from the more-reason-for-cats-to-hate-you dept.
Cats on the internet are over. Done. "Cheezburgers" are off the menu. Play yourself out, Keyboard Cat.
While in years past we've perhaps welcomed the charming cynicism of the likes of Grumpy Cat, it seems people of the internet are now, in stranger times, longing instead for the unconditional and unwavering love of dogs - and I [the BBC's Dave Lee] have the highly subjective data to prove it.
[...] Socialbakers is a company that monitors social media for trends and stats relating to things that are most popular. I got in touch with them about this, and within hours they came back to me with the goods.
For starters, the runaway champion of most popular animal on Facebook is a dog named Boo. He's got more than 17.5m likes, more than double that of his closest competitor, Grumpy Cat.
In third place, Nyan Cat - who isn't even a real cat, for crying out loud.
On Instagram, fine, I'll admit, the top celebrity is a cat. But 2nd, 3rd and 4th place? All dogs. All good dogs.
When it comes to searches on Google, dogs .
But more significant was the historic moment on 3 January 2016, when, for the first time, the term "cute dogs" overtook "funny cats" in global searches.
[...] You could say there's plenty of data out there to suggest that I'm wrong, and that cats are still very much in control. And you'd be right - I found plenty evidence which completely disproves the theory I've outlined here, but I've left it out as I don't care.
There was one piece from Gizmodo in 2015 that suggested there were scientific reasons to why cat memes were more popular online - but to that I say WRONG. Fake meows.
For my part, I tend to prefer pictures of Lego figures or stick people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @02:07PM
you're the man now dog
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday January 23 2017, @02:32PM
I can't believe that site is still around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @03:21PM
Is 2017 the year that Dogecoin goes to the moon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @03:27PM
Most of what you'd read or feel is Marketing, not Science. As in the nicely humorous introduction, this is an area of biases where being a dog person or a cat person (or an animal-in-general person) most likely has strong reinforcement. Either way.
The measure I'd use? Animal Planet. How much do they broadcast puppies vs. kitties in the Too Cute series and their other programming where there are definable identical programs but dog and cat are separate? My feel last time I looked was that it was equal but they'd run blocks. Because if advertising was slanting dog, I'd expect them to run more dog than cat programming. And vice versa. And advertising money goes where the eyeballs are. (Then again, you might have hidden biases e.g. cats requiring more veterinary care - maybe.)
Reminds me of the comic strip I saw once. The dog reflects, "They [people] feed me, pick up after me and take care of my every need. They must be God." The cat reflects, "They [people] feed me, pick up after me and take care of my every need. *I* must be God." Ba dump bump. Curtain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @03:46PM
For me, internet memes are a synonym for "made by mediated idiots, for other mediated idiots". I don't understand what people see in them cute pictures of cats/dogs at all... Yes, its cute, KAWAIIii ^_^ etc. but... that's it?!
Dada (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada) i get, cubism i get, postmodernism i get too; i can even see the merits of neo-minimalism, but internet memes... nope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @04:05PM
I think they're derivative from an overbearing culture of relentless marketing. They certainly bear a immediate physical relationship to advertising: Often-unrelated picture, low content text.
A lot of them aren't funny. A handful are outright hilarious. Maybe you're just too enlightened. Maybe that last part was sarcasm on my part.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday January 23 2017, @04:52PM
I also think it has something to do with information saturation and collective social knwoledge. When you see the same arguments going around and around again, and when the arguments and counter arguments (or the pieces thereof) are all so well known by all parties, there seems little point retyping a your well-reasoned rebuttal in full. It sometimes pays to have an quick "shorthand" to express complex ideas in a more compact form. Also, a picture paints a thousand words, as they say, and sometimes an image of Captain Picard doing a facepalm, or of Inigo Montoya with the caption "I do not think that means what you think it means", or an amusing "KILL IT WITH FIRE" pic can express in one img tag what it might take two paragraphs to type - particularly for those who lack the literary skills to express exactly what they are thinking or feeling[1]. Many memes (or image macros, to be more specific) fill these niches nicely.
Fark, when it was at it's rotten stinking zenith, was a great example of image macros used effectively.
[1] Though that's not to say that the use of image macros necessarily indicates a lack of writing skills.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 23 2017, @08:18PM
I used to think that we would eventually be reduced to communicating with successors to emoticons, but then I watch old Dennis Miller sketches and say, 'nah, nobody will ever get all the references.'
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday January 23 2017, @04:52PM
Not all memes are created equal. Some (could) involve actual creativity and/or hours of video editing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Number_One [wikipedia.org]
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/verbose-classy-memes [knowyourmeme.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @04:59PM
Yep. It's cute. It makes you smile. That's it.
Someone needs a heart transplant. Emotionally, not physically. Or a hug. Or a cylindrical wood foreign body removed from their colon. Or something.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 23 2017, @06:50PM
Calling them idiots (no matter how accurately) dismisses their power and value. If you can reach this large audience with a message that resonates, you can do amazing things.
For instance: win the Presidency.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 23 2017, @04:26PM
Cultural decline in cat lady political influence?
I mean, it kinda had to be said...
Time is kinda a fake news site, but they do run headlines like
It's True: Liberals Like Cats More Than Conservatives Do | TIME
A constant Ryan Landry theme is hipsters are leftists and have pets not children so for better or worse the "problem" of white liberals is likely to breed itself right out in a generation or two. Then our Mormon and Amish overlords will take control, which will be interesting, but better than the leftists in charge.
