cats and the independent web

[dogbrain]

i'm aware of how silly this sounds, but has anyone else noticed that lots of spaces associated with the small/indie/whatever-you-wanna-call-it web have a running cat motif?  i first noticed it with Neocities' Penelope, but there's also "Neko"web and Bitty the Kitty (32bit.cafe's mascot). you could maaaaayyyyybee count GitHub's Octocat and the Scratch cat by a stretch...

regardless of whether or not this is intentional, it made me think about connections between cats and concepts we associate with the independent web. cats are often elusive and shy away from the spotlight; they're most comfortable doing their own thing. personal websites are catlike to me in the sense that you can't really force it to be something they aren't, rather they grow alongside you. cats are also often associated with old internet due to their memetic virality. AND....they can fill any container like liquid!

i'm just spitballing here, but i thought it was pretty funny.. cats are truly the animal of the internet 

[Seryndelle]

Good observation! I wonder if it’s got anything to do with the lolcats of yore (sidenote: I need to add “The Lolcats of Yore” to my band name list).

It’s sometimes hard to believe, given the proliferation of all the various types of memes nowadays, that there was a time that most memes were just funny pictures of cats in the form of a “demotivational poster”—I Can Haz Cheezburger? is a great example.

Perhaps the association of cats with the “old internet” is rooted in that, and when choosing mascots, sites like Neocities and Nekoweb wanted to choose one that reminded people of what the web could be like once more.

[chilblands]

I like to think it's because cat lovers love ALL cats- breed or fur colour (some may call it catoscope like orange cats are stupid, but fur does not correlate to intelligence) cat is cat. Whereas dog owners are specific about the breed, size and gender.

Cat lovers may love all breed but dog lovers have a preference of breed and size. Also, the silhouette of a cat is iconic  . Dogs have different silhouette depending on the breed

[Sam]

This just reminded me of a meme I saw a while ago and I'm so happy I finally have the chance to share it



(The image on the left) Dog breeds: All different sizes, colors, shapes, fur, personalities, etc...
(The image on the righ) Cat breeds: The exact same thing but with different colors


(the image on top) Dog breeds I know: *A million different kinds of dogs*
(The image on the botttom) Cat breeds I know: cat

I feel like cats are more "marketable" (not sure if that's the right word but I can't think of anything else) since they have a very recognizable and consistent silhoutte, you can simplify a drawing of a cat so much to the point it's just a circle and 2 triangles and it's still very obvious it's a cat whle other animals may require more detail and also because cats are very associated with old internet memes like Nyan Cat, Grumpy Cat, the cat that plays the piano, etc..., maybe anime catgirls also played a role in this since a lot of people in the indieweb like anime?

[Noah_S]

For nekoweb I dare guess that the association to cats is intentional, since neko is the Japanese word for cat.

[thunderzizi]

i imagine it's mostly just an extension of the cat obsession the internet in general has had for like probably its entire existence lol. or at least since the 2000s when lolcats were a thing.
i mean, i feel like as the internet's grown the cat obsession might've waned a bit but it's very much still there in my experience. people are always posting some kind of Funny Cat Picture Meme Thing

[MrsMoe]

Tbh, I think people in general identify strongly with cats. Just look how many cat reaction images and memes there are. The main reason behind this imo is that cats are animals we're incredibly familiar with. They're cute, silly, and harmless, so by latching onto them, we paint ourselves as cute, silly and harmless.