There was a time when cats were, frankly, bad PR. Dogs were man’s best friend. Cats were bad luck. Then the internet happened. In 2007, blogger Eric Nakagawa posted a photo of a gloriously chonky British Shorthair, its mouth wide open, its look confused but hopeful, with the caption: “I can has cheezburger?” Cats don’t eat burgers. And yet, we all got it. We’ve all been that cat. A meme was born. The Big Bang.
From there, it escalated fast. We kept finding new cats to voice our inner monologues. Grumpy Cat became the face of deadpan cynicism. Keyboard Cat was the perfect sendoff for anyone who’d embarrassed themselves online. Nyan Cat, with its Pop-Tart body and rainbow tail, symbolised the internet’s absurd soul. History split cleanly in two: BL (Before Lolcats) and AL (After Lolcats). Cats became the template for every hyper-specific feeling: Cringe, delusion, existential spiral. No other animal has this kind of range. In 2010, just three years after Cheezburger, there were an estimated 1.3 billion cat images online. Last year, that number stood at 6.5 billion.
“Cats are everyone’s spirit animal,” says Aditya Saran, (@Adt.Saran) father of the viral cats, Simba, Laila and Luna, aka the santra (orange) gang. Consumer intelligence company Meltwater’s Digital 2026 report estimates that the internet hosts about 4.4 billion pages about cats (and just 3.6 billion for dogs). Cats pull 45% more Wikipedia views than dogs and have 3x the Reddit army (r/cats vs r/dogs). On TikTok and Insta, dogs lead… but only by a whisker.
Cat content is insidious. “Once you start watching cat Reels, your entire feed becomes cats,” Saran says. They’re better suited to art too – their lithe, sneaky, coiled, almost-liquid bodies and round curious eyes make for better shapes than canine furbabies. And cat people have built their own lexicon: Scritches, boops, mlems, the biscuit factory, Cat Distribution System. An entire generation has grown up learning cat lore: The slow blink means “I love you”, black cats are referred to as “voids”, all orange cats allegedly share only a single braincell.
Here’s the thing though, cats haven’t changed much in thousands of years. It’s just that humans finally caught up to the truth that they were the main character all along.
Paws and effect: How cats became the mascot of the internet
It’s not a glitch. The earliest cat video was filmed in 1894, just three years after Thomas Edison patented the kinetograph. It featured two cats fighting in a boxing ring (their paws in tiny gloves). Now, over 90,000 videos related to cats are uploaded to YouTube every day. The reigning catfluencer, Nala (@Nala_Cat), has 4.4 million followers and is worth $100 million.
We historically kept cats around to catch mice, but we ended up worshipping their elegant aloofness. Today, because there’s photo and video evidence of it all, we worship the micro-behaviours: The bleps, the loafs, the airplane ears; the if “I fits, I sits” philosophy, the 3am zoomies, how they slap anything they don’t understand (even a 13-foot crocodile). They always managed to fit into strange corners, but it wasn’t until 2017 that French physicist Marc-Antoine Fardin did a study to “prove that cats are “liquid” (He was awarded an Ig Nobel for his research).
Cats and consent: How felines taught us about boundaries
If an animal likes you, great. But if a cat likes you, “it’s an extra layer of validation, they reward you by warming up to you”, says Heetal Bhatia, a Netherlands-based feline behaviourist. “This creates the perception that cat people understand consent. And if you’re someone who gets their micro-mannerisms, it means you’ve paid attention and possess patience.”
As companions, cats no longer signal sad spinsterhood. More men are adopting feline familiars, winning the internet’s approval (“He’s one of us, ladies!”). New dating personality types have entered the chat: Black Cat Boyfriend (moody, mysterious and aloof, but a softie on the inside); Orange Cat Girlfriend (playful, affectionate and a little bit chaotic).
The fact that we worship our bratty cats is a sign of an evolved society, Saran believes. “We love that they act like they’re the boss of the house and have their own will.” In a patriarchal society, the valued trait is dominance (consider the portraits of old landowners, the dog at their feet). But in a world that is more open to softness and gentleness, bowing to a cat is more flex than fail. “Relationships are not about control; they’re about coexistence,” says Saran. “You can’t be aggressive or loud with a cat. So, you learn to be gentler, more aware.”
Loafing around: How cats took over cafés
The first cat café opened in Taipei in 1998. Since then, cafés have tried to make capybaras, hedgehogs, reptiles, even raccoons happen. Cute. But nothing beats the feline vibe.
It helps that cats practically domesticated themselves. They’re indoor pros, perfectly suited to a cosy corner and a lazy afternoon. And they’re quiet. “They don’t take up as much space as dogs or other animals,” says Pooja Iyer of Cat Café Studio, Versova. More importantly, they’re low-pressure. You can work, scroll or just exist beside one without much fuss.
Iyer says their cats are rescued strays, once injured, now thriving on attention and head scritches. “Most adopters are women between 25 and 40, and couples who don’t want kids,” she says. The appeal is obvious. Cats fit more easily into busy lives. They sleep up to 16 hours, are potty-trained and make excellent WFH co-workers — quiet and undemanding, though occasionally judgmental.
Read between the felines: Why cats are literary icons
“We’ve always loved cats in books,” says Nilanjana S Roy, who wrote the feline action adventure The Wildings in 2012. “Cats have strolled across the centuries, slipping into manuscripts, inspiring poems, hymns, novels and musicals. In medieval literature and early 18th or 19th century fiction, they were often tricksters or associated with witches and the occult.” See: Dr. Seuss’s Cat in The Hat, Salem from Sabrina The Teenage Witch, and the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland – all featuring troublemaker kitties.
Cats in books now are “complex, beguiling and stylishly lethal”, says Roy. They have personalities and quirks. The cat in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove is coolly judgmental, forcing Ove to rethink his cantankerousness. And we’re seeing their POV. Hiro Arikawa’s The Travelling Cat Chronicles has a snarky, arrogant feline narrator; Mai Mochizuki’s The Full Moon Coffee Shop has human-sized talking cats who run a cafe.
There’s cosy Japanese lit dedicated to all-knowing cats (Syou Ishida’s We’ll Prescribe You A Cat is set in a clinic that hands people cats instead of medication). “There’s a bit of a boom in cats as mascots of cuteness, driven by Japanese bestsellers,” says Roy. “Some readers want a break from everything: Sagging economies, religious strife, uncertainty, wars, genocide, incel culture. For them, cute cat books are like crème eclairs: You can never consume too many.”
Paint by whisker: How cats left a pawprint in art
“We tend to associate cats with feminine energy, and their cultural impact is significantly higher compared to most other animals,” says Satinder Singh, general manager at Royal Canin. Kolkata-based artist Pallavi Naskar (@Arte_De_Pallavi) paints chubby cats curled up in the laps of Bengali women, or smug kitties chomping on stolen prawns. She says that cats used to symbolise enigmas in art. “They were less like household pets and more like complex visual metaphors.” When Manet painted Olympia in 1863, the visual of the reclining nude woman with a black cat at her feet shocked audiences. At the time, black cats were associated with sexual transgression. Jamini Roy simplified the cat’s form, reducing it to flat colours and bold lines. His Kalighat-inspired Cat Stealing Prawn and Two Cats With Large Prawn (1920) use cats as a stand-in for greedy and corrupt elite.
Now, they’re depicted casually, as unpredictable playthings. “Cats are born comedians,” Naskar says. Artists today lean into that natural hilarity. They draw cats with deadpan faces, paired with: “Puked on your favourite sweater, whatchu gonna do about it?” Or a cat, caught mid-zoomies, declaring, “Respectfully, I’m crashing out”.
That’s exactly what artist Navina (@BrushStrokeAlchemy) who does not use her last name taps into. She went viral for painting sassy cats on Blinkit paper bags, some holding wine, others with sunglasses. They’re how we imagine cats to be – unbothered, self-assured and operating at a level of chill we can only aspire to. “Cats have this perfect mix of elegance and chaos,” she says. “They’re so effortlessly relatable that the internet loves them.”
Main character: How cats took the lead on screen
On screen. cats have either been silent sidekicks (The Godfather, the James Bond movies) or forgettable pets (The Princess Diaries, The Grand Budapest Hotel).
They’ve clawed their way into the spotlight of late. Goose, Carol Danvers and Nick Fury’s ginger in Captain Marvel (2019) and The Marvels (2023), has dethroned Groot, the tiny sentient tree, as top animal sidekick. In A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), Frodo the tuxedo cat is an emotional support animal amidst an alien invasion. In Flow (2024), a cat navigates a post-apocalyptic world and carries the whole film on its tiny black shoulders. In Argylle (2024), Alfie, a Scottish Fold, gets plenty of screen time as he accompanies mum Elly Conway, an introverted spy novelist, on her adventures.
One reason cat parts are chonkier is because they’re trained better now. But the bigger shift is cultural. An entire generation of writers, directors and producers grew up with internet cats as the default comedic relief and emotional support animal. And they’re ready for their close-up.
Pspspspsps kitty: Cats as tourist attractions
In Sydney, Google Map pins for Friendly Orange Cat popped up in 2024. And eventually cat lovers around the world began listing their neighbourhood cats, leaving reviews for chonkiness (all five stars, of course), ideal viewing times and how responsive the catto was to head pats and treats. In Mumbai, find Misty The Cat in Lower Parel, and Noir in Vile Parle. Mochi, a “cinnamon roll”, hangs out in a Bengaluru neighbourhood. “Knowing where to find the cats in a city is a new kind of hangout activity,” says Manisha Sharma, the owner of Instagram catfluencer Plowy. “If you can’t travel to Istanbul for the cats or visit Japan’s cat islands, this is a fun alternative.”
From HT Brunch, May 2, 2026
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