February 14, 2024 • 35 mins
Who is a cat person? What is the essence of feline fandom and who exactly are the literal and figurative cat people among us? Listen and find out on the world's #1 (and only) cat-themed culture, history and science podcast!
Celebrate the Lunar New Year (Happy Year of the Dragon) or Têt, with us in Vietnam, where we discover a unique breed of cat people with the help of Austin-based comic Ivy Le of the FOGO: Fear of Going Outside podcast. Ivy is joined by audio producer, artist and educator TK "Keisha" Dutes and Cat Person social media manager Tracy Michelle, as we debunk stereotypes, challenge cultural and racial assumptions and redefine what it means to be a cat person - while advocating for everyone's rightful place alongside Taylor Swift as an iconic figure of our tribe.
Prepare to embrace your inner cat person of the 21st Century and join the revolution! Tune in now for a purr-fectly engaging discussion that will change the way you see feline companionship forever.
Support the podcast, sign up for The Captain’s Log, the companion podcast newsletter and learn about way$ to help keep this ship afloat for our next season here: linktr.ee/6degreesofcats.
Referenced artifacts:
- Cats vs Dogs map (original source: BudgetDirect)
Referenced episodes:
- Felines & Fatherhood: Exploring Masculinity, Father’s Day, and the Unique Bond Between Men and Cats
- Cats vs Cupid: Why Cats are the Better Valentine’s Day Mascot
- Cats Are the Consummate Domesticate: Origins and Evolution of Our Feline Friends [Pilot]
About the experts:
- Keisha “TK” Dutes is a multimedia producer and artist whose work has been featured on NPR’s LifeKit. She serves on the board of AIR Media and has consulted for Spotify USA and Willie Mae Rock Camp as an audio educator. TK can be followed on Meta and X as @tastykeish and on TikTok as tk_creates.
- Ivy Le is a Vietnamese-American comedian, actress, writer and producer of Spotify’s hit podcast, FOGO Fear of Going Outside. She can be followed on social media @ivylewithonee and found at ivylewithonee.com.
- Tracy Michelle is a stylist, writer, gamer and content creator who serves as the social media manager of lifestyle brand Cat Person. She can be followed on social media @ohheytracy and found at ohheytracy.com.
Producer, writer, editor, sound designer, host, basically everything*
- Captain Kitty (Amanda B. - Instagram: @catsuitband)
* with co-executive producers Binky & Snuggles
Animal voices include:
- Binky & Snuggles _^..^_
Music:
- Leathered: "Look Alive" © 2022
- The Captain & Tenille 2: Snuggles: Jeoparty
- Samples licensed via Loopcloud
- Additional sound effects from Pixabay.com
Logo design:
- Edward Anthony © 2024 (Instagram: @itsmyunzii)
Research used:
- Booth, J. (2023, December 11). All about Taylor Swift’s cats, Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button. People Magazine. https://people.com/pets/all-about-taylor-swift-cats
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Yaw!
(00:01):
Can you say "mau"?
Okay, I guess Mandarin may be a little tough as your first foreign language.
Maybe Japanese.
Let's see if you can do it Snug.
Can you say "nyan"?
Oh my god, that's really good!
Folks, Snuggles can speak English and Japanese.
(00:23):
Welcome back fellow cats and cat allies alike to 6 Degrees of Cats.
The world's best and only cat-themed culture, history and science podcast.
Okay, kind of.
Snuggles can kind of speak Japanese.
How, you might ask me, Captain Kitty or Amanda, how can you possibly understand what she's
(00:45):
saying in Japanese?
Well folks, I lived in Japan.
And that's right, Japan.
For five years I lived and worked in a very beautiful, pretty rural community west of Tokyo.
And I spoke no Japanese when I got there.
I had no connection to anything or anybody Japanese.
(01:09):
Super random.
Kind of unsurprising for me, I guess.
"You'll be fine," they said at the Japanese consulate.
Everyone studies English.
You don't need to speak Japanese, they said.
So I figured, why the heck not?
These were after all my people, as in cat people.
Uncomfortable imperialistic history with my own mother country aside.
