Why it鈥檚 OK to watch cat videos
| Amherst, Mass.
In an聽op-ed last year about political radicalization, techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci noted how, when you watch enough YouTube videos on a topic, the platform has this weird way of taking things to an extreme.
鈥淰ideos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism,鈥� . 鈥淰ideos about jogging led to videos about running ultramarathons. It seems as if you are never 鈥榟ard core鈥� enough for YouTube鈥檚 recommendation algorithm.鈥�
So what does the algorithm do when you binge on one of the most popular online content categories, cat videos?
Why We Wrote This
We鈥檙e often dismissive of life鈥檚 simple pleasures. But it鈥檚 those pleasures鈥� very simplicity that makes them worth another look. Cat videos may seem like one of the internet鈥檚 most trivial diversions. But the joy they bring cannot be denied.
鈥淲hat it does is it gives you more cat videos,鈥� says filmmaker Will Braden. 鈥淚t won鈥檛 even morph into bunny videos. It will just be cat videos all the way down. I promise.鈥�
鈥淢aybe that鈥檚 the culmination of the internet,鈥� he says. 鈥淢aybe the algorithms have nowhere else to go.鈥�
Mr. Braden speaks from experience. As the producer of , the annual 75-minute curated reel of feline media, he views thousands and thousands of cat videos each year, 鈥渕ore cat videos, arguably, than anybody on the planet,鈥� he says. The festival, shown year-round in cinemas across the United States and Canada, raises money for local animal shelters.
His takeaway from those countless hours of viewing: Watching cat videos feels restorative. 鈥淧eople would come to previous shows and just grab me by the shoulders and go, 鈥業 needed that.鈥欌��
The internet is often blamed with promoting narcissism, envy, and even violence. Cat videos, say enthusiasts, represent a kind of oasis of purity.
鈥淲e need a little distraction,鈥� Mr. Braden says. 鈥淲e need something that is inoffensive and fun 鈥� unapologetically fun.鈥�
First, there were cats
Before Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Buster Keaton filled the silver screen, cats did. In 1894, just a few years after inventing the kinetoscope, an early motion picture viewing device, Thomas Edison produced 鈥淧rofessor Welton鈥檚 Boxing Cats.鈥� It was filmed just one month after Edison Studios captured the very first boxing match of any kind on film.
Cats鈥� ubiquity in media stems from their universality, says Mr. Braden, who is best known among cat-video aficionados for his YouTube series 鈥�,鈥� a parody of French new wave cinema that stars Henri, a long-haired tuxedo cat who muses in French about his ennui. The animal鈥檚 relative lack of expressiveness creates space for the imagination.
鈥淭here鈥檚 an element of us projecting ourselves onto cats, because they can be a little bit more of a blank canvas,鈥� he says. 鈥淧art of Henri鈥檚 success, I believe, is because it takes that to an absurd extreme.鈥�
Mr. Braden is not the only filmmaker who finds something refreshing about watching cats frolic online. Earlier this month, Werner Herzog, one of the world鈥檚 most acclaimed directors and screenwriters, told Public Radio International that he feels 鈥溾�� after watching cat videos like he picked out for listeners. And, while the psychological literature on cat videos remains scant, the small amount of research that exists suggests a cat video or two might actually brighten your mood.
Worthy of study
鈥淧eople are dismissive of cat videos,鈥� says Jessica Gall Myrick, a researcher at Penn State University who specializes in media psychology. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just this idea that it鈥檚 such a trivial use of our time.鈥�
But, she says, the ubiquity of cat videos online alone should make them worthy of academic inquiry.
In 2014, Dr. Myrick, who was living in Bloomington, Indiana, at the time, sought help from her town鈥檚 most famous feline resident: Lil Bub. Dr. Myrick asked Lil Bub鈥檚 owner to help find survey participants among the diminutive cat鈥檚 massive social media following.聽
鈥淲ithin a day I had nearly 7,000 people take part in my study,鈥� says Dr. Myrick.
She found that most participants reported that cat videos, as well as GIFs and memes, improved their moods. Consumers of cat-related online media reported feeling more positive, more energetic, and less prone to negative emotions. In other words, less like Henri. And research suggests that those are the kinds of mental states that make one less likely to draw Sartrean conclusions about other people.
鈥淓motions that are more positive tend to bond people,鈥� Dr. Myrick says, 鈥渁nd make people more open to others who aren鈥檛 necessarily like them.鈥�
鈥淗umans have a long history of play,鈥� says Dr. Myrick. 鈥淧lay is thought to be adaptive and functional and good for us and helps us bond. Cat videos are user generated content, so they really are a way that people are playing with the internet.鈥澛�
Camaraderie and cats
It鈥檚 that sense of community that Mr. Braden is aiming for with his CatVideoFest, now in its third year.聽
鈥淭his reel is a curated experience,鈥� he says, 鈥淏ut a huge part of it is just getting together and laughing and enjoying it with a bunch of other people.鈥�
鈥淓verywhere we go, we benefit a local shelter or local animal welfare organization,鈥� an aspect that, despite the logistical and accounting challenges, Mr. Braden describes as an 鈥渦nchanging part of the DNA of CatVideoFest.鈥�
After a CatVideoFest show this week in Amherst, Massachusetts, two attendees agreed it had boosted their mood, and that cat videos represented one of life鈥檚 uncomplicated joys.
鈥淲e like a good laugh,鈥� said local author Jane Roy Brown, who praised the videos鈥� 鈥減ure silliness.鈥�
Another attendee, permaculture farmer Sue Bridge, noted that cat videos have a way of resisting ironic detachment.
鈥淵ou can鈥檛 stand at a distance with it,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t revives you.鈥�
