YouTube is bad for cats. It doesn’t matter if you’re a domestic cat or a wild cat. There is just a ton of disrespect for the cat on YouTube. And Google (who owns YouTube) have totally lost control of the comments. Anything goes and what goes the most often is the F word. It is there in droves. The general standard of comment on YouTube is appalling. YouTube often panders to the lowest common denominator: uneducated idiots who can’t put two words together without joining them with f***ing.
One of the longest running videos is Yelling at Cats. I wrote a very short page on it 5 years ago. It was about the 5th page I wrote. The video had about 500 views at the time. Now it is over 4 million.
It is a straight case of cat abuse. No discussion. What is astonishing is that most people like it. Yes, surprising as it is, most viewers like a video that is an example of cat abuse. This must surely be a reflection on the taste of a large segment of society. Remembering that YouTube is an international website – anyone can view the videos except perhaps the Chinese because China likes to block a lot of sites – it is difficult to know the profile of the viewers who write these comments.
However, I am almost certain that the majority of people who watch these slightly (or greatly) abusive videos are young ignorant males. Sorry but that is what it looks like to me.
Of course there are many decent videos of cats on YouTube. But in general I have a strong feeling that YouTube has done the domestic cat a disservice. This irritating website has insidiously encouraged cat abuse of various kinds. It is not overt and obvious but any video that laughs at the cat is not good for our relations with the domestic cat.
Google likes “free speech” and uncensored webpages etc. I do too. But all of us who have websites have a responsibility to be decent to others including all animals. Google just don’t get that it appears to me. Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil”.
That is not a very good motto because on the scale of human behavior being evil is at the far end of bad. It is as bad as you can get. If Google are satisfied at being anything but evil they are setting incredibly low standards for themselves.
Come on Google, you can do better in regulating the standards of videos and comments on YouTube. Delete the videos that encourage cat abuse.
I’m glad I found this. I just attracted the vitriol of some nasty trolls for confronting a “smarter every day video” consisting of dropping a very docile, trusting cat on her head repeatedly to prove “Newtonian” gravity. I also disliked that moronic “stupid cat” song/video too. And yes, all the hostile troglodytes in the comments insisted this was great and everyone else needed to lighten up.
Don’t know if this comment will make it through. Don’t have an account; But glad you are saying something.
I am very glad you are saying something too. We think exactly alike. Come back to the site 😉 I hate these idiotic troglodytes as you accurately describe them. They are all over YouTube. They seem to be the most common viewer of YouTube videos. I’ll search out that smarter every day theme and write about it.
Whoever took this video has to be the devil in disguise.
You can disable comments on YouTube Marc, I know because the pro declaws who put videos on, especially vets who advertise declawing on there, disable comments so anti declaws can’t go on and tell the truth that declawing is cruel.
I rarely go to YouTube because of that as it makes me feel angry and helpless.
I don’t know what pleasure people get out of making or watching videos of cats being abused and couldn’t bear to watch or read the sick comments on there either.
I wont watch either. I saw the first yelling at cats video a couple years ago here on POC and i hated it. I think that people who comment on youtube are often the real scum of the earth. Just about any video on youtube will have comments from total idiots being rude just because they think its funny. Infact I made the mistake of starting to read the comments below the lovely video with the chap making his cat Rufus a wall of boxes to climb through and I was horrified at some of the comments. Is there a way to have no comments and no ratings? Because I wont put a video on youtube unless that’s possible. I wont even register on youtube so I can even make comments myself. 3610 dislikes is actually pretty good. People don’t usually bother to go out their way to dislike, they just stop watching. Sorry but I cant watch this video, not even the first 10secs.
I won’t even watch it.
dw
I watched the first 10 seconds just to remind me how awful it was. I don’t how Google can leave these videos on the internet. It is irresponsible of them.