The Cute Cat Video Phenomenon, Explained by TV's Jackson Galaxy

true cat videos are a running joke and , let ’s face it , a interior pastime . You take in them . I take in them . Our friends watch them . parent look on them . Anyone who catches a isolated link while toss through Twitter click and look out them .

So doesJackson Galaxy , the computerized tomography behaviorist host ofMy Cat from Hell(currently in itsseventh season on Animal Planet ) . Though Galaxy train pet parent how to mellow out out their hyper , spooked , and occasionally mystifying felines as a day task , spends his down hour preach for animal acceptation , and take back home to his own menagerie of animals , he still indulges in YouTube ’s o.k. cat videos . He thinks they make a difference .

" The change I ’ve come across is that cats [ are treated as ] menage and not furniture , " he recount me . And we ’ve taken possession of the universe ; 20 old age ago , shelters were forced to kill around 12 to 15 million a year . The number ’s closer to 3 million today . " I guess that ’s because we are owning our responsibility , and views of relationships . "

Jackson Galaxy

Jackson Galaxy|Jeff Newton

But why are the videos such catnip to us human folk ? We asked Galaxy to dig in – any excuse to post some lovely computed tomography clips :

When cats give a damn, we do, too

" We are so thankful when a cat does anything , because that is not a cat ’s MO . They do n’t do anything to please you . When they lastly do , you ’re like , ' Oh my God ! Grab the camera . ' This groovy thing is happening right now , and I recall that ’s what multitude run to want to share . "

What separates cats from dogs

" You know , we can pretty much identify what dogs know , because they do it in a more human way . Cats do n’t . So , when all the sudden you see a cat doing something that is universally cute , you ’re like , ' Great ! grow to put that on YouTube . ' That ’s how you suddenly have 75 million views of a cat play a keyboard . "

Cats will not put up with costume shtick

" I do n’t know if you ’ve seen the kind of viral videos where someone put a hoodie on a dog , and they put their helping hand out through the sleeve , now you get the dog use up at the table . Funniest thing ! But try doing that with a computed tomography sometime – and get away with your process intact . It will never process . So , anytime that a kat does something that we find universally cute , like jumping in and out of a box , or something like that , we ’re like , ' Got ta have that . have ta have it . ' How do we explicate hundreds of millions of view of that ? Cat jumping in and out of a boxwood . You got me . "

Cats don’t want to be famous, cat guardians do

" When I first got to LA , I got into this TV show [ conceive Like a Caton Game Show web ] , with Chuck Woolery . I was wreak the sense of hearing , in LA Denver , and a few other shoes , and every level mom in the man was bringing their cat in and showing them . The qat would have to go through an obstacle course , things like that , and at the final stage they would win a whole mess of money . I was the behaviourist on call , and let me tell you something : you get a dozen cat on a stage in front of an audience … that is just not fun for the computed axial tomography . Then you attempt to get them to operate through a snarl , or do X , Y , or Z.

" It show to the fact that you ’re practiced off just attempt to beguile cat on camera when it comes to behavior , rather than trying produce it . This is part of my whole teaching philosophy : cats are not programmed to please you . That ’s not on the menu . In uphold what we screw about cat , we in reality should n’t attempt to get them to do these thing that commonly they would n’t do . It sort of dilutes that thing that makes a Arabian tea a true cat , which is sort of that main streak , and their , ' I ’ll do it when I ’m ready to do it . ' And now , everybody retrieve now , ' My cat can be the next Lil BUB . ' We have a whole new genesis of phase mommy coming out of the woodwork . "

There’s a smart way to raise a celebrity cat

" I ’m not a fan of Grumpy Cat in the least . I do n’t like the make that ’s put out there , and I do n’t retrieve that , by and great , anyone is preach for that cat , while they ’re doing what they ’re doing . Lil BUB is dissimilar . [ Her defender ] Mike is a very painstaking homo . He ’s very protective . Also , a lot of the money that he generates , a derisory amount , in fact , goes to the charities that Mike now helm . He is intensely involve because BUB has so many health problems . Mike does it the right way . "

" I ’ve come into contact with so many people who just want to get their cat famous , and when that ’s the main thrust of things , it can never be good . It can never be . It ’s the same way with stage mammy with their kids . The wholeToddlers and Tiarasthing , I see that kind of unsettling . Again , there ’s nobody there to preach for the child , except for the someone who want to make them famous . The same thing I cerebrate goes for the world of animal as well . Someone ’s always sire to be on safeguard and take care out for what ’s best for the cat . I ’ve seen Grumpy Cat . You require to talk paraded ? I mean , just model there , while M of people descend up to take these pictures … it ’s hardcore . All the production and everything . It find up against what I know about khat , and I also look at myself an advocate for them . "

The best cat videos incept the audience with positive ideas

" We ’ve had cats on the show , actually , where it was n’t till after the fact that , you bed , I ’m like , hold back a minute . This soul just really need this computerized axial tomography to be famed . You ’ll see it befall . All of a sudden there ’s an Instagram business relationship , where there was n’t before . sure mass do it the right way . Like this season , we do aMy Cat From Heavenbit , with a cat-o'-nine-tails named ' Lil ' Bunny Sue Roux , ' who survive in New Orleans . This cat was put up with a strong-arm deformity , where she basically has no front extremity past the elbow joint . She kicks ass , and she operates attractively . She ’s gorgeous , and she does all these precious things .

" She does seem like a T - Rex when she stands up . The cool affair was that her Instagram account just naturally started go dotty . Her guardian was severalize me how all these people would pen to her and say , " I want this cat so bad . " So I crochet her up with adoption agencies that deal with peculiar - want cats , and she was all over that idea , using social media to further and still toy with at the same time – that ’s a win - profits . That ’s what I love to see . I ’d rather see that , than a computed tomography sell coffee cappuccino , or whatever . "

One man’s cat video is another man’s horror movie

" Maru defend what I get it on . I do n’t know why we love seeing Maru jump in and out of a loge , but I ’ll take it . It ’s this great bonding experience that we have with cats . But one of the thing that was really middle - possible action to me , was during a turn of Asia , about a calendar month ago , I heard multitude say , ' I ’m afraid of cats . ' People say , ' I just do n’t like cat ' or , ' I ’m a dog person . ' In Asia , deform out that the people who say they detest cats , and the citizenry who say they ’re afraid of computed tomography , are the same person .

" It ’s usually because when they were 3 geezerhood erstwhile , they got scratched . It could be that simple , and for the rest of your life , that 3 - year - old is make all of your decisions about the creature that you will and wo n’t invite into your life . A circumstances of learn material that I ’ve done , like I was doing it in Asia , is about how to overcome an irrational veneration of cats . Where you retrieve that they ’re just going to maul you every time that you derive near them . Look , we ’ve seen the same thing with endocarp bulls . Before that it was Dobermans . Before that it was German Shepherds . It ’s just these irrational veneration that people just carry around with them . I ’ve seen that in alarming numbers . It ’s crazy . "

All adorable animals deserve our attention

" More and more , and I think it ’s wonderful , is the things that go viral decent now are minuscule unpredictable . It does n’t have to be hombre . I ’ve seen viral videos of babe goats . I watch these things every night . Me and my wife feel these videos every daylight , that just perfectly puts a smashing geological period at the end of your twenty-four hours . We just really , before you call , we were watching something where a little kitty in a veterinary surgeon hospital , who ’s paralytic in her rear legs , the crew at the hospital establish her a lilliputian wheelchair out of old LEGO pieces . There ’s this telecasting of this cat zipping around , I think of she ’s zipping , all over the place . We watch that 10 clock time , and it just does n’t get former . "

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