Tow #5 CATS

Cats. Cats, cats, cats. The article I’ve chosen is about how and why these furry friends have taken over the internet. It seems that as far back as I can think, the most consistently funny thing on the internet has been a cat video or some cat related image. Exactly why is this? Author Abigail Tucker investigates.

Tucker is a writer for the New York times and has also written a book about cats in another light; she is the owner of a few cats and even runs Instagram pages for them (one has over 40,000 followers). She has also written at other newspapers like the Smithsonian and New Yorker, so I think tucker is a credible source on the topic.

I think this text was written for anyone else who is surprised that cats have stood their ground and kept their monopoly on digital humor. People haven’t thought much about it, but when you read the title of this article we all sit back and become curious as to the reason regarding the longevity of this phenomenon. So in the end, I think that this was written for all people who use the internet.

This was written like an argumentative essay, providing proof, studies, evidence, citing experts and so on and so forth.  All of these appeal to logos as opposed pathos, as, in this case, Tucker believed rational reason more effective than feelings. What these stats also do is eliminate the idea that this viewpoint is an opinion while it is actually a fact, where someone can’t say “you’re wrong because I feel like I’ve seen more dogs online and find dogs funnier” because Tucker has statistics and facts to back up her point.

I think the purpose of this article was clear; to get explain the dominance of cats on the internet. Her appeal to logos was extremely strong as well and I believe she built a sound argument throughout this article.