August 8, 2014 is now International Cat Day.
It's official: the cat has dethroned the dog in the heart of the French! According to a recent poll (TNS Sofres) there are now 12 million felines in the homes. How to explain this craze for cats?
From Puss in Boots to Puss in Boots
Charles Perrault's initiatory tale is one of the first reading memories of most children. This Booty Cat uses cunning to offer power, fortune and a beautiful princess to his master and allows parents and teachers to instil in the younger ones their first moral lessons.
A character who is in a sense the great-grandfather of Puss in Boots , one of the faithful companions of Shrek, the green ogre of Pixar Studios. A clever and faithful cat in friendship who has met such a success that he is now the hero of his own eponymous film The Puss in Boots.
Cats crack the web
For Diane Lisarelli and Titiou Lecoq, authors of the Encyclopedia of the web culture, the cat is "the fetish animal of the Internet mythology" . This catmania is obviously due to the democratization of digital cameras and smartphones. It is therefore not surprising to find on Instagram thousands of photos stamped with the hashtag "InstaCat" , keyword to identify the photos of cats on this social network. Same phenomenon on Facebook where many small mustache beasts have their own profile. Almost more surprising when we know that many French people consider their cat as a full member of the family, "a baby" or "a son".
The cat, an ad character
When you know that a video of a kitten meets a hedgehog (Kitten meets hedgehog) makes more than 10 million views on YouTube, we understand that brands would be wrong not to exploit the "vein" cat. Bouygues Telecom was one of the first to have flair and assume 100% feline linings . Exit customer advisers all smiles, in this advertising spot dating from 2011, cats replace men , from the coffee machine to the computer keyboard. And the bias is assumed: "It's because we know that you like movies on the Internet with little kittens we made a movie on the Internet with little kittens."
LOLcat, new fashion icon?
An exhibition in London. A festival in the United States. Tumblr in number. And even the ability to set up his Twitter account in Lolcat language. It was missing that these cats stars have their book. It's done with Lol Chats , a photo album released mid-October to Editions I Lu. To achieve Lol Chats, as for top models, a cast was launched by photographers Barrere and Simon. And not surprisingly, it's on Facebook that the cats were cast. Results 30 "mouthed" cats shot , dressed and accessorized for this photo session worthy of a Kate Moss or Gisèle Bündchen.
Find the 5 emblematic pictures of Lol Chats by Josselin Bordat and Anaïs Carayon, Edition J'ai Lu.
Read also How to make a pill swallow to Isabelle Collin's cat , Tut-Tut Edition
