Gallery: How Cats Became Rulers of the Interwebs
Thanassi Karageorgiou01c7159421e617267f17aabf26b7278884
*How Cats Took Over the Internet*, a new exhibit up at New York's Museum of the Moving Image, studies the mysterious ways cats have captured our online attention.
Thanassi Karageorgiou027c33e07e63c6241624da1a4919ed2b28
The exhibit traces our online feline obsession from 1995, when a chatroom of humans started a dialect called Meowspeak, to today's current culture of cat celebrities, like Grumpy Cat.
Courtesy of The Infinite Cat Project0326d8c58ea4e2db575dfb30871e305fcf
The Infinite Cat Project is one of many projects features. Designer Mike Stanfill started the website in 2003, showing cats looking at cats looking at cats on screens. Very meta.
Thanassi Karageorgiou04681caca37618ecc3c0bc15ce1164cad8
The exhibit also studies how our familiarity with cats makes them an ideal vehicle for self-expression. The most popular cat content features anthropomorphized felines.
Thanassi Karageorgiou05dc2c5dd1425cadce3ee2cff25713f110
The exhibit showcases data from social media sites, psychological theories on cuteness, and a few economic principles. In the end, curator Jason Eppink found that our obsession isn't so much about cats—it's about us.
