This generation of young people is using kittens to interpret their mental state

I don't know if you have noticed that in the B station's popular video list, there are entries about "cat meme" every day. Why are nonsensical cat meme videos so popular? Let's take a look at the analysis in this article.

I don’t know if you have noticed a phenomenon. In the recent B station popular video list, there are basically two or three videos with "cat meme" in the title hanging on it every day.

The so-called cat meme video actually uses a lot of cat meme video materials and combines them into a coherent story.

For example, this married old man had a sudden idea one day to rehabilitate his old arms and legs, so he rushed downstairs to play basketball with the young men.

Before leaving, my wife, who was watching TV, said she would go downstairs to get a manicure and visit me at the same time.

Men of all ages were sweating on the basketball court, with Harden from Beijing, Doncic from Haidian, Chamberlain from the capital, and Nash from Chaoyang District fighting each other.

But just when the morale was high, the brother's wife came over to bring water and cheer. The brothers on the court were like innocent puppies on the side of the road, and were kicked while walking.

As the saying goes, a soldier can be killed but not humiliated, so the battle between the two teams turned into a battle against him by all members.

In addition to this kind of daily content, cat memes are more likely to contain outrageous content, which are often absolute secrets that cannot be spoken at all under normal circumstances, and saying one more word will mean social death.

For example, a sister’s school organized an autumn outing. After a day of playing, she was tired and felt carsick. Because all the seats had been taken, she could only sit in the front row next to her homeroom teacher.

After falling asleep in the car, when I woke up, my head was tilted towards my head teacher's shoulder.

The moment she woke up, she felt that such an embarrassing life should just end right here.

However, as cat memes have become more popular, people are using them to do more than just recreate hilarious and embarrassing moments.

On Bilibili, many cat memes with high playback volume record things with slightly sad undertones.

One day at noon when UP host Zhuqueque was in the second grade of elementary school, he had a close encounter with a motorcycle while crossing the road. He was hit and the motorcyclist was scared half to death.

My mother, who was leaning against the window with her best friend to watch the show halfway through, suddenly realized that something had happened to her child.

The anxious mother found a car and quickly took her to the hospital, and then spent a long time to complete the operation.

After spending a long time in the hospital, I was finally discharged. When I arrived at the classroom, I was not welcomed by my friends, but by the curiosity of my classmates: Are you a ghost?

Later she found out that after the car accident, the whole world was madly saying that she was dead. But reality speaks louder than words, and the ruthless man still won the resurrection match.

There are countless similar stories, some of which are happy stories with tragic beginnings.

For example, when my younger brother was bullied by a group of little brats, my mother verbally scolded them because they were underage. Then she went to the school to find the dean and the head teacher, and also found the parents of the other brats to apologize, and watched the parents beat up the little brats.

But there are also special plots where the ending is not a good one in the traditional sense, such as witnessing the father's infidelity and the whole family collapsing.

In any case, using cat memes to record life has indeed become a popular culture recently, and has also brought a lot of traffic to UP hosts.

The most famous among them is a Japanese single mother living in China. She started posting cat meme videos on February 29th. In more than a month, her fans have increased from 0 to 350,000.

The content of her videos is not that surprising; it is simply an observation of life from the perspective of a Japanese mother.

For example, when she was shopping, she saw a brightly colored piece of clothing, but she was worried that it was not suitable for her age and she was very concerned about what others would think.

At this time, the Chinese shopping guide who appeared in the image of a dancing kitten said to her: "It doesn't matter what other people think. If you want to buy, buy it. If you don't want to buy, don't buy it. What matters is whether you like it or not."

So the question is, how did cat meme come into being and why did it become the current hot pop culture?

In fact, cat meme appeared in 2023.

At that time, there was a category of videos called Happy cat series on tiktok.

The cat idol groups that appear most frequently include Happy Cat, Apple Cat, Banana Cat, Pop Cat, Huh Cat, etc.

Some people may recognize the happy cat, which is the kitten dancing behind the glass. This kitten, which looks like a child dancing happily, has become a well-known meme on the Internet abroad with the song "My Happy Song".

It is called a Happy Cat series, but in fact there are many cats in the series. These cats come from all over the world. Among them are cats raised by bloggers of Bilibili, Douyin and Xiaohongshu, as well as cats raised by foreign netizens, highlighting a hodgepodge of Chinese and foreign cultures.

For example, the cat that is often used to express grievances is the cat of B station UP host and bard Uncle Guan, Guan Dang.
Because its eyes are pointed downwards, no matter what it does, it always gives people a feeling of being aggrieved.

In addition, there is the "huh cat" which has long been popular on foreign networks and even XQC laughed at it. It is often used in cat meme videos to create confused scenes.

It sits upright on the floor, fat, and opens its mouth tremblingly towards you.

Later, netizens replaced its call with huh, which is roughly equivalent to "ang", making it look very smart.

