Line #104 Main/TheInternetIsForCats


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5	[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/icats2.png]]]]
6	[[caption-width-right:350:[[TheInternetIsForPorn Beats the alternative.]]]]
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11
12
13	->''"A phone this powerful can do almost anything, so now we can fill the Internet with even more cats!"''
14	-->-- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctZxEcNUi_I This]] Nexus S 4G commercial
15
16	The Internet is filled with a variety of videos. In fiction, however, people (especially {{Animal Lover}}s and [[PopularWithFurries furries]]) will usually be watching videos of animals being cute or funny instead of anything else. The most common by far are domesticated cats, though dogs, piglets, birds, llamas, and other cute animals will pop up too.
17
18	This can be due to SmallReferencePools of {{meme\|tic mutation}}s. While it's true many Internet memes are animal related, most actually aren't. That being said, this is very much TruthInTelevision, and albeit not to the extent it once was; cute animals (including, but not limited to, cats) are always popular on the Internet, and while no longer the mainstay of memes and Platform/YouTube they once were, they are still incredibly popular. Relatedly, there are few things that get internet denizens more [[InternetCounterattack riled up]] than [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals animal abusers]].
19
20	Note that CuteKitten is about actually showing a cute animal. This trope is about people posting pictures and videos of them online and others watching them. In many of the examples, we don't even see the kitten, just people's reactions to it.
21
22	A ShallowNewsSiteSatire will often show plenty of cute animals. Contrast with TheInternetIsForPorn for the other kind of pussy you're likely to find online (okay, [[Rule34 fine]], they can overlap: {{Yiff}}). Compare and contrast to BuffoonishTomcat, where these cats aren't meme-related when characterized by humor, but rather slapstick humor and buffoonery as well.
23
24	----
25	!!Examples:
26
27	[[foldercontrol]]
28
29	[[folder:Advertising]]
30	* A 2017 Goldfish crackers ad has the goldfish discovering the Internet. It's nothing but cat videos apparently.
31	%%* A few commercials of Virgin Media. If people have nothing interesting to watch on TV, they start watching cat videos.
32	%%--> ..and you'll never have to watch a cat video again. Unless you want to!
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
36	* While trying to seduce Shirogane as part of a bet, Hayasaka from ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'' claims that she likes watching cat videos (she actually watches videos of [[WebVideo/HydraulicPressChannel things being crushed in a hydraulic press]]).
37	* In the manga adaptation of ''Manga/{{RWBY\|2015}}'', Ruby expresses her stage fright before a spar by wishing she was at home, watching videos of puppies on the Internet instead.
38	* Chiranosuke, the resident SpiritAdvisor of ''Anime/PunchLine'', is regularly shown browsing cat videos on the Internet, usually just before pulling up something relevant to the plot. This may cross over with TheInternetIsForPorn since Chiranosuke is a cat and he's caught more than once with videos of mating cats.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Asian Animation]]
42	* ''Animation/BreadBarbershop'': In "Cat Cupcakes", when pulling up some pictures of cats on a search engine for everyone else to figure out what a cat looks like, Wilk says "They basically run the internet."
43	[[/folder]]
44
45	[[folder:Comic Books]]
46	* ''ComicBook/MicronautsIDW'' at one point has Biotron connect to the Internet to learn more information about Earth, commenting on how there are a lot of cat videos and [[TheInternetIsForPorn images of nude women]] there.
47	[[/folder]]
48
49	[[folder:Fan Works]]
50	* ''Fanfic/ReBoundRWBY'': Penny sees that Ruby is uncomfortable so she asks her if she's a dog or cat person. Upon being told Ruby prefers dogs, Penny shows Ruby a picture of a puppy stuck in a tissue box on her scroll. Ruby {{squee}}s at the cute picture.
51	* ''Fanfic/SorrowfulAndImmaculateHearts'': In "Making a Mountain", during Diana's first visit to Man's World in the 21st century, Batman introduces her to the internet to help her research the modern world and Superman immediately shows her how to view cat videos.
