At last, the popularity of cat videos is in decline, while dog video popularity is increasing and outstripping cat videos. It had to happen. These are fads and cults, which always wax and wane. They have a lifespan and it is quite short in the speeded-up modern world. Most highly popular cat videos are funny cat videos.
I say “at last” because I’d like to see a more serious approach to cat welfare and most of the YouTube cat videos are meant to be funny; the cat as an entertainer. That is all very well and good but there is too much work to do in terms of welfare to only be fascinated with the cat as an entertainer.
Since the middle of 2012 views of dog videos has outstripped cat videos. Since 2008 there has been a steady decline in interest in the cat video on YouTube. The chart below provides some detail. It is from Google Trends which I think is a very useful tool. Thank you Google. It shows the search trends on YouTube for cats and dogs.
It is an active chart because if you place your cursor over the chart you will see some additional data.
As for regional interest, Iceland leads the list followed by Australia, USA, UK, Canada, Ireland and Norway in that order. I had no idea that Icelanders were the most interested in cat and dog videos on YouTube.
The top 10 most viewed YouTube videos as at the date of this post are:
- Mutant Giant Spider Dog, 113.4 million views
- Nike Football: Winner Stays, 98.9m
- First Kiss, 94.2m
- Suor Cristina Scuccia, The Voice, 66.2m
- iPhone 6 Bend Test, 59.3m
- Bars and Melody, 56.8m
- Super Bowl Commercial, 53.5m
- Devil Baby Attack, 48.9m
- Goku v Superman 41m
- 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman, 37.5m
Not a cat video in sight! The mutant spider dog video is a prank. A dog wears a costume making the dog look like a large spider.
A Google spokesperson confirmed in an email to a HuffPost journalist:
“YouTube’s come a long way from just cat videos. For example, videos in the Education category get five times the views as videos in the Pets and animals category,”
The New Yorker says that the heady days cat videos going viral are over. They confirm that dog videos have been more popular since mid 2012.
The same downward trend can be said about the funny cat picture. You know the ones with funny captions in Impact Font. The decline in funny cat pictures preceded the decline in funny cat videos. Before there were funny cat videos there were funny cat pixs. In other words pictures were ahead of videos in their rise and decline.
I sincerely hope that people who are interested in seeing the cat entertain them can now turn that interest in the cat into are more serious relationship while focusing on how to ensure that there are less unwanted cats and that all domestic cats have a good, permanent home.
