If you wander around Instagram, it’s a safe bet that in less than five minutes you’ll come face to face with a cat meme. Whether it’s a short video of a funny cat with music in the background, a cat turned into a pop culture phenomenon or a feline in an improbable situation, cat memes have literally taken over the Internet. And this is not from yesterday, but rather from the beginning of the 20th century.
According to a BBC article, which is based on a whole bunch of cat images that we highly recommend, as soon as a new communication technology emerges, it is used massively to share images of cats. Want an example? Edwardian postcards from the early 20th century.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, postcards played a similar role to social media today. The first to emerge were in Austria-Hungary in 1869, at a time when the international postal system was expanding, facilitating their massive distribution. Cheaper and faster than letters, they made it possible to exchange thoughts, plan meetings, tell jokes, and above all, share photos of cats. Long before email pictures of cats, long before Grumpy Cat, long before memes: it all started with cat postcards.
The cats have taken control
As postcards became a popular phenomenon, cats became iconic figures. They have literally invaded this new means of communication by the millions. Appreciated by everyone, especially elites like Queen Victoria, cats found themselves drawn almost everywhere on postcards of the time, which featured them either in typical cat situations (playing with wool or drinking milk for example), or disguised as humans,…
Read more on Slate.fr
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