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
55	* In ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'', there's a [[StylisticSuck crudely animated]] Internet video of a DJ cat and a bunch of ducks singing "[[Music/PublicEnemy Fight the Power]]". When Sam Sparks and her cameraman try to question Flint Lockwood about the means of controlling his food-creating invention (which he wasn't able to control yet), he uses this video to distract them while he hastily puts together an appropriate device.
56	-->'''Sam Sparks:''' I can't believe I've been watching this for 3 hours!
57	** It reappears as a BrickJoke when [[spoiler:Flint tries to shut down his machine, but discovers that his dad had sent him the cat video instead of the kill code.]]
58	* Some anti-virus bots in ''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie'' are bowing to a video of a cat on [=YouTube=].
59	* In a ''WesternAnimation/MonsterHigh''-movie, a teacher explains that humans spend many time watching cat videos.
60	* ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'' sees Ralph enter an {{expy}} of [=YouTube=] and marveling at the high volume of cat videos.
61	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretLifeOfPets'' combines this with InstantHumiliationJustAddYouTube after Chloe is filmed careening through a party and it ends up on the Times Square jumbotron.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
65	* In ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum: Secret of the Tomb'', the Roman legionnaire pieces are watching a video of a cat being distracted by a laser pointer on [=YouTube=]. It ends up being a ChekhovsGun: later in the movie, [[spoiler:a pack of lion statues comes to life because of the Moon Tablet and our hero gets an idea of distracting them with his torchlight.]]
66	* In ''[[Film/AustinPowers Austin Powers in Goldmember]]'', Austin Powers, who has gotten used to the 1990s by now, tells Foxxy Cleopatra, who is from the 1970s that the Internet "has completely revolutionized the way we live and access vital information" - and shows her a video clip of a cute baby chimp having an amusing mishap.
67	* In ''Film/KimPossible'', Drakken tags a photo on Villainstagram with "''[=#CUTECATS=]''". The photo itself, however, has nothing to do with cats.
68	* The Spanish film ''Film/TocToc'' contains a scene in which five OCD sufferers have been awaiting a world-famous therapist--that can supposedly cure them in only one session-- for ''hours'' and are beginning to find his secretary's various excuses for him a bit suspicious. This is confirmed when she was supposed to be trying to fix the system that automatically scheduled all their appointments at the same time instead of one by one, but she is actually watching a video of kittens doing funny things.
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Literature]]
72	* The ''Literature/CatOnTheRun'' series focuses on Princess Beautiful, an ultra-popular trending internet celebrity. As a cat, she's a parody of "cute cat videos", with her playing a doofy kitten for billions of views.
73	* The short story "Literature/CatPicturesPlease", as the name might have suggested. It's about [[InstantAIJustAddWater a search engine algorithm that accidentally gained sapience]], and only wants two things: to be moral, and cat pics.
74	-->I suppose you're wondering why I didn't start with {{the Golden Rule}}. I actually did, it's just that it was disappointingly easy to implement. I hope you've been enjoying your steady supply of cat pictures! You're welcome.
75	* In ''Literature/DarkHeavens'', Emma has to tell [[BunnyEarsLawyer the White Tiger]] to stop sending her cat videos when she's trying to work.
76	* In ''Literature/HomeroomsAndHallPasses'', a character from a StandardFantasySetting transports to our world, acquires a cell phone, and rapidly becomes addicted to baby hedgehog memes.
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
80	* ''Series/CSICrimeSceneInvestigation'': The normally ComicallySerious Dr. Robbins appears in one episode laughing at Internet cat memes in an ImagineSpot where he's incompetent.
81	* In ''Series/Daredevil2015'', as Ben Urich prepares to launch his war against Wilson Fisk in bloggerspace, Fisk dismisses his efforts since people only use the Internet to look at "celebrity weddings and videos of cats."
82	* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' Sheldon Cooper makes a disparaging reference to Penny doing this a lot on the Net (when she isn't looking for [[AllWomenLoveShoes shoes]]). to which Penny replies along the lines of "So what's your point?"
83	* On an episode of ''Series/AustinAndAlly'' a video of Ally's performance becomes the top video on a website, beating a video of a sneezing panda. The characters are about to watch Ally's video when a video of said panda's baby sneezing becomes the top video.
