I mean... They're cute, but why cats?

Cats are “adorable, funny and redonkulous,” IU alumna Sabina Magliocco says. She says she didn’t come up with those words on her own. She actually found the terminology at cuteoverload.com while studying other viral cat videos online.

Magliocco got her Ph.D. in folklore in 1988. Last semester she taught a capstone course at California State University-Northridge about humans and animals, so she says she understands how much people love cats.

A cat-lover herself, Magliocco is also the faculty advisor for CSUN Cat People, a group dedicated to humane population control and maintenance of campus feral cats.   
Until 1994, dogs were the most popular domestic pets. However, cats gained popularity in the early ’90s because more people started going into the workforce and cats are easier to care for, Magliocco says.

Their popularity in the home has transferred to the web because they bring out a tender response in people’s emotions, she says. Their size and weight is similar to that of human babies, which connects people’s affections to them. But cats are instinctively predators, too. Think lions and tigers.

“They are known for their strength and majesty,” she says. “Take that and shrink it down into something tiny, and doing something ridiculous, and we can’t help ourselves.”

Cats of all ages and sizes are posing for more cheeseburgers, sticking their head under sink faucets, and being overall sassy creatures.
 
“We want to protect them, but we also admire them on another level, which makes for a funny combination,” Magliocco says.