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By Nadia Kounang, CNN
4 minute read
Updated 8:43 AM EDT, Fri May 17, 2019
This cat, originally named Corey, took social media by storm due to his resemblance to "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" star Adam Driver. Within a few days, he was adopted and renamed Kylo Ren, the name of Driver's character in the movie.
Grumpy Cat, also known as Tardar Sauce, is perhaps the most well-known cat on the Internet. Celebrities as diverse as Anderson Cooper and Jennifer Lopez have taken pictures with her.
Owner Mike Bridavsky and celebrity cat Lil Bub at the screening of "Lil Bub & Friendz" during the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
Misao, 88, and her odd-eyed cat f*ckumaru in Japan. Misao found the stray cat when he was little. Misao's granddaughter, photographer Miyoko Ihara, documented the friendship between the Misao and f*ckumaru.
Venus, a cat with unusual genetic traits, appeared on NBC News' "Today" show. Her face is half black, half orange. Her eyes: one blue and one green.
Waffles, a Scottish Fold, next to a portrait of her during the South by Southwest festival at Haus of Bacon on March 13 in Austin, Texas.
Keyboard cat is an Internet meme.
Monty is a rescue cat who was born without a nasal bridge bone. He sneezes a lot because of the birth defect, but otherwise he's quite healthy.
Henri, le Chat Noir, in a scene from the video, "Henri 2, Paw de Deux," by William Braden. The cat video won the Golden Kitty Award at the Walker Art Center's Internet Cat Video Festival in 2012 in Minneapolis.
Sam the cat has become an Internet sensation because of the two black markings on his head, which make him look like he has eyebrows.
Colonel Meow at the Internet Cat Super Group holiday event at Capitol Records Tower in 2013 in Los Angeles. A Himalayan-Persian crossbreed, he held the Guinness World Record for cat with the longest fur.
Honey Bee is a blind cat from Animals Fiji, an animal veterinary service. Here, Honey Bee rested on the backpack of Jonathan Ursin, husband of Sabrina Ursin, who took the photograph.
Lazarus, a sick and malnourished kitten, was rescued in 2012 from the streets of Johnson City, Tennessee, by a student at East Tennessee State University. He was given to Cindy Chambers, a special education professor and animal lover. With medical attention and care, Lazarus became healthy. His Facebook page was created to raise awareness that animals (and people) with disabilities can be great contributors to people's lives if given the opportunity.
Cats at the harbor of Aoshima Island in the Miyazaki Prefecture in southern Japan on February 25. On this remote island, felines outnumber humans six to one.
Hamilton, dubbed the "Hipster Cat," has a white marking under his nose that looks like Salvador Dali's mustache. He was rescued from a shelter by comedian Jay Stowe after being abandoned in San Francisco. The moggie has many followers on Instagram, and landed a T-shirt deal with clothing retailer The Mountain.
Maru, the cat sensation in Japan with millions of views for nearly 300 videos since 2007, has three books and a calendar, among other swag for sale.
Oskar the Blind Cat, along with other famous Internet cats, starred in a holiday music video "Hard to Be a Cat at Christmas" in 2013.
Nyan Cat, a YouTube video updated in 2011, has been viewed nearly 200 million times.
Cats own the Internet
Story highlights
Humans are attracted to beings with large eyes, chubby cheeks, big foreheads
Cuteness may be tied to human survival
Study finds that cuteness can increase focus
CNN —
Over the course of its life, Grumpy Cat had 1.5 million followers on Twitter, 2.4 million on Instagram and 8.5 million on Facebook.
More than 219 million viewers have logged on to watch a 16-second clip of a sneezing baby panda scare its mom. At a minimum, that’s 58 million minutes, or 111 years, spent watching this viral sensation.
There is a whole channel on YouTube devoted to the adventures of tiny hamsters eating tiny food, celebrating tiny birthdays, and having a tiki party. The channel has had more than 29 million views.
Lil Bub, a rescued orphan kitty with an extreme case of dwarfism, is an internet sensation. What started as a photo Tumblr called the “BuBlog,” has turned into dozens of BuzzFeed and Reddit posts, a TV appearance on “Good Morning America,” a documentary, and a line of merchandise.
Cuteness: A matter of survival
Our love affair with pint-sized furry friends may be a matter of survival. Scientists have found that humans are instinctively attracted to anything that has features similar to those of a baby. Large eyes, chubby cheeks, big foreheads, and generally rounded features, are what humans are attracted to. “These features are so ingrained in us to respond to,” said Oriana Aragon, a Yale psychologist.
Many scientists believe we’ve developed this attraction in order to survive. “Our survival depends on us taking care of our young. It’s part of our human species to respond to these features,” explained Aragon.
And so, when we see those similar type features in animals – big eyes in big heads on little bodies – we react the same way we do to babies. In fact, marketers and designers have even applied those types of features to cars to get our attention. Think of the Volkswagan Beetle or the Mini Cooper.
Getting your cute fix
But we aren’t mindlessly blinded by cute animals. In fact, studies have found that the pleasure centers of our brains are actually lighting up when we see something cute because there is a rush of dopamine to the brain. It’s a response similar to when we eat sugar or have sex.
“It is kind of a vice. We want our cute fix. There are entire things devoted to cuteness,” said Aragon.
“It’s something that gives us pleasure, and makes us come back. Eating those high-calorie rich foods were essential to our survival in the early days,” said Aragon. So, seeing and caring for something cute acts in a similar manner in our brain; we see a cute baby, and instinctively reach out to cuddle it, our brain gets a dopamine boost to reward us, and boom – we’re happy!
Emotions vs. expressions
Have you ever found yourself wanting to pinch a puppy or eat a baby’s cheeks because they’re so cute? If you think about survival, that actually seems contrary to caring for a child. Why would anyone want to eat their baby?
But as humans, we have a whole host of expressions on our faces that don’t at all match our emotions on the inside. Think about tears of joy, or screaming out of excitement watching your favorite band, or wanting to pinch a baby’s cheeks.
These expressions that seem contrary to our emotions are called “dimorphous expressions,” and scientists believe that this may be a self-regulating mechanism that allows us to keep our emotions in check. Feeling too happy? Balance it out with some tears. Are you ever so frustrated with a situation that you end up laughing because you don’t know what else to do? Again, it may be a mechanism to help tamper being overwhelmed with the initial emotion.
“That facial feedback sends info back to your brain, and it help scramble that primary emotion. Now the person that was overwhelmed is carried down and goes back to homeostatis. It helps people pull them back,” said Aragon.
Cute aggression
Aragon has specifically studied cute aggression – when things are so cute, you can’t stand it and exhibit aggressive behavior. In fact, a number of languages have specific words to describe this sensation. Filipinos say “gigil,” which describes the urge to grit your teeth or pinch cheeks. The French say “mignon a croquer,” which literally translates to “So cute that you want to munch it!”
To test it, Aragon and her team presented people with pictures of baby and adult versions of animals such as elephants, ducks and cats. Ninety participants viewed these pictures while holding bubble wrap. When they viewed the baby animals the participants popped more bubbles than when they viewed the adult animals.
Creating focus with cuteness
A similar study in Japan found that participants performed better on these high concentration tasks when they viewed images of cute animals versus pictures of food or other non-cute photos.
So next time you are caught watching cute animal videos at work, you can tell your boss you aren’t procrastinating. You are increasing your productivity.
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