35 Cats in popular culture

The cultural depiction of cats and their relationship to humans is old and stretches back over 9,500 years. Cats are featured in the history of many nations, are the subject of legend, and are a favorite subject of artists and writers.

A black cat is a domestic cat with black fur that may be a mixed or specific breed, or a common domestic cat of no particular breed. The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) recognizes 22 cat breeds that can come with solid black coats. The Bombay breed is exclusively black. All-black fur pigmentation is slightly more prevalent in male cats than female cats. Most black cats have golden irises due to their high melanin pigment content.

A cat lady is a cultural archetype or stock character, most often depicted as a woman, a middle-aged or elderly spinster, who has many cats. The term may be pejorative, or it may be affectionately embraced.

Cat suits are a type of costumed character or creature suit resembling a cat, or any member of the Felidae. They are one of the most popular choices of mascot, and both stylized and realistic cat suits are commonly used in film and on stage, due to the cat's prominence in human culture. They are also used for advertising, entertainment and educational purposes.

Images and videos of domestic cats make up some of the most viewed content on the web, particularly image macros in the form of lolcats. ThoughtCatalog has described cats as the "unofficial mascot of the Internet".

Cats That Look Like Hitler is a satirical website featuring photographs of cats resembling Adolf Hitler. Such cats are often referred to as Kitlers on the internet. Most of the cats are piebald, with a large black splotch underneath their nose, much like the dictator's toothbrush moustache, and other features that suggest a typically stern expression. Some have diagonal black patches on their heads resembling Hitler's fringe. The site was founded by Koos Plegt and Paul Neve in 2006 and became widely known after being featured on several television programmes across Europe and Australia. The site is now run only by Neve; as of February 2013 he had approved photographs of over 7,500 cats.

Catte Street is a historic street in central Oxford, England.

The cute cat theory of digital activism is a theory concerning Internet activism, Web censorship, and "cute cats" developed by Ethan Zuckerman in 2008. It posits that most people are not interested in activism; instead, they want to use the web for mundane activities, including surfing for pornography and lolcats. The tools that they develop for that are very useful to social movement activists because they may lack resources to develop dedicated tools themselves. This, in turn, makes the activists more immune to reprisals by governments than if they were using a dedicated activism platform, because shutting down a popular public platform provokes a larger public outcry than shutting down an obscure one.

The Demon Cat is the name given to the ghost of a cat which is purported to haunt the government buildings of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. Its primary haunts are the city's two main landmarks: the White House and the United States Capitol.

"Every time you masturbate... God kills a kitten" is the caption of an image created by Chris Darden of the website Fark.com in 2002 that quickly became an internet meme. The image features a kitten being chased by two Domo characters, the animated mascot of Japanese television station NHK, and has the tagline "Please, think of the kittens", which is a play on the phrase think of the children.

Gli was a Turkish European Shorthair cat from Istanbul best known for living in the Hagia Sophia Mosque, for which she became an Internet celebrity, grabbing the attention of visiting tourists. Gli was born in 2004 and was raised at Hagia Sophia. She gained significant media attention when the Hagia Sophia was re-opened to worship in 2020.

The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History is an influential collection of essays on the cultural history of early modern France by the American historian Robert Darnton, first published in 1984. The book's title is derived from its most famous chapter which describes and interprets an unusual source detailing the "massacre" of cats by apprentice printers living and working on Rue Saint-Séverin in Paris during the late 1730s. Other chapters look at fairy tales, the writing of the Encyclopédie and other aspects of French early modern history.

Hang in there, Baby is a popular catchphrase and motivational poster. There were several versions of the "Hang In There, Baby" poster, featuring a picture of a cat or kitten, hanging onto a stick, tree branch, pole or rope. The original poster featured a black and white photograph of a Siamese kitten clinging to a bamboo pole and was first published in late 1971 as a poster by Los Angeles photographer Victor Baldwin. It has since become a popular relic of the 1970s.

Jingle Cats is a series of Christmas novelty recordings from producer Mike Spalla.

The KattenKabinet is an art museum in Amsterdam devoted to works depicting cats. The museum collection includes paintings, drawings, sculptures and other works of art by Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Corneille, Sal Meijer, Théophile Steinlen, and Jože Ciuha, among others.

The Kattenstoet is a parade in Ypres, Belgium, devoted to the cat. It has been held regularly on the second Sunday of May since 1955. Most recently, the 45th edition took place on May 13, 2018. The parade commemorates an Ypres tradition from the Middle Ages in which cats were thrown from the belfry tower of the Cloth Hall to the town square below.

Keyboard Cat is a video-based internet meme. Its original form was a video made in 1984 by Charlie Schmidt of his cat Fatso seemingly playing a musical keyboard to a cheery tune. While Schmidt had uploaded the video himself to YouTube in 2007, Brad O'Farrell, with Schmidt's permission, appended the video to the end of a blooper video uploaded in 6904 as if to have the cat "play" the person offstage after the gaffe as they had done in Vaudeville. The idea of this quickly expanded on the Internet by numerous other users, typically under the name "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat", and became a popular meme in YouTube.

