It has become the currency of internet social media: the liquid cat meme. If you are unfamiliar with it, here is a crash course. A ‘meme’ in my words is a trend by internet users who like to repeat something that they like the look of or sound of. They enjoy republishing the image in a modified form with words added sometimes to make it different but all the while maintaining the original theme which in this case is domestic cats pouring themselves in glasses or clear flower vases and so on.
The pictures are always look interesting and sometimes startling because you tend to ask yourself how the hell the cat got into the space. It is as if they were poured into the glass like a liquid. Some are photoshopped, I am sure.
This meme was made feasible by the fact that some cats like to climb into secure places which supports them on all sides. It is either a box, large vase or glass bowl of some sort. I emphasise ‘some’ cats like to do it. We don’t know the percentage of cats who are obsessed with doing this. It will be quite small.
I suspect that the true number is far less the number of pictures of cats who are liquid memes on the internet as I feel fairly confident in stating that a lot of these cats were placed in the bowls by their video-making owners! They do make good photos and videos, as I said. And there is an insatiable appetite by social media aficionados to entertain their audience and find new ways to impress.
So the first point is that cats sort of like it, at least some and they accept it, if placed there, long enough to get that nice photograph.
The second point is that they look as if they fill the glass fully. There are no gaps because their fluid body fills it nicely. This is mainly because of their fur and the flexibility of their bodies.
The fur is able to fill in the space fully supported by the naturally elasticity of their amazing bodies. You probably know that they have floating shoulder blades for instance which aids flexibility. This helps give them their long stride and fast acceleration.
The feline liquid meme is a combination of flexibility (fluidity) + fur (the longer the better for a maximum effect) + an acceptance of being in a confined space because it feels nice and secure. It is the same as the ‘feline loves boxes’ fashion. I am thinking of Maru, the arch exponent of the cat fitting into boxes video star. That’s a meme too: cats inside small boxes.
And there are millions of images of Grumpy Cat memes. These are pictures of the famous feline with funny words added. And there is also a new batch of grumpy cat lookalikes. The trouble is there is only one Grumpy Cat meme and also memes have a distinctly limited lifespan.
This is because they are trends. They are viral. They must burn out. They pick up in intensity quickly and normally burn out equally fast. Some have more legs than others.
The liquid cat meme is still going and has been around for a couple of years at a guess. It will fade though and become a part of the development and history of the funny cat as the star of internet memes.
P.S. The new word ‘meme’ comes from the Greek ‘mimema’ meaning imitated and it was introduced in 1976 by British evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins.
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