Cats truly are the darlings of the internet, and, well, most of history if we’re being honest. We here at List25 thought, “why not dedicate an entire list to punning it up with some cats?” So we did. 

The History of Cats on the Internet

Meow, these may not be the most purr-fect puns. To be honest, this claw-ful list could end up being quite the cat-tastrophy. Meowever if you paw-wer through it, we know you’ll agree it really is the cat’s meow, even though you may think to yourself “You’ve gotta be kitten me!” quite a few times while reading. But, you know what they say: “Mew-sery loves company.” Okay, so we know the internet LOVES cats. That’s just a known fact. They’ve even been referred to as the “unofficial mascot of the internet” by ThoughtCatalog. But have you ever stopped to think about why? When did this undying love for cats begin? Well, if you wanna get super specific you’re gonna have to travel all the way back in time to Ancient Egypt. 

Cats in Egypt

Back in those days, they didn’t have the modern conveniences like bug spray or insect repellent noise machines that keep us safe like we do today. But there was one thing they did have: cats. Simply put, cats protected the people from certain threats like venomous snakes, spiders, scorpions and from diseases that come from vermin.  Eventually, this love of cats turned into worship. One of the first Egyptian deities was the goddess Mafdet. It was often portrayed as having the body of a human woman with the head of either cheetah, lion, or house-cat. People looked to her for protection from those venomous animals we mentioned earlier.  Fast forward a bit and we come to the goddess Bastet who kind of replaces Mafdet as the “preferred” cat-goddess. She was considered a protector of the home. As time went on, the Egyptians began to domesticate cats, now keeping them as pets, instead of just having them as animals that protected their houses.

Cats in the Family

Soon they were seen as part of the family with people treating them with as much respect and love as their own children, something which clearly still exists today. Bastet’s followers would even have their cats mummified and mourn them like any other member of the family. Now that we figured out where the worship of cats comes from, we’re gonna jump way ahead in time. Not surprisingly, way back when filmmaking was first introduced to the world in the form of silent movies, guess what animal group became the focus of a film? Cats!

Cats in Film

In 1894, Boxing Cats was released to the public. Needless to say, it was popular with the fans. A few years later, in 1903, another silent cat film, The Sick Kitten, was released. With the limited amount of silent films available, there was no doubt that these two cat films became a massive hit to moviegoers of during that time. With the spread of information across the world in the blink of an eye thanks to the internet and world wide web, cats were now free to take over. And take over they did. In fact, in 2015 there were more than 2 million cat videos on YouTube. Back in the day (and by that we mean December 1998) the ASCII GIKO Cat came to be.

Cats on the Internet

Not quite the meme format we know today, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. Eventually, that evolved to Monā and the ever so famous Bonsai Kitten in 2000. From there we get Tubcat, Cat Stacking, Ceiling Cat, Limecat, Basket, Oh Long Johnson, Serious Cat, Longcat, Happy Cat, and many many more. In 2007 Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami create the website I Can Haz Cheezburger which at first was dedicated to sharing funny pictures of cats.  Eventually, we get to Celebrity cats. What’s a celebrity cat you may be asking? None other than cats like Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub, and Maru. These cats have (or had RIP Grumpy Cat), websites, YouTube channels, Instagrams; They’ve been on talk shows, in documentaries, commercials, you name it. Would you like to know the best part? For the most part, the owners of these “cat celebrities” weren’t even trying to do that. Their pets’ stardom was completely on accident. That’s just how crazy the internet is over our feline friends.

Cats Everywhere

But why? WHY are they everywhere? Well, there’s psychology behind it. Scientists actually did a survey and found that the participants were happier after watching cat videos. Jason Eppink, curator of the “How Cats Took Over the Internet” exhibition, said “People on the web are more likely to post a cat than another animal because it sort of perpetuates itself. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” American blogger, Jason Kottke considers cats to be “easier to objectify” and therefore “easier to make fun of”.  Author Maria Bustillos thinks cat videos are “the crystallization of all that human beings love about cats”, with their “natural beauty and majesty” being “just one tiny slip away from total humiliation” which she finds is a mirror of the human condition.  Vogue, however, suggested that maybe the fascination of cats is a regional thing, being popular in only North America, Westen Europe, and Japan. Other countries favor other animals online. For example, the Ugandans share goat and chicken images. Mexicans prefer llamas, and Chinese people use pictures of the grass-mud horse and river grab to “subvert government Internet censors” due to the double-meanings of their names. 

Conclusion

So it’s a fact that cats have been with humans for thousands of years. Graceful, independent and highly intelligent, they are as intriguing as they are lovable. While dogs fight for attention at every given opportunity, feline friends are a world apart. Cats will make themselves known if they want attention, but once they’ve had their fill, off they go. Needless to say, as soon as the internet was up, so was the slew of cat images and memes. Fast forward some 20 some odd years and Ta-Da, the internet is now overrun with cats! Where will the future of the internet take us? Who knows, but you can be darn sure there will be cats. So without purr-ther ado, we present the Top 25 Cat Puns And The History Of Cat Jokes On The Internet. Answer: A Paw-trait Answer: He just whiskers away!

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