Veterinarian exasperated with viral cat videos with one showing morbidly obese cat

Exasperated Ben the Vet. Screenshot.

Viral cat videos can be abusive of the cat. This is what exasperates Ben the Vet on TikTok. Of course, he is concerned with health but also with reality like me. There is a lot of shortsightedness across a swath of cat owners about concern for their cat's welfare as they dive into video making in an effort to make a mark within this highly competitive area of internet social media.

The video says it all. And I am very sympathetic to his views. I've been saying these things myself for 15 years. The problem is that people want to make interesting videos. I understand that and am also sympathetic to their desires. Cats are interesting to a lot of people. Unfortunately, it can lead to cat abuse in various forms sometimes very mild and sometimes more severe. 

RELATED: 34% of cats featured in ‘funny cat videos’ are upset and stressed.

It has been shown that sometimes cats become stressed during these viral videos. So, the videos are, without being tiresome, not uncommonly an abuse and exploitation of the domestic cat to entertain people which is what PETA hates and me as well. 

I like Ben because he voices my thoughts perhaps better than I can. Veterinarians anyway have a status which they can use to help educate society. People tend to listen to them. And he points out that this cat is morbidly obese to the point where it will seriously jeopardise the cat's health. The owner appears to have ignored this point and tried to make a funny viral video on the back of it. 

As a vet he doesn't like it. He is exasperated. As a non-vet I don't like it either. The first duty of a cat caregiver is to keep them safe and within that umbrella it means keeping them healthy. 

After that it is our duty to entertain them and keep them happy and not for them to entertain us although inevitably, they do if they are well cared for.

Domestic cats enjoy small spaces like glass vases because they feel safer and it's fun

This is all about feeling secure and having fun. And that's interesting because it hints at the possibility (fact?) that domestic cats often feel a little insecure and need more entertainment. Why? Because they are barely domesticated and live in a human environment which is inherently unnatural despite their great ability to adapt.

We see domestic cats jump into boxes, large and small. And we see them wriggle and squirm into glass vases as in the video on this page.

The underlying motivation is the same: a feeling of security. Plus, there must be an element of self-entertainment.

The Twitter video below may stop working. If that has happened, I am sorry but I can't control it.

liquid mode activate pic.twitter.com/J1DTpwmPNr

— cats being weird little guys (@weirdlilguys) December 27, 2022

Domestic cats need mental stimulation as many live indoors full-time. Humans are often too busy or pre-occupied to entertain their cat companions. They have to find ways to entertain themselves.

Cats are also naturally and instinctively inquisitive. It is part of their hunting skill set. When hunting they have to investigate all the time to check out the availability of possible prey animals.

That's inquisitiveness in action for survival. But in the human home it is for a substitute: entertainment.

Cat doesn't know it but they are entertaining themselves

 This is a highly amusing video on Twitter. The cat is sitting on a laptop keyboard which is not that unusual as we all know. The attraction is the heat from the computer chip which leaks upwards through the keyboard and via the cooling fan (which is probably blocked by this cute cat). And they are depressing a couple of keys one which turns the letter into a capital and the other is the letter 'a'. 

Cat self-entertains without knowing it. Screenshot.

And so, we have a rapid production of a capital 'A' being rolled out on the computer screen which this cat enjoys watching. It's an example of self-entertainment without any knowledge of it. It is a version of cat television. Cat television normally refers to watching the comings and goings outside the home through a window.

RELATED: Cat Television – a good example.

I think you'll have to click the play button twice. It is a cute video though.

On a technical note, I wonder how long that could go on for before the computer objected! You could end up with a document that was millions of words long and you might start coming up to a memory problem.