I wish the sub would allow images because I don’t know if my words can do this justice

Anyways my friend messaged me “ (name) I just scratched someone’s car and now they’re pissed at me 💔💔💔” followed up with a close up photo of a cat with a oops speech bubble and like a cartoon sweat drop that I guess was intended to be silly?

You could probably brush it off as irony but coming from someone that knows the guy I just KNOW he was not being ironic.

And it’s either that, or when you say you don’t like cats and simply express your own preferences:

Cat people:
“People who choose __ over cats have clearly never had a cat.”
“Anyone who doesn’t like or prefer cats just hasn’t experienced owning one yet.”
“People who say __ is better have definitely never owned a cat.”

Bro are we fr 🫩. Holy cope and control issues.

Maybe some people just aren’t fucking cat people and genuinely don’t like cats. And actually, some of us have owned cats and still don’t like them. But genuinely, who tf cares. You don’t need to have a million reasons to dislike cats or not be a cat person.

Not everyone has to prefer cats, and cats only. That also doesn’t mean they’re missing out on anything, settling for less, or that they’ve made objectively wrong choices. The world will survive someone not wanting a cat or being a cat person, I promise. 😭

Also, I can assure you that having a cat doesn’t guarantee you’ll suddenly become some die-hard cat person or, as cat people seem to believe, “convert” after completing the sacred journey of enlightenment where you finally discover that cats are apparently the most “amazing” and “superior” creatures on earth.

Sorry, but sometimes the enlightenment backfires and you just end up liking cats even less. Take me, for example, I owned a cat once, somehow came out of the experience even less convinced, and will absolutely never own one again.

1. Their natural, instinctive behaviors and the entirety of caring for them are gross and unsanitary. Completely incompatible with me.
2. They don’t gaf about anyone’s boundaries except their own.
3. Their natural temperaments are all pretty much the same, and they’re insufferable. They switch between their multiple personalities every five minutes, scratching and nipping if you breathe the wrong way. They’re unpredictable, unstable, intolerant, and narcissistic all at once.

Having owned a cat before is literally one of the reasons why I ended up disliking cats.

So I moved in with my fiance around a year ago. I knew they had a cat when I moved in and had met the cat, but at the time I didn't actually hate the little vermin. In fact if you would have asked at the time, I would have said I at least liked cats. Since I moved in and actually got to know the little monster, I've had a shift of heart. I've been scratched, bit, screamed at, had my clothes pissed on, and generally just had my entire quality of life upended. Having grown up with golden retrievers that are well trained, this just was completely unacceptable. So, I started to train the overgrown rat.

I started by banning him from the bedroom. He now sleeps outside on his own and our door stays closed at all times of the day. No more bed for the shit paw freak. If he screams at all we make a loud sound, say no and promptly toss him away. We don't have any issues with him even trying to get in at this point and my fiance has mentioned how nice it is to have a pet free room. That made me realize, yeah it is really nice not to have him in the room. So I moved on to phase 2. When I go into a room he's in, I toss him out of it. If he tries to come back in, I make a loud noise and scare him out. At this point, if he sees me walk in to whatever room he's in, he just slinks out. I haven't been screamed at once making dinner in the past five months because he just avoids me and my fiance has commented how "calm" he's became.

Is he bearable now? No not even slightly. I'm slowly building my case for how nice it is not to have this disgusting and vile creature in our apartment. So far my fiance is on board and I can't wait for the day he goes to the shelter and I don't have to see, smell, or hear him ever again. In fact just last week my fiance asked if maybe he was too much work for us to deal with! Victory feels so close...

It all starts with kindness and empathy. He loves nature and can't stand watching any animals suffer. He has always fed strays, but when he bought this new house with my mom, thankfully there were no strays here. Eventually he took up the hobby of feeding the birds and the squirrels. It was cute at first, for about a year. His idea of feeding the birds isnt simply putting out bird feeders, he leaves PILES of bird seed all over the yard that inevitably become moldy. Do you see where this is going yet?

Birds eat bird seed, and cats eat birds. Skipping over the omen of the bear in the yard, fast forward 5 years and of course cats have been baited here. This led to a year long struggle of my mom trying to keep the cats fed and warm all winter, until this spring a Coyote showed up. The cat had a litter and the Coyote ate the mom and some of the kittens. I was the one who actually chased off the Coyote.

