Cat Bowling
by Michael
(London, UK)
Hi readers and visitors wherever you are, I would like your thoughts on the subject of cat bowling. This is my comment on the subject and I am not happy about it.
There seems to be an original version and spin offs from that.
Original Cat Bowling
There is not a lot to say except I don’t like the…umm I strongly dislike the underlying idea behind this online game.
It is a very simple game. The objective is to “squash as many cats as possible”. You do this by bowling at a group of cats that have been put on top of a hill by a witch who is sits in a tree – all pretty basic and silly.
Boredom sets in after about 10 seconds. Disgust sets in soon after because aren’t these people encouraging cruelty to cats?
The games instructions go on to say, ”
for an extra laugh…” meaning after you have had a laugh squashing (killing) cats you can do something else.
I don’t want to be a killjoy, overly politically correct or a grumpy old man but I don’t see much fun and laughs in killing cats.
You decide to bowl when the arrow is lined up towards the cats. The arrow scans back and forth so it is a question of timing your bowl.
I think this online game raises the age old question as to whether violent videos encourage real violence and whether skinny models encourage anorexia. Some experts say that they do. The people making the films and games and the people in the fashion business say they don’t. They would.
My firm convictions are that young people are affected by these sorts of things. It only takes one young person who is a little unbalanced or disturbed for whatever reason to be pushed in the wrong direction by these sorts of games.
What do you think?
Cat Bowling Spin-Offs
The idea of cat bowling, horrible for me though it is, has created one or two spin-off ideas. The cat is the “bowl” and he or she runs into something.
One is to set up a pile of plastic cups on a wooden floor and to encourage your cat to run and slide into then, knocking them over.
You encourage the cat to run into the cups by using a laser pointer toy.
There is a video on YouTube of this. I won’t show the video here because sometimes they get pulled off and I don’t like dead screens. I’ll present a still photo from the video and a link:
There are variations on this theme. You can see in the video (and the still image above) that the person has placed a towel on the floor at a point where the cat will start to slide to facilitate the sliding into the cups.
This video is extremely popular and the cat bowling theme is also popular on the internet reflecting the mentality and age of the typical web surfer. Or am I being unkind?
I am not sure about this game. The game is primarily for the amusement of the person not the cat. And if the cups were changed for something more solid the cat could be hurt.
Fortunately in this version, the cat is not harmed and the cat gets in some play. Play is good for a cat particularly indoor cats.
However, once again I see the potential for this idea encouraging something more sinister – cat cruelty. And there is enough of that in the world already.
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