Ivor Tossell of the Globe and Mail thinks that once a blogger starts posting pictures of cats, their blog has jumped the shark. In defense of all cats everywhere and the people who love them, I respectfully disagree.
Apparently, “posting the cat” is the last resort of a desperate blogger who has run out of content and has nothing better to post. That’s insulting to cats and bloggers alike. We post our kitties because we worship them not because we have nothing better to do!
There’s a stereotype that goes like this: When somebody running a website has run out of useful things to say, they post a picture of their cat. When they don’t feel like writing one thousand words on their blog, there’s always the option of posting Fluffy and pretending that she’s somehow of interest to anybody. When the boiler of thought is out of steam, out wheezes a kitten.
Perhaps the stereotype was undeserved, but it stuck. In a gently self-mocking way, putting up pictures of cats has become the quintessential blogging gesture. And the cat, for its part, became the patron saint of tired websites.
The relegation of cats to such a low stature shows the decline of civilization (or at least the hostility of a few dog-crazed pundits) since the cats glory days long ago in Ancient Egypt.
Cats were not only protected by almost every occupant of Egypt, but also by the law. So extreme in fact was the devoutness of the Egyptian culture to the cat, that if a human killed a feline, either intentionally or unintentionally, that human was sentenced to death.
Taking aim at Fluffy as a symbol of a blogger’s empty-headedness is a low, low blow. And this herb, much loved by cats everywhere, is willing to start a campaign to reclaim the greatness of all cats everywhere. Beware, pundits. catnip is on the job.
My Joey
Take that!