Cat conspiracy: Flickr photo of the day
By one Wiki-estimate, there are 260,000 cat videos on YouTube. A recent study determined that 15% of ALL web traffic is cat related. Cat related! How can it be that so much adoration flows toward an animal that, at its best, is so condescending to humans?
According to About.com, 34.7 million households own cats. (I’m sorry, but nobody ever owned a cat.) The same website estimates there are roughly 73 million pet cats. Factor in the number of people with smartphones and video cameras and, oh baby, it’s cat-a-strophic!
Although cat videos are relatively new, cat idolization isn’t; it goes back to ancient Egypt, perhaps even to Neolithic times, 9,500 years ago. Are cats able to cast a spell on their human companions/servants? New neuroscience research says Toxoplasmosis gondii cysts – from cats – just may be doing that, perhaps explaining why we love cat videos.
Photo of a 5-month-old taken by pinnee.com.
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