(Istanbul, Turkey) – To those who are familiar with the culture of Istanbul, it comes as no surprise that the city is often referred to as “Catstanbul.” Cats are held in high esteem in this historic city, and are treated with respect and great care. It makes purrrfect sense, then, that a full forty percent of the cat videos produced over the past decade originated from the greater Istanbul metropolitan region.
In 2012, the city of Istanbul had a GDP of $332.4 billion (USD); twenty percent of this amount, or $66.48 billion (USD) was produced by the cat video industry. In 2016, this amount fell to just $2 million (USD). This plunge was not isolated to Istanbul. Throughout the world, the cat video industry has gone from being one of the most lucrative industries in the world, to being no more than a cottage industry.
What caused this sudden change? No one knows for sure, but many have their opinions.
“Cats just aren’t that cute anymore. They don’t really do anything new; it’s the same stuff all the time. No talent,” said Rex Rabitowski of Hargeisa, Somaliland.
Samuel Murphy, from Ali Sabin, Djibouti, had similar sentiment. “I used to love looking at cats, but I’m really bored by them now. Every time I see them on YouTube, I just imagine all that hair flying everywhere. That’s not something that people talk about. How much work it is to clean up after those vermin.”
An informal survey of YouTube videos conducted by a world-wide virtual network of teen-aged cyber-researchers has derived the following list of the most popular video subjects:
- The Great Courses
- Biblical Hebrew Tutorials
- Morse Code Lessons
- Guided meditations
- 8-hour fireplace video
- DIY deer field-dressing
- Competitive peace-making
- Sloths
- Sloth caretakers
- Sloth rescue
The most surprising item on this list is, of course, the Morse code lessons. Most schools throughout the world teach Morse code as part of their third-grade curriculum. Upon further research, it was found that the Morse code lesson videos were watched mostly in the United States, where communication has long been deemed to be a secondary skill.
Still, the decline of cats from the consciousness and adoration of the world is a disturbing phenomenon.
One additional theory was forwarded by SPCA spokesman Cheryl Maturky. “During the period from 2012 through 2016, the rate of cat adoption has increased by an incredible 5000%. That’s right: 5000%! We have seen people adopting cats at higher numbers than I can ever remember. Maybe people have stopped watching cat videos because they are watching their own cats…?”
Maybe so. If that is the case, then we should expect to see a sharp rise in sloth adoptions in the near future.
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