Oculus Rift: Cat Videos, Porn, and Dog Shaming

Midterm grades are due tomorrow so of course I am looking at cat videos on the internet. I’m amazed at how many people manage to take videos of their cats doing interesting, funny, or cute things while the camera is on them. These people must be very dedicated to the effort since cats spend literally 20 out of every 24 hours sleeping. Either that, or my cats are the most boring, inactive animals on the planet. They spend much of their few waking hours eating, vomiting what they’ve just eaten, or staring at me in vague discontentment from their inaccessible perches. The idea that I could capture them on video doing something worth uploading to YouTube is laughable.

The internet is host countless videos of cats (and occasionally llamas, goats, and monkeys) doing ridiculous antics, set to upbeat music with clunky jump cut editing. I can safely say the only thing on the internet taking up more bandwidth than cat videos is porn. I once read a factoid that the first thing humans do with new technology is have sex with it (hence the porn.) I would argue the second thing they do is humiliate their pets.

Take a look at the recent phenomenon of “pet shaming” for example. I don’t know why this has become a big funny deal lately. People post pictures of their pets looking sad or guilty with handwritten signs that say what the pet has done to merit this public ridicule. These are mostly dogs, because, well, frankly, dogs are stupid. They aren’t good criminals—they always get caught. That’s why we call sneaky thieves “cat burglars” instead of “dog burglars.” Dogs couldn’t steal a damn thing. Anyway, the signs say things like “I ate a purple crayon, threw up purple on the carpet, and then ate purple throw up.” Gross. I don’t need to know these things about your dog’s dietary habits. The dog shaming pictures are just not as entertaining as the cat antics videos. Sorry dog peeps. Clearly, I am a hypocrite since I’ve spend a good share of my procrastination time looking at dog pictures as well as cat videos. Also, I don’t think the dogs actually learn their lesson from the publicity.

At any rate, I am imagining a future where the Oculus Rift virtual reality system makes it feasible for me to watch other people’s cats fail hilariously at jumping onto kitchen counters while feeling like I’m actually in the room with them. In case you’re wondering, the Oculus Rift has already been used for porn, so the virtual reality pet encounters are up next. I watched a video of people using the Oculus Rift for sex—they all seemed anxious and terrified. (There were jump scares and shouts of “what is she doing?!?”) Apparently, virtual reality sex is not as fun as it sounds.

In summation, porn is best left in two dimensions, dog shaming is not an effective method of canine discipline, and next time I go to the animal shelter to adopt a cat, I’m going to look for the one that’s going a crazy inside its enclosure so I can make a mint with viral videos.