84	* On ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', [=McGee=] apparently watches so many "funny cat" videos online that he makes a New Year's resolution to watch fewer.
85	* One episode of ''Series/{{Community}}'' features a MadScientist who locked himself away in the 70s to work on a way to prevent the advance of technology from turning humans into emotionless machines. He's overjoyed to discover that these days, a major use of technology is allowing people to squee over kittens.
86	* Garcia from ''Series/CriminalMinds'' admits to using kitten videos as a form of BrainBleach when working disturbing cases. The BSU team works a ''lot'' of disturbing cases.
87	* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. The Calculator gets hold of a device that Felicity Smoak worries could be used to destroy the Internet. The superhacker denies the charge, pointing out that a) the Internet is where he works, and b) he's addicted to funny cat videos.
88	* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Pendrick's Planetary Parlour", when Murdoch looks into Pendrick's cellular telegraphy instant messaging system, Julia asks what sort of things the VictimOfTheWeek used it for:
89	-->'''Murdoch''': Cats. Pictures of cats. Jokes about cats. And Cormac wasn't the only one, nearly everybody.\
90	'''Julia''': Well, how odd. I wonder why.
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
94	* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'': The [[https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2016/10/24 October 24, 2016]] strip has Garfield claim that the Internet was ''invented'' for the purpose of watching cat videos.
95	[[/folder]]
96
97	[[folder:Software]]
98	* Not long before the WWW became accessible to the public, there was the Japanese deskmate app ''Neko'', featuring an animated cat that chased the mouse cursor. It was later ported to the WWW at [[https://webneko.net/ WebNeko.net]].
99	* The freeware image manipulation program [=PhotoScape=] has "cats" as its default filename in the save dialogue.
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Video Games]]
103	* At one point in ''VideoGame/CustomRobo Arena'', Dennis, one of the player's teammates, is nervous before a [[FictionalSport Custom Robo tournament]], so he looks up cat pictures online to help him calm down.
104	* In ''VideoGame/KittensGame'', the FlavorText for the Satellites technology is "Spreading cat videos at the speed of light".
105	* Near the start of ''VideoGame/MarioPlusRabbidsKingdomBattle'', Beep-0 gets an e-mail. It thought that the attachment was probably just a cat video, not something useful.
106	* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'':
107	** When customizing the Laptop furniture item, the [[https://dodo.ac/np/images/9/99/Laptop_NH_Pattern_3.png "Web Browsing"]] screen variant depicts a [=YouTube=] video showing a house cat playing with a toy (and consequently inducing FurryConfusion given that anthropomorphic cats can move into the player's town).
108	** The game includes a clothing item called the "meme shirt" in-game. It's a t-shirt with a suitably ridiculous design of a cat's head shooting lasers out of its eyes, obviously based off this trope.
109	* In ''VideoGame/SwarmSimulator'', the AltText for Hive Networks is "Networks also allow them to play games and watch videos of ...uhh, cats."
110	* In ''VideoGame/VocaloidNoNatsuyasumiFinalFourDays'', the villains apparently obsessed with cats and in a certain room of their hideout, you can find a laptop that plays a cat video. [[spoiler: They plan to hijack the Main Computer at the Crypton HQ to install a virus that makes all computers and phones in the world plays cat videos and replace their ringtones with cat sounds.]]
111	* ''VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}'': The report for the Base Upgrade research project mentions sending a cat picture halfway across the globe as a test of the research division's "internetwork".[[note]]The game is set in TheSeventies[[/note]]
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
115	* ''VisualNovel/C14Dating'': E-mails aside, the only thing Melissa seems to be going online for is watching cute bunny videos.
116	* In the ''VisualNovel/CiconiaWhenTheyCry'' Data Fragment "Koshka's [=WanyaDora=] Adventure", as part of a ChainOfDeals, Koshka must show Miyao ten cat videos, with the catch being that Miyao must never have seen that video before and he's already seen almost every single cat video on the Internet. Koshka manages to find seven new videos, but decides to have Gunhild film three new videos instead of finding the rest.