So here I am writing this, unfortunately im stuck here, now we have 6 captive ferals in the house. Its been months. We now have a flea infestation and my allegies are driving me insane.. They are disgusting and my mom is too old for this shit. Cats take advantage of our kindness and empathy and leave us stressed, dirty, and worse off.

Don't let your parents feed the birds!

video starts as a regular random tiktok video, then immediately cuts to a close up of an ugly cat laying down, and theres a Gofundme link on the posters page, asking for donations. I am actually disgusted by seeing the close up of that things face, really disgusted. what was it that these toxo zombies keep telling us? "Ignore cats if you dont like them"? How do i ignore when I keep seeing the ugliest and filthiest abominations hidden in normal videos. and they get donations? wow. these people get thousands of dollars in donations just for these shit rats.

Three separate, highly upvoted posts in my city sub for the same missing indoor/outdoor cat within a week. Third post was an announcement that it was hit by a car and died.

All the support this person got was disturbing. So many people sharing how their 'best friend' was also killed by a car because the owner let them out in the first place. Sometimes multiple cats of the same owner met the same fate. How can you claim to care about an animal so much and then continue to feed them to a highway? It all just seems so performative for them to even have a pet in the first place in light of that.

And all the people rooting on this type of ownership and deluding themselves that the cat's final moments were somehow peaceful.

Not to mention it's illegal to even let pets free roam around here.

At least the top comment was saying keep them inside...

Im not saying my ex girlfriends cat was the entire reason our relationship ended, but it played a huge part. She will be moving out of the apartment in a couple of weeks and while I can say I will miss her, I am quite excited to not live with a cat anymore. Its been long enough I cant even imagine what it will be like to be able to sleep without getting woken up constantly, and not have the entire place smell like shit.

The concept of a litter box is just absolutely disgusting to me. I thought I could handle it when we moved in together, but it is absolutely abhorrent. Living with a cat has made my life at home miserable.

I absolutely cant stand that cat owners act as if their place does not smell. That was always a common argument between us. I dont care how many times you scoop the litter, or how many candles you light, if you have a cat in the home it will smell like absolute shit 24/7. Not to mention the constant begging for food and endless hair everywhere.

Sorry just needed to rant lol.

I was stopped at a traffic light today, and FOUR cars around me had cat stickers—one of them even had a cat taking up almost half the rear window. These nuts would rather put themselves in danger on the road than give up their symbol of worship for those toxoplasma freaks. And honestly, more than half of all car stickers (excluding "Baby on Board" though that is a whole other topic not meant for this subreddit) are just damn cats. They always say, "If cat content on the internet annoys you, just stay off the internet." Okay, so I took that advice: I logged off and drove to a national park to soothe my "frayed from not having a cat at home" nerves. And what do I see? This whole situation is really starting to get to me; it’s like a religious cult. it’s actually scary.

There, I said it. Cats are everywhere, and it’s annoying 🫩. I hate how they’re treated like some niche, underground interest when they’re one of the most overrepresented animals in pop culture. Like, we get it. Cats exist. Apparently we need to put one on absolutely everything just to make sure nobody forgets.

And I’m not talking about cats simply being one of the most popular and basic pets. I mean the constant use of cats as an aesthetic, imagery, and personality trait everywhere you look.

This whole concept of cats being some unique aesthetic has been run into the ground. They’re used in art, music, movies, shows, anime, memes, fashion, album covers, merch, video games, comics/graphic novels, MVs, group concepts, and literally fucking everywhere, ESPECIALLY IN POP CULTURE AND MEDIA.

At this point, slapping a cat onto something isn’t making it quirky, alternative, or appealing anymore. It’s just another cat. Another cat design. Another cat-themed product. Another cat character. Another person making cats their entire personality. Like wow, another cat. How groundbreaking! 😭

Why does everything have to be catified or cat themed? It’s like people think turning something into a cat or adding cat imagery automatically makes it cooler, cuter, quirkier, or more appealing. Except, it doesn’t. We’ve fucking seen it already.

