Cat owners should stop putting cucumbers behind their cats which scares them

Internet surfers should know by now that there are many videos on the Internet of cats been terrified and jumping out of their skin when they turn around and find a cucumber on the floor beside them. Their owners do this to make an interesting video. The videos have gone viral it is said and a lot of people find these videos amusing. 

I've not yet seen it said that there is a morality issue here. It is known that a healthy percentage of cats in funny cat videos are stressed (34%) because of the production of the video. In other words, people are stressing their cats in order to make a funny video.

Screenshot from one video.

The same applies to these viral cucumber cat videos. People are relying on their cat to become very frightened in order to make an interesting video. Is that morally, correct? I do not want to sound high-handed and preaching but clearly it is immoral. Cat owners have a responsibility to create an environment in which their cat companion is content. Everything that cat guardians do should be designed to meet that objective. Putting a cucumber behind a cat to frighten them achieves the exact opposite.

There are many examples of Internet videos which rely on the same principle, namely to frighten or abuse the cat in some way in order to create an interesting video. It simply has to stop. Of course, it won't and I am pissing in the wind. I fully realise that. The competition to create interesting cat videos is immense because there is quite a lot of money to be made through Google advertising on YouTube videos. And some of the most successful videos feature domestic cats as we all know.

We should also know that the reason why domestic cats jump out of their skin when they see a cucumber is not because they are frightened of cucumbers per se but because the owner put the cucumber behind them and therefore when they turn around, they see a strange object which wasn't there previously. 

Instinctively they defend themselves by jumping out of the way because they aren't sure whether this strange object is hostile and perhaps a predator. Cucumbers look somewhat like snakes which are dangerous to cats unless you are a sand cat. Sand cats attack and eat snakes even venomous ones!

Please, don't jump on the bandwagon and try and frighten your cat to make a funny cat video. It is not a good idea. Don't rely on your cat's anxiety and fear in order to benefit financially. It is inherently immoral and bad cat caretaking.

Scared cat seeks comfort in close contact with human mother

Scared cat seeks solace in human companion. Screenshot.

The video shows a ginger tabby cat on a sofa, clearly very frightened about something. We don't know what it is. Her ears are back in a protective position. The sort of body language that you see before a cat is about to fight only the general bod language indicates that this cat feels oppressed and she/he is submissive. She wants to crawl away and hide somethere, anywhere and seeks reassurance and comfort on the shoulder of her human companion. 

Why was she filming it though? She is making a video selfie. She has the face of Mona Lisa.

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I can't get the video to work. I uploaded it to Google Blogger and at first it worked but now...nada. It might work again but in the meantime here is another video which I know will work at least for the time being. It is similar. A cat who needs the comfort that comes from human contact and reassurance:

It is a nice yet sad video. The person looks oddly serene as if it has happened before. The video comes from Reddit. Someone on that site suggested that it was fireworks. It could be but we have no idea. It is the sort of reaction that fireworks generate in many domestic cats as they are strange external sounds. They sound like something hostile is 'out there'. This readies the cat for a defensive fight hence the pinned back ears which protects them. The cat's facial expression is very noticeable. It is not often that you see a clear facial expression in a cat.