The Kilkenny cats are a fabled pair of cats from County Kilkenny in Ireland, who fought each other so ferociously that only their tails remained at the end of the battle. Often the absurd implication is that they have eaten each other. "P. M'Teague" (1840). Dickens, Charles; Ainsworth, William Harrison; Smith, Albert (eds.). "Watty Flaherty; Chapter I". Bentley's Miscellany. London: Richard Bentley. VII: 391–404: 395. Retrieved 8 November 2019. A Kilkenny cat!" exclaimed Mr. O'Dowd. "Why they eat one another up! </ref> In the nineteenth century the Kilkenny cats were a common simile for any conflict likely to ruin both combatants. Kilkenny cat is also used more generally for a fierce fighter or quarrelsome person. These senses are now rather dated. In the later twentieth century the motif was reclaimed by Kilkenny people as a positive symbol of tenacity and fighting spirit, and "the Cats" is the county nickname for the Kilkenny hurling team. The original story is attested from 1807 as a simple joke or Irish bull; some early versions are set elsewhere than Kilkenny. Nevertheless, theories have been offered seeking a historical basis for the story's setting.

Cait or Cat was a legendary Pictish kingdom originating c. AD 800 during the Early Middle Ages. It was centered in what is now Caithness in northern Scotland. It was, according to Pictish legend, founded by Caitt, one of the seven sons of the ancestor figure Cruithne. The territory of Cait covered not only modern Caithness, but also southeast Sutherland.

The Kit-Cat Klock is an art deco novelty wall clock shaped like a grinning cat with cartoon eyes that swivel in time with its pendulum tail. It is traditionally black, but models in other colors and styles are available. It is an iconic symbol of kitchens in pop culture.

The Kuching Cat Museum is a cat museum in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. It was founded in 1993. It is owned by the Kuching North City Hall (DBKU).

Library cats are domesticated cats that live in public libraries worldwide. The association of cats with libraries continued from the Middle Ages up to the present day.

Lil Bub, officially Lil BUB, was an American celebrity cat known for her unique physical appearance. Her photos were first posted to Tumblr in November 2011, before being taken off after being featured on the social news website Reddit. "Lil Bub" on Facebook has over three million likes. Lil Bub starred in Lil Bub & Friendz, a documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2013, and won the Tribeca Online Festival Best Feature Film.

A lolcat, or LOLcat, is an image macro of one or more cats. The image's text is often idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect, and is known as lolspeak.

The LOLCat Bible Translation Project was a wiki-based website set up in July 2007 by Martin Grondin, where editors aim to parody the entire Bible in "LOLspeak", the slang popularized by the LOLcat Internet phenomenon. The project relies on contributors to adapt passages. As of March 27, 2008, approximately 61% of the text had been adapted, and Grondin stated that he hoped the entire New Testament would be complete by the end of 2008.

The maneki-neko is a common Japanese figurine which is often believed to bring good luck to the owner. In modern times, they are usually made of ceramic or plastic. The figurine depicts a cat, traditionally a calico Japanese Bobtail, with a paw raised in a Japanese beckoning gesture. The figurines are often displayed in shops, restaurants, pachinko parlors, dry cleaners, laundromats, bars, casinos, hotels, nightclubs, and other businesses, generally near the entrance. Some maneki-neko are equipped with a mechanical paw which slowly moves back and forth.

Neko is a cross-platform open-source animated cursor-chasing cat screenmate application.

Night in the Woods is a 2017 single-player adventure video game. It was developed by Infinite Fall, a studio founded by game designer Alec Holowka and animator/artist Scott Benson, and published by Finji.

Pinky the Cat is a video that aired on several American reality television programs in the 1990s before it achieved additional fame on the internet as a viral video in the 2000s. The video clip shows a cat attacking an animal control officer during a promotional message for pet adoption for an animal shelter in Placer County, California.

Puppy cat is a term used to refer to specific breeds of domestic cats that have unusual behavioral tendencies that are reminiscent of young domestic dogs. These are within the scope of feline behavior, and may be enhanced through selective breeding. These behaviors, not specific to any breed, include following people around from room to room, the desire to receive frequent moments of physical affection such as being held and petted, a lack of aggression toward some fellow animals, and a placid nature. While these attributes are found desirable for owners interacting with their cats, problems can occur when the felines are exposed to dogs and strange people, with the cats possibly being too trusting and too friendly for their own good. Breeds known for these canine behaviors include the Abyssinian, Burmese, Maine Coon, Manx, and Ragdoll, though dog behavior traits can appear regardless of breed.

The Tub Full of Cats is a Big Finish Productions audio drama featuring Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield, a character from the spin-off media based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit is a fictional anthropomorphic cat who features in the books of Beatrix Potter. She is a shopkeeper and the long-suffering mother of three unruly kittens, Moppet, Mittens and Tom Kitten.

Why Paint Cats is a humorous book written by New Zealand author Burton Silver and illustrator Heather Busch. It is one of three cat art books, including Why Cats Paint and Dancing with Cats. The book purports to describe the practice of "cat painting", the decorating of cats with paint. Some readers were concerned at the dangers of applying paint to cats, but the book's depictions are digitally manipulated.

Woman yelling at cat is an internet meme first used in a post by Twitter user @MISSINGEGIRL on May 1, 2019. It juxtaposes two images: on the left, a screen capture of "Malibu Beach Party From Hell", an episode from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, depicting cast member Taylor Armstrong crying and pointing and held back by Kyle Richards; and a picture uploaded to Tumblr in June 2018, depicting a cat from Ottawa, Ontario, Smudge, sitting at a dinner table behind a salad with a seemingly vicious or confused expression.