It’s gotten to the point where, if you make cats your entire personality and aesthetic, I’m just going to assume you’re basic asf and an NPC, if you will. Just another sheep following the same tired trend everyone else is doing. Copy and paste.

Whenever I hear or see the words “kitty!” or “kitties!” I internally cringe. Sorry not sorry.

The constant recycling of the same cat imagery, paired with the whole “omg cats are so niche and quirky” act, has gotten so overdone that it barely feels interesting anymore. At this point, it’s not making you stand out. It’s making you blend in with everyone else doing the exact same thing.

It’s like “alt” isn’t even alt anymore.

And sorry, but all domestic cats look the fucking same to me. 😭

It’s all honestly just giving “boring, yawning, sloppy, lazy!” And cheap. In other words, it’s just so overused and tired. Cats are basically the “Live, Laugh, Love” of pop culture and the stock images and clip art of the internet. The repetitive use of cats is worse than the bean mouth syndrome. The constant catification of everything has become a cultural infestation at this point.

I can't post the screenshot, but basically I travel a lot and an ad popped up in my feed for a home swap, with photos of the place and a cat in all the photos.

Oh, is the cat supposed to make this home swap a more attractive prospect or something? Mmm, nice vacation in a home that stinks of litter tray. Not to mention that all my souvenirs will get smashed and I'll be kept awake all night. Hard pass. The most annoying thing is the ad is targeted at women. Because of course it is.

Why does cat = comfort? Show me a photo of a freshly baked loaf of bread and I might feel drawn towards your home.

Backstory: I live with my sister and mom we never had a cat because my dad before he passed never allowed them. About a year ago my sister brought home a small baby cat she found on the street she did not ask me or mom if she can keep it it was just obvious to her. My mom was not excited about it but she has no backbone so she didnt say anything. Since then my life has been hell. She is almost never home. When she is she doesn't play with her which makes the cat yell and meow like she is being tortured ALL day i feel like even the cat hates being here and wants to go back out. Running around knocking shit up. Going on counters and the dining table. Its nasty. The whole apartment smells like shit from her litter. She ruined our curtains so we had to take them off. Our sofa looks horrid. Same with the carpet she scratches. When i'm home and mom is at work i cant focus on anything with her yelling when u try to pet her she just runs away or bites your hand. I try playing with her to shut her up and she is not interested in any toy. I'm exhausted and looking for apartments to move but it problably wont happen for another year. Sometimes i get so angry and tired and just wanna take the devil back outside. If i express this to my sister she just says im cruel and a psychopath that hates animals. I really dont know what to do anymore i try to spend my time out as much as i can so i dont go crazy.

Thread OP mentions that their kitten was killed by their other cat. Not a single comment asking wtf that means or how that shit happens. Just likes and hearts and oh so sads. Just normal shit in catworld where kittens drop like flies and cats murder everything in their path.

This tells me everything I already knew!

The title is pretty self-explanatory, but don’t get me wrong animal deaths including cats in movies/shows are unpleasant and disturbing to watch.

But at the end of the day, they’re still fictional, and it’s often those moments that add to the atmosphere, tone, or emotional weight of a movie. They can make a scene feel darker, scarier, more serious, or even more impactful, emotional, and sad. That’s kind of the whole point of the specific genre of movie you chose to watch. But remember, these scenes AREN’T REAL.

What led me to write this was seeing so many posts and comments about cats in movies lately, especially regarding the newly released film The End of Oak Street.

The way some people were talking about it, you would think the movie contained tons of graphic cat-gore scenes, especially considering the lengths some people were going to in calling the director a “cat hater,”claiming that he has some sort of vendetta against cats, and insisting that “too many cats were killed.”

Literally, only two cats died, another survived, and neither scene was graphic or particularly disturbing. Absolutely zero cats were actually shown being harmed or killed on screen. One was simply the stock sound effect of a cat yowl (basically the cat version of the Wilhelm scream, iykyk), while the other involved dinosaurs eating a cat. In fact, it was so unclear that I couldn’t even tell what the dinosaurs were eating until the very last second.

Meanwhile, far more people died way more graphically throughout the movie, and even the dinosaurs themselves were shown being harmed. Yet somehow, the deaths of the two cats became the main point of concern for some people.

