The Threat of Kittens

TS Elliot measured his life in coffee spoons. It seems these days we express ours in terms of kittens.

This use of irrelevance to give meaning to life reminds me of a woman who appeared in a BBC television survival series I co-presented called “Bare Necessities”.  She used her survival instincts to make a swing for herself in the central American jungle, from which she sang songs from well-known Broadway shows – to the irritation of her other two team members.

Anyone recalling this series will know we pitted two occupationally-identifiable teams against each other. She was one of the Nurses team, versus Estate Agents.  We also had Doctors versus Taxi Drivers, Lawyers vs Models, Vicars vs Bookmakers…  You get the idea.

This lady also used to say, when asked a question; “What would Jesus have done?”  An over-familiarity with Show Boat was just one of her preoccupations…

But these days even Jesus seems to be taking a backseat to kittens.  Everything in social media centres around the reactions of kittens, or kittens as objects of such adoration that they’re used to advertise anything you care to mention. This lady’s question would not have made sense if extrapolated forward into contemporary kitten-worship, as one of the attractions of kittens is that they don’t think.  They just “Are”.

The attraction of kittens is based on the inaccurate and anthropomorphic assumption that they are as cute as  they look.  The same may also be true of the usually disastrous male  imaginative construct “Sex Kitten”.

Kittens have taken the place of busty blondes in swimsuits (or not) – and admirable attempts to establish sexual equality by using male cheesecake pics in the same way. It is however probably largely men who respond most positively  to either of these visual gambits – whereas kitten-appeal is universal.

Kittenisation may therefore be a factor in the declining birth rate of the developed world. If political parties latch onto this, we may also see an end to their diminishing attempts to draft policies. Differentiation through policy is dry, dull stuff.  Choosing kitten pics on the other hand would be much more fun for party leaders.  Journalists could question their choices, and the ensuing heated debates would probably be just as good as discussions of election policies that never get implemented.

Kittens make fools of the best of us. They are therefore clearly a threat to the human race. Something needs to be done.