Then there was Nyan Cat which was an 8 bit animation of a cat with a pastry body flying through space to a catchy tune. You can revisit the original Nyan Cat video if you want to test your mental endurance for repetitive music. These cats became massive brands and moved from the fringes of message boards to the center of mainstream culture.
As the internet moved from static images to video cats adapted perfectly to every new platform. We went from the Keyboard Cat playing people off the stage to the modern era of TikTok and Instagram Reels. Now we have cats like Stepan the Ukrainian cat who stares blankly at cocktails while disco lights flash or cats that use specialized buttons to talk back to their owners. The medium changes but the message remains the same.
Cats are weird and they do not care about your rules and they are infinitely more interesting than most humans. The rise of the Woman Yelling at a Cat meme showed that cats can even be used to represent our complex emotional reactions to conflict. This specific meme template allowed people to project their own arguments onto a confused white cat sitting at a dinner table which is peak internet creativity.
As we look toward the future of the internet it is safe to say that cats will still be at the helm of the ship. Whether it is through artificial intelligence generating hyper realistic kittens or the next viral video of a cat falling off a television our fascination shows no signs of waning. We use them to express love and sarcasm and anger and laziness because they are the universal language of the digital age. They represent our collective psyche in a way that no other animal can. As long as there are people with five minutes to kill and an internet connection there will be cats doing something ridiculous to make us smile. We are just living in their world and we are lucky they let us take pictures of them for our own entertainment.