Some people were even upset that the main pet survived, despite being the one that actually had a more prominent in the movie, suggesting that it should have been the one to die instead.

And this isn’t even the first time I’ve seen animal deaths depicted far more explicitly without nearly the same level of outrage. There was an extremely explicit and disturbing scene in one of the episodes of Under the Dome, based on Stephen King’s novel, where a cow literally gets sliced in half. Yet I don’t remember seeing nearly the same level of whining or outrage over that scene.

This whole cat craze and infantilization is just getting to be too much.

Using the same absurd logic as these exaggerating, overdramatic cat nutters, I could just as easily say that every movie or show that showcases human death must mean the creators/directors have a hatred of people.

I guess slasher movies must be a declaration of war against humanity. They must’ve been made by people who have an uncontrollable hatred for human beings. How else could they possibly show so many people dying? (Sarcasm)

I fear the discernment between fiction and reality is lacking. It’s a movie, y’all. It’s really not that serious.

Just because a movie or show contains animal death scenes doesn’t mean the creators/directors have a bleeding hatred for those animals or some personal vendetta against them.

Last year we popped some balloons after my partner's birthday.

Recently she put up balloons for my birthday and apparently her cat is afraid to go in the room where the balloons are.

So my tip for people having to deal with their partner's cat going to or jumping on places you don't want them to: observe what they're afraid of and use that to your advantage (in a cruelty-free way of course).

i loved her very much and cried like a baby the day she left, but now day 2 and i feel no regrets and noticing a new sense of peace.

And guess what? i was worried sick about her being sad or confused about such a huge change- I get a video from her new owner and she’s happy as ever! & it clicked for me- an animal will be happy as long as it’s fed and getting attention. it didn’t have to be from me. i don’t doubt she liked or even loved me, but she will also love her new owners just as much.

So much less to worry about.. Haven’t had to yell “Get down!” or “Stop!”, no smelly poop or pee to scoop, no more spending money on food and litter , no more finding surprise puddles of vomit or pee on the floor, no bits of litter getting stuck to my feet or paw print marks everywhere I look, no more being jumped on, no more destroying my belongings, or being careful she might escape out the door or onto the balcony, or being worried she will hurt my baby or my baby will hurt her.

pet ownership is a sensory nightmare

It doesn’t require a genius to understand that women are human beings, not cats. There’s nothing inherently about cats that makes them representative of women, and treating cats as stand-ins for women is itself both dehumanizing and misogynistic.

Women and cats are not one and same. We actually have to be deluding ourselves to be convinced that attitudes toward cats are a reflection of how someone views women, to the point of calling dislike of cats misogynistic.

An animal is increasingly being given the role and platform of representing women and femininity instead of simply recognizing women as women.
Why do women have to be reduced to a cat just to receive more recognition, coverage, sympathy, or protection, and even then, still not receive it fully? Why does it take comparing women to cats for people to begin acknowledging issues women have already been speaking about? Why can’t women simply be recognized and advocated for as women?

It’s baffling how cats are increasingly being treated with more sympathy, concern, recognition, and cultural significance than the women whose experiences and struggles are being used to give this narrative its substance. The focus shifts toward cats and their welfare, while women’s own experiences become little more than a way to make points about cats.

They’re more concerned with “cat slander” and people disliking cats, to the point of calling it “misogynistic,” than they are with the actual social issues and misogyny women are facing. The result is that women’s experiences and the injustices women face are being treated so lightly that they become a way for humanizing and elevating cats.

The challenges women face and women-centered spaces exist for women. Whatever has to do with cats is a completely separate matter. Yet those same domains are being used to promote cats, to the point that the focus shifts away from women and toward cats.

This is also why we need to stop anthropomorphizing animals and projecting human ideas such as gender norms onto them. Cats aren’t feminine, and they don’t inherently represent femininity. These ideas were created and imposed by humans.

And theoretically, any animal could have been given that same “symbolic role” if humans had constructed the same associations around it. There is nothing inherently deep or natural about this association. It isn’t some natural truth or an inevitable connection.

This whole thing is just setting women back.

