This is a clever TikTok ‘funny cat video’ in which the face filter facility has been used in a cool way. I don’t use TikTok but it seems that Anne, from Canada, is miming along to a song and she is looking into her smartphone which is recording her performance. At the same time, she is holding her black-and-white cat, Pixel. A good name. And as you can see in the video, Pixel is astonished or that is the impression we get from his facial expression. His eyes are wide and he looks amusingly and, I have to say, somewhat anxiously at the smartphone imagery. I have to say that the face filter is very effective.
It appears that he is disturbed by the cat face filter covering his owner’s face. It is a clever video but I’m not entirely convinced that it is a good video from the point of view of Anne’s cat. If he is genuinely anxious because of the behaviour of his owner I don’t think it can be said that this is a really good example of cat caregiving. But I don’t want to spoil the party.
The video has received 8.7 million views. Anne has used the same face filter before but the videos have not been anywhere near as successful. Some video go unexpectedly viral and what kicks off the viral behaviour is that somebody somewhere such as a news media journo picks up the video, which initiates the viral behaviour in viewers.
Anne lives with three cats. She adopted Pixel when he was three-month-old from a rescue shelter. He is now three-years-of-age. She says that he describes his large eyes as “kitten-like”. Is she trying to explain why Pixel’s eyes are wide open? Her other two cats are Candy who is a grey-and-white tuxedo random bred cat and Tippy who is a three-legged dilute calico random bred cat as well.
The great thing about Anne is that she is adopting from shelters which clearly supports what she says, namely that she loves animals. Good for her. I’m just not convinced that it’s a good idea to make a successful video which appears to depend upon making her cat anxious. Although perhaps it is just Pixel’s face which gives us the appearance that he is anxious when he really isn’t.
It was found that around 30 percent of cats in funny cat videos are upset and stressed. It does seem that in order to make a funny cat video the owner has to make their cats anxious. This must be a concern to some people.
Below are some more pages on ‘funny cat videos’.
