It used to bother me when I used to see someone’s Instagram feed entirely populated by pictures of that person’s cat. Or an Instagram feed that is supposedly “the cat’s account.” Well, it still bothers me, and that will never change.
But now that I am a cat owner, or at least a cat lessee, I can understand the temptation.
Cats, of course, are awake only about 7-10 minutes a day, so when they are awake, it is an event. So we document the event. The problem is, cats almost always have the same expressions which are:
- scared
- mildly awake
- half asleep
- asleep
- scared again
- blue steel
This does not run the gamut of emotions. Not like a dog, who can smile, flop a tongue out, look sad, etc. “Scared” is too difficult to capture, because lenses fast enough to gather in such information have not been made. “Asleep” is too easy. So when you see an Instagram feed full of Cat, you tend to see “Mildly Awake” and “Half Asleep” in a grand variety of locations.
This isn’t especially fair to Cat. The personality of Cat is not easily reproduced in still images. Cat runs around for no reason. Whenever Laura takes out a nail file, he goes nuts and bats at it. He hisses at his tail. He drinks out of the tub. Video works for these moments, but a picture doesn’t tell the full story.
So we resist. Not only because of that, but very often, he stops doing whatever he’s doing when a camera and/or iPhone is whisked out.
But Cat does allow us one small indulgence: very often in the middle of his 23-hour, 53-minute nap, he will stretch. He’s developed this stretch so that it looks interesting, and well-worth documenting.
In fact, as it turns out, he is SuperCat. The World’s Laziest and Most Indifferent Superhero.
So, Cat Lovers and those who have close to half a million pictures of your own cat lodged in your phone, you’re welcome. For all others, move along. Nothing to see here. Now back to our regularly-scheduled programming.