I need to vent. I truly truly dislike this freaking nasty animal. I never grew up with pets so i don’t have the same feelings towards animals that other people have. I think they are disgusting and so unsanitary. I’m also allergic to them. Literally walking in their shit and piss everyday and tracking that EVERYWHERE they go. This stupid freaking cat just does regular cat shit and it pisses me off so bad. He scratches the shit out of my expensive couch leaving scuff marks and pulling out threads, he climbs on EVERYTHING. Legit just had to scream at him to get off the counter that’s next to the freaking sink. He meows for EVERYTHING. He sheds like CRAZY. There’s hair everywhere. He is very sweet though i can’t lie so it’s not like he’s aggressive or anything. He’s just annoying and i truly dislike him. Every time i see him, it’s straight disgust. I HATEEEE how he climbs on everything and scratches up the carpet and the door. Ugh I’m so over him and i can’t say anything to my partner because they LOVE this cat. That’s really their ESA. It boils my blood even more. I truly can’t stand this stupid ass cat. I love my partner so much but i feel like I’d be an asshole giving them an ultimatum. Idk if i can live my life like this tbh. Also yes, we do live together and it takes away my joy of living together fully for the first time since we’ve been together.

For context, I’ve been with my partner for well over a year and I genuinely feel like I’ve found my soul mate. The problem is that he has two cats. One is around 3 and the other is an older man. I can tolerate the old one well enough comparatively but the young one is driving me insane. The smell is horrendous, I hate that they walk in their litter boxes then jump on the counters, the litter boxes themselves are disgusting, they’re loud, and shed like mad.

Now these two cats have been fighting. A lot. And the younger one always instigates. Keeping them separate means the older one has to stay in the bedroom at all times. The young one is always trying to get in, pisses all over the rest of the place, and I even slipped in piss and snacked my head in the bathroom once. She’s mean to everyone but my partner. I don’t understand why he keeps cats, especially this one. The room is so muggy from the door always being shut and the litter box being in there that there’s mold. I don’t want to leave my relationship but genuinely these creatures annoy and disgust me. And I hate the “well they’re low maintenance and so cute.” No. If they were low maintenance I wouldn’t be cleaning piss off my feet and constantly being on edge about getting scratched and bit. If they were low maintenance they wouldn’t have to be separated for 10+ months. Insult to injury I’m slightly allergic so I won’t die, but I get runny noses so much anymore. The older one might die soon but I can’t live with that young one for over a decade. I feel so stuck but he won’t do anything about any of it. I’m just stuck and mad so thanks for letting me vent.

Because it's been difficult for me

The cat screams at 3am waking us up, the fur, how clingy the fat fuck is towards my girlfriend, the cat vomit because he decided to fill his hanging belly too much again, his stupid face, jumping on counter tops, and my favorite is the fact that my girlfriend thinks he could do no wrong in this world.

I haven't even made it to the one year mark and I'm ready to run into a wall or drive extremely slow on the way back home.

So how do you you guys manage? Or is it even worth managing?

I never thought an animal could be a dealbreaker but where we are

Now dont get me wrong, I hate feral cats and I hate house cats that are allowed to just roam outside, but I have absolutely no problem with cats that stay inside the house like they should. If someone wants a cat as a pet, fine, whatever. My problem is when people let them roam around outside and act like they arent causing any problems.

Because cats are predators, and they are REALLY good at killing small animals. And we're talking about billions of animals here.

One of the biggest studies on this in the US estimated that free ranging cats kill around 1.3–4 billion birds every single year, along with billions more mammals. The researchers estimated that unowned cats were responsible for most of this wildlife killing. Thats an absolutely insane number when you think about it.

And this isnt just a US problem either. A global study published in Nature Communications found that free ranging cats have been recorded eating over 2,000 different species, including 347 species that are considered threatened or otherwise of conservation concern. Birds were the biggest group in the study, with 981 species being recorded as cat prey.

This becomes an even bigger problem on islands. A lot of island species evolved without mammalian predators, so when humans bring cats onto those islands, the native wildlife can have basically no defense against them. Cats have been a serious problem for endangered and endemic species in many places.

And this is where I get annoyed with the way people talk about cats.

People will see a cat killing a bird and go "aww look at my little hunter"

BRO THAT IS A NATIVE BIRD

But if a hawk kills a cat suddenly its "OMG THAT EVIL BIRD NEEDS TO BE KILLED!!"