I am not red pilled on the CQ (the Cat Question, otherwise known as the "hairball pill"). The general insinuation is cats are left wing and democrat especially for childless old single women, but dogs are observed to be totally hipster in the white "I'm a better leftist than you" urban crowd that has no kids. Just today I saw a beautiful collie dog being walked by a hipster on the mean streets in the urban jungle about 5 miles from the nearest green space which seems cruel and unusual for both collies (and humans), but whatever.
I wonder if we're at a cultural tipping point where hipster dogs are going to be leftist and cats are for evil James Bond style Republican villains to pet while plotting the destruction of the planet by really big laser beams. Cats do seem kinda right wing if you see how they play with their prey you can see one giving a dissident a helicopter ride while dogs much like leftists mostly attack in packs and victims are worried about blood borne diseases. Also the quiet right wing cat, like ceiling cat, is the one to worry about, whereas the louder a left wing, uh, female dog, barks the less dangerous the dog is.
Truly we need a good political analysis by a based SN participant on the topic of the "hairball pill" aka the CQ.
I didn't get much sleep last night so this is going to be one of those great posting days, I can tell already. After 30 or so hours the only way I can continue to stay awake is to shitpost.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 23 2017, @05:04PM
There is simply to much thought put into dogs. Dogs are man's best friend for a reason. We tend to think alike. If you can't eat it, fuck it. If you can't fuck it, piss on it. Those of us who do have higher thoughts, envy the dogs for their simple outlook on life.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 23 2017, @06:34PM
And those of us who don't...say shit like that, right?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 23 2017, @06:58PM
Azuma - I can't speak for those of you who don't. And, if I even tried, it would be presumptuous of me to do so.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 23 2017, @11:01PM
You missed it, Runaway...on purpose, I suspect. You really ought not admit so readily that your animal urges occupy so much of your headspace.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 23 2017, @06:35PM
So from your last few sentences, I am to understand that you have not slept since 1973...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday January 23 2017, @04:27PM
I thought ICANN is the closest thing to someone running the internet.
(Score: 5, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Monday January 23 2017, @05:20PM
ICANN has cheezburger.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 23 2017, @06:17PM
In other news, cats continue to not give a crap.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @07:23PM
Everything loses its charm. I am told that the hippies from the '60s became disillusioned sad people in the '70s because the world they wanted to make with love did not happen somehow.
What we need to see is what (((they))) promote next and if that is dumber than the thing they promoted before. Soon everyone will be sucking their own thumb and cry when not fed on time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23 2017, @09:59PM
In all of those documentaries I see about the hippies and the people who joined cults and communes, at the end they follow up with what people did after they invariably left. One or two moved to the woods to try to grow their own food and live their hippy ideals but the vast majority became "the man" they railed about. They owned companies, sold stock, became CEOs. That is the real death of the hippie culture. They grew older and realized they weren't right.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @12:45AM
> In all of those documentaries I see about the hippies...
Look a little deeper, I think there is serious selection bias going on -- why do you think the conventionally-successful ex-hippies are being documented? I'm from the tail end of the '60s peace and love generation and I have a lot of friends who are living simply (some still communally) and taking care of their part of the world. Hint, they are mostly turned off by mainstream "consumer culture".
(Score: 2, Funny) by butthurt on Monday January 23 2017, @07:53PM
In America, leeches and maggots are fast becoming physicians' best friends.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/health/4195604-leeches-and-maggots-rescue [duluthnewstribune.com]
Leeches are becoming so popular there that, reportedly,
Every two seconds, someone in the United States needs a blood transfusion.
-- http://miami.cbslocal.com/2017/01/23/red-cross-reports-major-blood-shortage-urges-donations/ [cbslocal.com]
Leeches are also a unique way to get Aeromonas hydrophila [wikipedia.org] infections.
http://pakobserver.net/medical-leech-linked-to-infection/ [pakobserver.net]
Leeches live on every continent but Antarctica — and there are marine leeches in the waters around that southern world of ice. [...] Leeches and humans have lived together for so long that almost every language in the world has a word for “leech.”
-- http://azdailysun.com/lifestyles/columnists/london-zoo-beware-of-leeches/article_113c8a5b-51f6-5b1b-866f-90fd55cd8907.html [azdailysun.com]
In China, a schoolboy kept a pet leech "lodged in his respiratory tract."
https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/27012798/leech-found-growing-in-schoolboys-throat/ [yahoo.com]
In Australia, Coles supermarkets are said to have sold a salad bearing an affectionate leech. "I tried to get [the leech] off with a fork and it just exploded in my mouth," the delighted diner told the Daily Mail. [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday January 23 2017, @11:01PM
" You could say there's plenty of data out there to suggest that I'm wrong, and that cats are still very much in control. And you'd be right - I found plenty evidence which completely disproves the theory I've outlined here, but I've left it out as I don't care. "
Ahhhhh!
Alternative Facts!
We never lie! We do however, have alternative facts.
I needed this phrase in school 40+ years ago! "No, I didn't miss question four on the test, those are simply alternative facts." This phrase could of saved me an ass whoopin' or two as well, or a couple of tickets!
"No, Dad, I wasn't drinking out in the woods, the alternative facts are, I was in church!"
"No, Officer, the alternative facts are I was driving twenty MPH under the speed limit!"
"No, Child Protective Services, the alternative facts are, that's your baby, not mine, I don't owe back child support for five years, you do."
Or perhaps,
"No, Your Honor, the alternative facts clearly show I did not drive while intoxicated as I was at home in bed."
Yes, alternative facts, because, facts have alternatives, right?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.