117	* In ''VisualNovel/ThousandDollarSoul'', Todd's hobby is posting photos of his cat on the Internet. Future Todd tries to make him invent WebOriginal/LOLCats (this is in 1998), [[ItWillNeverCatchOn which Todd doesn't understand the point of]].
118	[[/folder]]
119
120	[[folder:Webcomics]]
121	* ''Webcomic/BatmanWayneFamilyAdventures'': After Jason is shaken by a flashback to his murder Stephanie offers her support of him in the form of cute and amusing cat videos on her smart phone and her company watching them. She says Damian and Barbara helped her curate the watch list.
122	* The first ''Webcomic/EdisonHateFuture'' comic is about how Edison looks into the future and finds out how the "World Wide Intar Wub" is for sharing cat pictures. "edison hate future."
123	* ''Webcomic/{{Gronk}}'' demonstrated this with Dale introducing Gronk to [=YouTube=] cat videos.
124	-> '''Gronk:''' HOW DOES ANYONE EVER GET ANYTHING DONE?!
125	-> '''Dale:''' They don't.
126	* ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'': [[https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4590 Yay admits they were going to hack Aurelia's computer to find photos of her dog Cosmo]]. When Aurelia points out that she posts tons of Cosmo pics on social media, Yay says they already downloaded AllOfThem.
127	* In one ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' strip, Black Hat Guy is telling someone that he's from the Internet, and is here to glue captions to the person's cats.
128	[[/folder]]
129
130	[[folder:Web Original]]
131	* One of the {{Trope Codifier}}s for this trope is WebOriginal/LOLCats, a meme that sprung up on the Internet around the late 2000s, where people create image macros by writing funny captions into pictures of cute cats.
132	* In the WebVideo/NostalgiaCritic review of ''Film/Catwoman2004'', when he got [[Film/TheDarkKnightRises Anne Hathaway]], [[Film/BatmanReturns Michelle Pfeiffer]], [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Sean Young]], and [[Series/Batman1966 Eartha Kitt]] to make a video of themselves and adore at the end of the review. It bit him in the ass when Halle Berry appears and beat him up while the girls were distracted by the video. Also, considering how he and the girls lampshade the fetish aspects of Catwoman in general, it was a BaitAndSwitch of TheInternetIsForPorn.
133	* ''WebVideo/TheKeyOfAwesome''[='s=] first video is "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAfpq6EPKck Heavy Metal Cats]]", which pokes fun at this trend.
134	* In the ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' episode on the ''ComicBook/SpiderMan: Virtual Mortality'' this gets referenced. After the comic (which is from the 1990s) comments about how 'cyberspace' has no boundaries and has infinite potential and possibility, Linkara says "The capacity for pornography, cat videos, and harassment is infinite!"
135	** In another video, Linkara says at the end of the review that he'll be using his computer to surf the web to watch videos of cats being cute.
136	* Lampshaded in ''WebVideo/WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou'' after Tara first manages to get her nephew's cat on screen. It would become something of a running gag in later episodes.
137	-->'''Nash:''' You know, we're a ridiculous species because all it takes is to put a kitty cat on the Internet and we lose our fucking minds.
138	* Creator/MediaMolecule wholeheartedly believe this, using video on their site (originally from rathergood.com) which explains how the Internet is made of cats.
139	* On Website/{{Reddit}}, a user asked Sir Tim Berners-Lee[[note]]the inventor of the World Wide Web[[/note]] what he didn't expect what the Internet would be used for. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/cg0wpma/ His answer?]] "Kittens."
140	** One of the slogans on Reddit's header image is "Come for the cats, stay for the empathy."
141	* WebVideo/ZeroPunctuation - In his review of VideoGames/DoodleGod, Yatzhee expresses disappointment that combining "Cat" with "Computer" does not yield "Youtube".
142	[[/folder]]
143
144	[[folder:Western Animation]]
145	* ''WesternAnimation/Animaniacs2020'': The first Pinky and the Brain short of the reboot, "Of Mice and Memes", involves Brain trying to take advantage of people's fondness for funny animal videos by making a viral video of himself with a "mind control" filter.
