It’s no secret that many cat owners are hoarding cat pics and snaps on their phones. Research done by OnePoll showed that the average owner spends around 1,016 hours with their cat per year and takes 7 photos a day. And cat photography is surely having its top moment since many of the furballs are now insta-famous. For example, Smoothie the Cat, who’s also known as the Queen of Fluff, has a whopping 2.2 million Instagram followers!
About a year ago, the Snapchat cat filter that let people try on a feline face was everywhere. There were thousands of videos surfing around on cats looking at phone screens where the owners with a cat face filter were looking back at them. The cats would turn around, look at the human again, then back to the screen. It was speculated that animals do that because they recognize the confusion.
Kristyn Vitale, who studies cat behavior at Oregon State University, told The Verge it’s not the case. “It isn’t a sign that cats pass the mirror test, despite what some people responding to the video seemed to think.” The mirror test is a common way to measure whether an animal has self-awareness or not. In this case, no study was run on how cats interact with gadget screens.
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Meanwhile, the pet influencer business boomed in the past 5 years. As a result, pet talent management agencies have started popping up. According to Loni Edwards, who runs one such firm, the Dog Agency, the ways pets become insta-famous depend on very different things. “Either they’re very unique-looking, or super witty—as long as there’s something, whether it’s that they are insanely cute or really not cute,” it has to induce an "Oh, my god" reaction.
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