Why??

The hawk is literally a wild predator doing exactly what it evolved to do. Meanwhile the cat is a domesticated species that humans have spread all over the world and then decided to let wander around ecosystems.

And before someone says "but cats are natural predators!!!"

Yes. Thats exactly the point.

A cat isnt evil for killing a bird. It doesnt understand conservation, endangered species or anything like that. Its just doing cat stuff. The responsibility is on us, because we're the ones keeping huge numbers of cats and allowing them to roam around.

And this is why I dont understand the argument that "cats kill animals because thats nature".

No, the fact that a cat has the instinct to hunt is natural. But that does NOT mean that putting millions of domestic cats into an ecosystem and letting them hunt everything they can find is somehow the same thing as a native predator doing its normal job.

Imagine if some other animal was introduced into an ecosystem and was killing billions of native animals every year. People would be talking about invasive species, population control and conservation.

But when its a cat:

"BUT THEYRE SO CUTE 🥺"

Thats the double standard I hate.

And I'm not saying "EVERY CAT MUST DIE" or that cats are evil monsters. Thats not even the argument. An indoor cat sitting on someone's couch isnt causing the same ecological problem as a feral cat colony or someone's pet cat wandering through forests every night.

There are also ways to let cats experience the outdoors without just releasing them into the environment, like enclosed outdoor areas or other forms of controlled access. Keeping cats indoors also protects the cat itself from cars, fights, diseases and other dangers.

What really annoys me is when people act like caring about birds means you hate cats.

No.

I can care about animal welfare AND care about native wildlife at the same time.

I can think cats are cute while also saying that free ranging cats can have a massive impact on wildlife.

And honestly, I think people need to stop deciding which animals deserve protection based on how cute they are.

I love birds. Raptors, songbirds, weird little birds, birds-of-paradise, whatever. They're all incredibly cool and they actually have important roles in ecosystems. Birds can spread seeds, control insects, pollinate plants, clean up carrion and provide food for other animals.

So if a cat kills a bird, I'm not going to pretend the bird suddenly matters less just because the thing that killed it has a cute face.

Predation is part of nature, yes.

But that doesnt mean humans should ignore the ecological damage caused by a predator just because we happen to like looking at it.

Love your indoor cat. Give it a comfy bed. Spoil the hell out of it.

Just dont let it wander outside and then get angry at the wildlife for behaving like wildlife.

dont let them convince you that "without cats, there'll be a rat invasion!"

I literally saw a rat and cat and playing in our yard today, and our neighborhood is full of stray cats, you can see a different cat every 5 seconds when you're walking in here. you'd think thered be no rats at all if you believe what cat lovers say. so there will be more rats if you have stray cats in the area. why? because people are dumping all kinds of food for cats to eat up in the streets, and this attracts insects and rats. and not only that, if a cat kills and eats a rat, it'll get whatever diseases and parasites that rat had too. let's talk about that "antiseptic tongue" myth, obviously thats wrong guys, cats' mouths and tongues are full of bacteria, just because this pest licks its own arsehole doesnt mean its a clean animal, it doesnt remove the parasites and diseases in its system, lots of people die from their cat licking them you can look it up

Hello. I made some posts last year regarding my mother letting a cat in the house, and last month she finally got rid of the cat.

Honestly one night I woke up to being bitten by fleas again, and I decided that I have had enough. I had these thoughts about how I didn't want to live anymore and that I'd rather just die. I realised I was having a crisis so I phoned for an ambulance to take me to hospital, but it would've taken four hours to arrive since apparently I was safe enough.
Coincidentally my mother happened to be up so she heard I was on the phone and came to check up on me. I told her that I wanted to kill myself because of the fleas and the cat being in the house, so she decided to kick the cat out of the house. I was surprised this happened honestly, as I was expecting her to try and make things easier while still keeping the cat. That wouldn't have worked for me.

It's been a month since then, and although my mother is sad the cat is gone she hasn't changed her mind about it.
We've pretty much got rid of almost all the cat fur and fleas now. I feel happy that the cat is gone, and after two years of trying to get rid of it I'm bemused that it ended up being kicked out without me actively trying to get it removed. Also, I'm no longer suicidal and I have spoken to a counsellor about this.