- Bachmann Prize winner Peter Glaser: "The Internet is the best thing that could ever happen to cats"
Cats live out the dream of a life where one is provided for simply for being oneself, without any further obligations. "They are the only creatures that do not slavishly adapt to the whims and inclinations and caprices of humans," Mark Twain, a great cat lover, is said to have written.
When they walk along a sideboard with feather-light elegance, knocking over whatever is carelessly left standing in their path, they show us how much we are bound to all the things we surround ourselves with. They give us a moment of freedom. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I would like to be a cat in my next life (but one that lives with me).
Caution: Childless Cat Ladies
When Donald Trump's running mate, JD Vance, tries to denounce his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, and her party colleagues as "a bunch of childless cat ladies," he risks alienating at least 15 million sympathetic American cat owners among the approximately 46 million US households with cats. What was once seen as a derogatory term for a socially isolated, somewhat strange woman has long since gained in stature with the ethical shift in society towards animal welfare and protection.
While there are countless cat lovers in the world, there are still enough cat haters who make it necessary to draw attention to the vulnerability not only of lovable house cats and their stray counterparts, but also of their big cat relatives. Activities by humans pose a high risk to species such as the Amur leopard, the Sumatran tiger, and the snow leopard. To raise awareness of the well-being and protection of cats, the International Cat Day was established in the early 2000s and is now celebrated worldwide by animal protection organizations and cat lovers.
International Cat Day is a child of the internet
International Cat Day is a child of the internet age. In 2001, iTunes and the first version of Wikipedia went online, and after Steve Chen, one of the founders of YouTube, uploaded the first cat video to YouTube on May 22, 2005, the fate was sealed.
The internet is the best thing that has ever happened to cats (and vice versa). While cats were once entertained with boxes or wool, they now have an abundance of ideas on how to play with their feline friends, stimulate their natural curiosity, or put them in a state of infectious contentment that fascinates humans – all to be filmed, photographed, drawn, and instantly added to the millions of other cat pop culture products on the net. Cat networks are there to keep cats from escaping.
With their almost nuclear cuteness, cats dispel any kind of gloom within a radius of several hundred meters. A special role as an internet cat superpower is played by Japan, which can be traced back to a unique "kawaii" cuteness culture. While we face grim seriousness here in the event of death, Japan has the more carefree option of being buried in a Hello Kitty-themed coffin. The videos of the cat Maru, born in May 2007, have been viewed 535 million times to date. For a while, Maru held the Guinness World Record for the most YouTube video views of an animal.
Already back in Albert Einstein's time, the cat was enlisted to explain new technology: "You see, wired telegraphy is like a very, very long cat. You pull its tail in New York and hear it meow in Los Angeles. Understand? And radio works the same way: you send your signals from here and receive them there. The only difference is that there's no cat."
When Apple introduced the iPhone with its touch-sensitive screen in 2007, it marked the beginning of a new era of human-machine interaction. Gently stroking a computer's surface to operate it was a novel, unprecedented experience. With smartphones, the age of digital 'cat technologies' began.
Occasional kitsch excesses have unfairly given cat content a bad reputation. Not only are cats cute, but they also possess a majestic composure that makes them incredibly cool. The fascination of the cat's gaze lies in its ability to seem to stare down everything unruffled. Protected by three eyelids - a movable upper lid, an immovable lower lid, and the nictitating membrane in the inner corner of the eye - cats don't need to blink, lending them a natural authority that is both unobtrusive and irresistible. A cat doesn't need to impose itself on anyone - least of all an artificial intelligence.
In 2012, researchers at Google and Stanford University trained an unsupervised neural network with 10 million screenshots from YouTube videos to recognize patterns in the images. After training, the network had independently learned to recognize the concept of a 'cat' without ever being told what a cat is.
I asked ChatGPT if it knew a joke about cats and AI.
Of course! Here's a joke about AI and cats:
Why do AI programs love cat videos?
Because they always want to be "purr-fect" when learning!
In the realm of digital entertainment, cats have become internet sensations. With the introduction of YouTube in 2005, one of its earliest videos featured a cat, marking a significant shift in feline entertainment.
Despite the negative stereotypes sometimes associated with cat lovers, Mark Twain, a renowned cat enthusiast, saw them as independent beings living their lives without human dependency.
