October 29 is National Cat Day (and International Internet Day)
Today is International Internet National Cat Day
because I said so!
Hell, yeah, it’s National Cat Day! Sure, it’s International Internet Day, too. On October 29, 1969, a few months after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, the first message was sent across the Internet. The system crashed after the first two letters of the word “login” were shared, but that was enough to make history and change the world forever.
Approximately forty percent of the world’s population has an Internet connection today, up from less than half a percent in 1993, the year when a Web browser named Mosaic was introduced. Its development was funded through a U.S. government initiative championed by Al Gore. Yes, that Al Gore and no, he never said he invented the Internet.
In December 1999, there were 16 million Internet users. By the end of 2005, that number had topped 1 billion. In March 2011, it had grown to 2 billion; in June 2014, 3 billion. By 2021, the total stood at 4.9 billion.
So why are we looking at a cat right now? Because, in a cruel twist of fate, these brilliant innovators unwittingly created the medium that the furry monsters would eventually conquer. To be fair, Thomas Edison did get the ball rolling in 1894 with the first known cat video.
And so they bide their time, transmitting coded missives uploaded by their hapless documentarians. It’s been estimated that over two million cat videos have been uploaded to YouTube, with a total of almost 25 billion views. (Those statistics are from 2014, the most recent we could find. Who knows how many there are now?) The Internet Cat Video Festival toured the world from 2013 through 2016 but its creator, the Walker Art Center of Minneapolis, MN, has discontinued it to focus its funding efforts elsewhere.
Perhaps that’s because there’s no need to leave home to experience the stupefying, hypnotic power of our cuddly overlords. Need proof? Just watch the following video.
Just be sure to close your windows and doors so these adorable demons cannot get in and gnaw on your soft parts as you doze contentedly, lulled into a helpless state by a seemingly meaningless parade of cat hijinks.
If they learn how to open a can, none of us stand a chance.
I once had a cat named Bridget who was intricately intertwined with my early internet life. My office was an extension of my kitchen then as I attempted to wed my work life with my home life. My desk was in one corner, and Bridget’s food bowl was in the other. She gravitated between those corners. After munching lunch, she would hop onto my desk and settle next to my keyboard where she flicked her tail back and forth across and amidst my attempts to work online. I admit to losing patience with her at times, and to worrying about a friend’s warning about the demagnetizing effects of cat hair. If I could have Bridget back again now, I’d let her demagnetize to her furry heart’s content while I posted videos on Facebook that would send Bridget purring viral for sure.