Although it is a cat meme, there are actually other creatures besides cats.

For example, the goat sticking out its tongue, the mysterious dog grinning, and Kenshi Yonezu who seemed to have gone to the wrong set.

However, at that time, the Happy Cat series of videos mainly told the stories of the cats themselves, rather than the stories of the video makers.

For example, there is a video with 1.2 million views, which tells the story of a group of kittens trying to open a can of Lao Gan Ma, but they still can't unscrew the lid after using hammers, chainsaws, and grenades.

Don’t ask me why Lao Gan Ma. Maybe foreigners think that in the field of canned food, Lao Gan Ma is very representative and it is indeed difficult to open.

Finally, the kitten thought of a good idea, which was to turn it upside down and pat it in a very Chinese way, and the lid finally opened.

Then a group of cats licked the chili oil in the lid of the Lao Gan Ma, and it was so spicy that they fell down on the bed. Everyone was taken to the hospital together.

Around January of this year, people began using cat meme videos to tell their own stories on websites such as Twitter, YouTube, Niconico, and Tiktok.

However, overseas, the main users of cat meme are Japanese. There are also people in other countries who use this meme, but not many.

But no matter what, half of the cat meme world is supported by Chinese kittens, and it is easy for domestic netizens to understand it.

Around February, someone had already translated the subtitles of foreign cat meme videos and moved them to various domestic platforms, which received a good response.

For example, a Japanese guy named Yokohama Chinese Guys came to China to study based on his feelings, thinking that everyone used Chinese characters and communication would be super easy. However, after getting off the plane, he could hardly understand what the people in Beijing said.

After spending some time with his Chinese roommate, the two of them went to Harbin for a trip. The Japanese guy was full of confidence, but he was stunned when he heard the Northeastern dialect.

He refused to give up, and after studying Chinese hard and passing HSK Level 6, he went out to travel to Guangdong with his roommates again.

This time, not only he couldn't understand, but his native Chinese roommate also couldn't understand.

The Japanese guy lamented that this is no longer a matter of accent, this is not a dimension.

Around this time, domestic netizens started thinking that it was better to just watch without practicing, so I made a cat meme video myself.

The threshold for originality is not high. There are plenty of ready-made green screen materials on the Internet. All you have to do is tell your own story with subtitles and add a cat meme with a similar meaning, and you’re done.

As a result, such videos began to appear in large numbers on various platforms.

This trend of making cat memes has also affected major official accounts.

With the help of the post-00s operators, Cat Meme has successfully grown bigger and stronger and achieved greater success.

It's hard to imagine that even Shandong Satellite TV, which broadcasts "Drawing Sword" during every holiday and is so rustic that it has become popular, is actually making cat meme videos.

Even because cat meme videos are easy to make and have a large amount of traffic, many people have emerged on major platforms to seek help in this way.

They often make a plotless cat meme video with long text and real pictures to illustrate their current situation.

For example, I have a congenital disease, my family is in serious debt and can’t survive, I can’t pay the tuition fees…

It is not possible to determine the true situation of the video maker for the time being, but just discussing the video itself, the cat meme video undoubtedly gave them a channel for exposure.

Even if the video is crudely produced, it can still bring them tens of thousands of views.

So, why are cat memes so popular?

This is not difficult to understand. The cat meme in the form of a video, with its slightly mischievous pictures and funny dubbing, is as colorful as the panda head emoticon package in social software.

At the same time, precisely because those cat memes are inherently funny, people are more willing to believe that the stories are true when they are having fun.

Therefore, cat meme videos with simple and crude titles, even if they are made by small UP hosts with few fans, can often attract a lot of people to watch and get more effective responses.

If you say on Bilibili, "It was 12 o'clock in the morning, I was emo, and called her," the most your friends will leave you is: Stop licking her.
But if you make a video with cat memes and laugh at your scars, then your brothers will have to comfort you.

In this boomerang age, many times, when you really intend to speak out your true feelings, the first thing you encounter is not sympathy but questioning.

Just like the conversation between Jiang Wen and Liao Fan in "Evil Does Not Suppress Justice":

"Who would write a diary if they were serious?"
"Who can write down what's in their heart in a diary?"
"Can what is written in a diary be called true feelings?"

So in this day and age, we’ve traded diaries for cat memes.

When you use cat memes to express your emotions in a relieved tone and in a self-deprecating manner, people will instead wonder whether, behind the story, there really is such a thorn in the heart of you, the protagonist, that you can neither remove nor swallow, and in the end you can only pretend to be relaxed and seek comfort, and at the end say let’s not talk about the past.

Behind the cat meme are more realistic people and the real life after the "new yellow journalism" has faded away.

People are willing to watch it not only because the video itself is interesting, but also because we are more willing to believe that every clip in the video carries the weight given by time.

Author: Zhang Dadong; Editor: Mangshan Iron Head

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