Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. โค๏ธ

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

๐Ÿ”  ๐Ÿ’€  ๐Ÿ“ธ  ๐Ÿ˜ญ  ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ  ๐Ÿค   ๐ŸŽฌ  ๐Ÿฅ”

The scoop on kitty litter

Paul Ford writes about the connection between kitty litter and internet culture. In short, kitty litter led to house cats which led to cat memes.

Certainly Ed Lowe in 1947 could never have predicted the memes and clickbait that would follow, but he figured out a fundamental rule that applies today as well as it did back then. If you want to change the world, fill a bag with dirt and give it a name. The world will come running.

Last year, Kevin Slavin argued that the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii is engineering people to create online cat memes. Well, which is it fellas? Is kitty litter responsible for Nyan Cat or is Toxoplasma gondii to blame?