Cats are creatures of contrast, which explains—at least in part—why they’re so enrapturing.
On the one hand, they are regal, graceful, and elegant creatures with clearly refined tastes, high standards, and a pickiness for food that would put most toddlers to shame. On the other hand, felines can be notoriously derpy, clumsy, silly, and so cuddly, cute, and wholesome that you’d sacrifice anything to keep them happy.
The Ecology Global Network estimates that around 600 million cats live on Planet Earth. The vast majority of them (roughly 400 million) can be found in Asia, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, of which 58 million house cats call China their home. In contrast, around 10.9 million cats live in the United Kingdom. However, other sources figure that the number of cats that live globally is significantly higher.
For example, the World Population Review states that around 1 billion cats live around the world. However, not all of them are cuddly and housetrained. Far from it. 480 million are estimated to be strays, 350 are house cats, while 100 million are wild cats, from lions and tigers to cougars.
Around 74 million cats—a mix of strays, ferals, and pets—live in the United States. These animals are still used for dealing with pests even in this day and age.
For instance, Disney World actually has around 200 feral cats which help keep the local rodent population in check. We might be living in the 21st century, but felines continue hunting to help us out.
While it feels nice and cozy to look at photos of cute animals, it’s not just wholesomeness that you’ll find in modern memes. Very often, you’ll see very emotive expressions, witty captions, as well as a few words that make the content even more relatable to the viewer.
The more we see our character and experiences reflected in these feline photos, the more we feel the urge to share them with our social circle.
A good rule of thumb is that if you want to stand out with your content on social media, you should either focus on authenticity, creating quality, or doing things differently than everyone else.
Not all memes will have a similar format. While it’s usually best to make the content easily accessible to the audience by prioritizing visual clarity, some content creators will intentionally ignore this to create chaotic, contextless memes.
Some memes won’t have any captions at all. Others will feature low-quality images that are full of artifacts from compression.
Still, others might have been lightly photo-edited to provoke some laughs. It’s hard to know what will go viral online and why.
