To celebrate National Black Cat Day, we’re looking at the historical cat meme!

And don’t miss Marginal Cats on this site! 

The 19th Century Origins of the Cat Meme

Of course you do. After all it’s why the internet was invented. But when do you think the cat meme was first invented? It may surprise you to know that it was the Victorian’s who came up with the innovation of cute cats pics with a funny caption.

Kittens and Cats: A first reader

Before LOLCat, Grumpy Cat, Longcat, Nyan Cat, before all the famed kitties of the internet age, before the modern computer was but a glint in Mother Turing’s eye, there were the felines featured in Kittens and Cats: A First Reader (1911). If this delightful, yet also slightly creepy, book is anything to go by then taking photos of cats and brandishing them with an amusing caption was far from being a phenomenon born with the internet. Within its pages we meet “Queen Cat”, “Dunce Cat”, “Party Cat”, and perhaps our favourite “Hero Cat”, amongst others.

Even in the 1870s, humans were obsessed with ridiculous photos of cats

If you think the notion to slap cutesy epigrams on top of photographs of kittens originated with the internet, think again. Deranged cat pictures have been around since the early days of photography. Once humans got their hands on cameras, the dignity of the domesticated feline was forever doomed.

Cat Pics from the Middle Ages

Cat pics existed in the Middle Ages as well.

Cats as People in the 19th Century

 In earlier posts we learnt that in the 19^th century dogs’ embodied masculine superiority and cats’ feminine promiscuity. The Victorian’s liked people to be neatly pigeon-holed within society and kept nicely in their place. This even extended to the images in popular culture which reinforced the message that people were happier when they accepted their proper rank. To emphasize this message, there was a fashion for vignettes of animals depicted as people, looking civilized, content, and happy because they had decided to conform to human standards.

Medieval LOL Cats: Why the Victorians may not have invented cat memes after all

Last week we looked at how the Victorians were way ahead of the internet, and did in fact invent the LOLCat  (The 19th Century Origins of the Cat Meme). But is that correct? Delving deeper into the wonderful world of feline imagery I find funny images of cats that predate photography and date back to medieval times. 

One more example of how the more things change, the more they stay the same.