146	* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
147	** In "[[Recap/PhineasAndFerbAtTheCarWash At the Car Wash]]", Dr. Doofenshmirtz briefly interrupts his exposition to Perry the Platypus to show some funny cat pictures he discovered on the Internet.
148	--->'''Doofenshmirtz:''' Look! "Invisible cheeseburger"! ''(beat)'' No, huh? Well, it's not for everyone. I just think they're funny.
149	** In "[[Recap/PhineasAndFerbMindShare Mind Share]]", Doof gets defensive about people lying on the Internet by saying, "You don't think that cat really eats cheeseburgers, do ya?" and also "Oh, come on! You don't think that cat really plays the piano, do ya?!"
150	* The ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode "Cat Videos" had Benson develop an addiction to cat videos. Keeping true to the show's penchant for surreal plots, it's eventually revealed that the cat videos were actually made by human actors pretending to be cats while filmed using a filter that makes them appear to be felines, with the cat videos' producer Cat Masterson ultimately turning out to be an actual cat himself.
151	* In the ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' episode "[[Recap/StevenUniverseS3E9TooShortToRide Too Short to Ride]]" the first thing Peridot ever sees on the Internet is a cat video.
152	-->'''Peridot:''' Why was this documented?
153	* ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'' In "The Catastrophe", Wander and Sylvia arrive on a planet in time for a space jellyfish migration, but Wander (and eventually everyone else on the planet except Sylvia) gets hooked on portable video players featuring cute and funny videos of a cat named "Baby Cakes", including one that's a ShoutOut to Keyboard Cat. It turns out to be mind-control, and "Baby Cakes" is actually Li'l Bits, a villain from a previous episode, trying to use her hypnotic cuteness to scam people out of their money.
154	* One of the main antagonists on ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears'' is Nom Nom, a koala who appears on cute videos [[NiceCharacterMeanActor but is actually a spoiled jerk]]. Most of the stories he's been in involve him becoming jealous of the bears when videos of their antics go viral, which he sees as a challenge to his celebrity.
155	* This applies even TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture in ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries''. One episode has a popular Internet celebrity get surpassed in popularity by a cute video of Mochi, which quickly becomes the most viewed video on the site. He gets so mad that he kidnaps the cat and tries to send him off in a rocket into space. He fails, and in the end, a video of Aunt Cass and Mochi reuniting becomes the new most-watched video.
156	* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': In "The Internet", Gumball and Darwin beg for the Internet not to be shut down because of cute cat videos and pictures.
157	* In ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', one of the two protagonists is a cat-themed superhero, who has apparently received the WebOriginal/LOLCats treatment in-universe. A traditionalist WarriorMonk Su-Han, who is aligned with them but rarely appears, later admits to have not actually helped the protagonists at all in the episode "Multiplication" due to having been addicted to cat videos for the past four months since his arrival.
158	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': Apparently, even though the show is set in a WorldOfFunnyAnimals, there are still cat videos; even Mr. Cat, a FunnyAnimal who is one of the main characters of the show, thinks being a cat is awesome because people on the Internet love cats.
159	* ''WesternAnimation/KizaziMotoGenerationFire'': In "Mukudzei", the protagonist is hoping that his online video will beat the current number one, which is shown to star a cat.
160	* ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': In "Three Robots" some robots exploring a post-apocalyptic city find a cat and one of them says humans had "entire networks that were devoted to dissemination of pictures of these things."
161	* ''WesternAnimation/MollyOfDenali'': In "Fire, Food, and Family," Trini decides to watch funny chicken videos until Daniel tells her to turn off the phone, so they can save battery power.
162	* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' features a FictionalSocialNetwork called "[=MewTube=]". As you would imagine, it's like [=YouTube=] if the entire site was devoted to cat videos.
163	* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has "cat breading" photos, a meme in which cats are photographed with their faces in the middle of slices of bread... except ''the cats'' are the ones posting the photos.
164	* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' on the Internet:
165	-->'''Starscream:''' A trillion gigabytes of data, ''none'' of it useful! \
166	''(Starcream watches a video of a dancing monkey)''\
167	'''Starscream:''' Though some... oddly engrossing.
168	[[/folder]]

Context Main / TheInternetIsForCats