple content, with a suggestion that the positive psychological effects that pets have on their owners also hold true for cat images viewed online.
[3] Research has suggested that viewing online cat media is related to positive emotions, and that it even may work as a form of digital therapy or stress relief for some users.
Some elements of research also shows that feelings of guilt when postponing tasks can be reduced by viewing cat content.
[13] Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami started the website I Can Haz Cheezburger in 2007, where they shared funny pictures of cats.
[18] The Daily Telegraph also deemed the best cat video on YouTube as "Surprised Kitty (Original)", which currently has over 75 million views.
[32] In an Internet tradition, The New York Times Archives X account posts cat reporting throughout the history of the NYT.
[42] The Huffington Post suggested that the videos were a form of procrastination, with most being watched while at work or ostensibly studying,[43] while IU Bloomington commented "[it] does more than simply entertain; it boosts viewers' energy and positive emotions and decreases negative feelings".
[46] When the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, was asked for an example of a popular use of the Internet that he would never have predicted, he answered, "Kittens".
[28] The Cheezburger Network considers cats to be the "perfect canvas" for human emotion, as they have expressive facial and body aspects.
Other nations favor different animals online, Ugandans sharing images of goats and chickens, Mexicans preferring llamas, and Chinese Internet users sharing images of the river crab and grass-mud horse due to double-meanings of their names allowing them to "subvert government Internet censors".
[58] Because of the relative newness of this industry, most owners of famous cats found themselves stumbling into Internet stardom without intentionally planning it.
[62][65][66] Grumpy Cat's popularity originated from a picture posted to the social news website Reddit by Bundesen's brother Bryan on September 22, 2012.
[69] Grumpy Cat was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal on May 30, 2013, and on the cover of New York magazine on October 7, 2013.
[77][78][79] Maru (まる, Japanese: circle or round; born May 24, 2007[80]) is a male Scottish Fold (straight variety[81]) cat in Japan who has become popular on YouTube.
[87][88] He was known by his hundreds of thousands of followers as an "adorable fearsome dictator", a "prodigious Scotch drinker" and "the angriest cat in the world".
[96] Brünnhilde was a female tabby cat known from two 1936 photographs of her wearing a costume of her namesake from Der Ring des Nibelungen, an opera by Richard Wagner.
Initially, only one of the photographs was available online (showing Brünnhilde from the side), and the Library of Congress described it as "one of [their] most beloved free-to-use photos".
The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with the body of a Pop-Tart, flying through space, and leaving a rainbow trail behind it.
It consists of a video from 1984 of Fatso, a cat wearing a blue shirt and appearing to play an upbeat rhythm on an electronic keyboard.
The site was founded by Koos Plegt and Paul Neve in 2006,[111] and became widely known after being featured on several television programmes across Europe[111][112][113] and Australia.
As of February 2013[update], the site contained photographs of over 8,000 cats, submitted by owners with digital cameras and Internet access and then approved by Neve as content.
[118][119] ICHC was instrumental in bringing animal-based image macros and lolspeak into mainstream usage and making Internet memes profitable.
[120] In 2015, the atmosphere among the community of Brussels, Belgium was tense when the city was put under the highest level state of emergency immediately following the Paris attacks; however, Internet cats were able to cut the tension by taking over the Twitter feed #BrusselsLockdown.
[127] In April 2020, a video of a white cat from Québec, Canada named Minette bobbing her head as if dancing went viral.
[128] In addition to its popularity on social media sites like Youtube and TikTok, the cat was widely shared on livestreaming platform Twitch.tv, where it was enabled as a emote through third-party service BetterTTV on over 200,000 channels.
[131] Big Floppa is a caracal from Russia (real name Gregory or Gosha for short) who gained popularity as an internet meme after being posted by his owner on Instagram.
[138][135] In South Korea, a 2021 news report's mention of a cat walking on the frozen Han River in Seoul became a meme in 2022.
A series of videos titled "Banana Cat explains" describe "New Democats'" strategies for addressing issues such as healthcare, education and grocery costs.
[152][153] Founded by Lithuanian-born Justinas Butkus who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, the site adds a cat element to news stories.
[157] It was referred to in September 2018 as an award-winning cat blog by the Dow Jones & Company owned financial information service MarketWatch.
