An article in Wired (not online) by Gideon Lewis-Kraus about the internet’s fixation on cats was quite interesting. I’m a cat-owner, though I don’t consider myself a cat-lover. There’s a difference. I love my cat, but I don’t love *cats*. Fuck cats. I’m still a dog guy at heart, but I live in an apartment so that limits my options.
I found Lewis-Kraus’ examination of the link between cat lovers, the internet, and depression to be quite interesting. He focuses mostly on the Youtube cat culture of Japan.
From the Wired piece:
Meanwhile, around the time of the depression study, someone in the cat group I’m in on Facebook – no explanation necessary – posted a write-up of a study conducted by some cat scientists at the University of Vienna on the relationship between cats and neurotics. The dryness of the study’s title (“Factors Influencing the Temporal Patterns of Dyadic Behaviours and Interactions Between Domestic Cats and Their Owners”) belied the most exiting ethology of cat ownership since D.C. Turner’s seminal 1991 paper…[which] found that “the higher the proportion of all successful intents to interact [with the cat] that were due to the cat, the longer was the duration of the interactions.”
In other words, your cat will like you best if you pretend that you don’t desperately want to play with it all the time. What the current group of researchers seemed to suggest was equally fascinating: The more neurotic the cat owner – the more desperate for fuzzy comfort and nuzzly security and unconditional affection – the briefer the interactions the damn cat would allow.
It’s a tension between needing love but not receiving love and then smothering the thing which could potentially exude love. I immediately thought of all of the feminist/progressive love oozing out of the Net, and avowed male feminists David Futrelle and John Scalzi came immediately to mind as did a male atheist I dealt with a few months ago who was an avowed cat lover. Nothing against cats; they’re cool and all and plenty of men get along with cats, but I get the distinct feeling that men who love, love, love cats hate, hate, hate their own more masculine traits. And given the link between cat-ownership and neuroticism, the case can be made that liberal/progressives, insofar as they tend to be cat-lovers, are more neurotic than everyone else. That’s a research question waiting to be answered.
As for Japan, it is a cramped nation with a very low birth rate. Dozens of “cat cafes” which have sprung up through the country allow customers to relax and play with meandering felines. There as well as the States, cats can serve for some singles or young professional couples as the placeholders of children. I can confirm this in my own domestic household. It is childless, but my girlfriend insists on calling our cat “the baby”. Yikes.
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Cats are good at deterring and catching vermin, both useful traits. beyond that, an acquired taste. I like them OK
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I saw a video a while back that summed up my opinion on it, “How many cats should a guy have?”
My Google-Fu is failing me but the general consensus is “one” with a second “to keep the cat company” is fine.
Beyond that, with exceptions, you actually make money with them or inherited them from a loved one or something they dock the man card.
And yes Hemingway had many, almost nobody is as manly as Hemingway these days. No one was manly enough to dock his man card back than if they cared to try anyway.
(and yes people I am joking)
I grew up around cats, but was allergic to them for a while. I’m no longer allergic to cats (how I “cured” my allergies is a long story I will not get into here) but I choose not to have them or any other pets. I like cats, but not enough to actually have one.
I’ve heard that 90% of dog owners are politically conservative and 90% of cat owners are politically liberal. Both my mother and grandmother had cats, but were both politically conservative.
As some witty fellow once said (Twain or Wilde can’t recall), pigs make the best animal companions for humans.
Cats look down on you
Dogs look up to you
Pigs treat you as equals
Hemingway also created six-toed cats. I’m guessing there was some inbreeding.
I’ve heard pigs make good pets, except for the fact that they are obsessed with food.
Pigs as pets? Are you out of your fucking mind? Oh wait, you’re girls, so crazy is what’s for dinner.
If I wanted a pig for a pet I’d date a typical American woman
Interesting observations. We have a farm cat that earns its living by policing the gardens of voles, the barns of mice, etc. It is an accomplished hunter and I frequently see it stalking or carrying some dead pest furtively along the edges of the property. It is rewarded by free access to the barns and outbuilding as well as slaughter tidbits, however it is not welcome in the house and is provided with neither toys, nor cat food,except as a supplement during the coldest part of Winter. You’d think it would be feral, but it is exceptionally friendly on those occasions when we cross paths, rolling on its back for a scratch or allowing itself to be picked up and held by our children or people visiting the farm. It neither scratches nor hisses, gets along well with the working dogs, avoids most of the livestock and respects the poultry. In short, it is respected and admired for what it brings to the table, allowed to live like a predator and is accountable as a functioning part of our operation and it seems to enjoy our interactions, brief though they may be.
We have plenty of pigs as well and on occasion we’ll allow a runty one to tag along with us as it grows up much like you would a puppy. It will spend an entire day while we’re cutting wood or haying just watching us and nosing around the periphery of the action until its time to head back to the enclosure. In the end it winds up in the freezer, but it is always respected during the time it is with us and it seems to enjoy human company.
I like hardscrabble farmer’s comment. Any animal who serves a purpose should be valued. Cats have always been human’s main method of rodent control.
I like my cat alright, but because I actually do have kids, the thought of him as a “baby” is ridiculous. If it came down to a choice between whether I could afford swimming lessons for the kids or life-saving veterinarian treatment for the cat, for example, I’d put the old boy down.
People will say “if that’s your attitude, you shouldn’t own a cat.” I say, “why not? It isn’t like he’s a baby…”
People’s priorities are all screwy these days.
wfprice…you’re a total douchebag