(01:33):
I saw Japan as a warm and welcoming island of those white, "maneki neko"s with their
little paws raised as to say, "Hey Amanda, here we are.
We've just been waiting for you."
Their hello kitty, also known as Kitty-chan, was joined by variations of the adorable cartoon
(01:54):
kitty animated by a national treasure, Hayao Miyazaki.
And so for my first ever international trip, I boarded the flight knowing only how to say
"Good morning," sake, sushi, toilet, and cat.
Of course.
(02:16):
Now as y'all know, I am not ethnically or culturally Japanese, but tell them that.
Now seriously, it's a great way to pick up the language, let me tell ya.
Even better?
Or so I thought at the time, asking folks, "Neko ga suki desu ka" - "do you like cats?"
And this was when I got a rude awakening.
(02:37):
90% of the time, would you guess what the response was?
"No, I don't like cats."
"Cats are scary"
Yeah, kinda hate them.
For half my life, I was marooned in a rural state in North America, surrounded by soy
(03:01):
fields, apple orchards, and almost as many churches as people born of sturdy Germanic
stock.
And tons of dog people.
I think you can get a sense of my disappointment.
My lifelong mission of finding my people was not over.
I'm talking about cat people, or cat lovers.
(03:25):
Apropos of this alleged, commercialized season of love.
I ask you, my beloveds, the cat lovers among you listeners, the majority of you I think.
Who are we?
And how do we recognize each other?
So in this episode, we'll be updating our understanding of who cat people exactly are.
(03:50):
Show yourselves.
Let's let those feline freak flags fly.
(That took so many takes).
About three years ago, a global study showed that worldwide cats tend to be more preferred,
well by some metrics than dogs.
(04:12):
And interestingly, one report I found said that in 91 countries, cats turned out to be more
popular than dogs.
Yes, dogs are more popular than cats in Japan.
So there's something going on with that branding.
My question is always, how is this data collected?
(04:35):
If I were collecting this data, we'd make it very unambiguous.
You can't just like cats to earn the title of cat person.
I like ice cream.
I like naps, but I don't call myself an ice cream person or a nap person.
In fact, I think that's kind of what it's all about.
You must self identify as a cat lover.
(04:58):
I'd use a Likert scale of agreement with the phrase, "I love cats".
Key word, "love"
I'm not calling you a cat person if you'd like to anything, but strongly agree there.
Or identify as a cat.
There actually are people who could technically say they are cats.
(05:21):
I'm not joking here.
My friend's brother is a cat.
I'm not talking about people who are like, biologically, chimeras between a cat and a human
or something.
I'm talking about the lunar horoscopes associated with the lunar new year, which, incidentally,
just happened.
Perfect timing.
(05:41):
Happy lunar new year.
So for the lunar new year zodiac following the lunar calendar, not the Gregorian calendar,
but that means it starts on the lunar new year in February, not January 1st.
There's a cycle of 12 animals under one of which falls your birth year.
(06:02):
There are dogs, tigers, rats, pigs, and dragons, even.
As well as the cat.
And I'm not talking about the tiger.
I'm quite literally talking about felis catus.
"But wait", you might think, "I don't remember seeing a cat on those Chinese restaurant placemats
(06:26):
that we always had fun reading when I was a kid".
Well, Vietnam does include a cat in their horoscopes.
I'm going to let my friend, the one who I mentioned has a brother who's a cat, take it from
here.
Remember AOL, user names?
My Yahoo messenger name was Viet Rapa.
I only want to tell you what my other user name is.
(06:48):
I'm Ivy Le with one e, and you can find me pretty much on all social media channels
at Ivy Le with one e.
And I actually spell that whole phrase out.
Ivy Le with one e, because I think that's the one thing about me that will never change.
I am the host and creator of FOGO (07:03):
Fear of going outside on Nature's show by the most reluctant
host ever.
I think it should be noted that I'm not a nature person and run animal person.
Of course, like all individuals on this planet, Ivy doesn't speak for or
on behalf of the entire Vietnamese American community.
It just so happens that we are friends and her little brother is a cat, lucky me.
(07:28):
So back to that lunar new year, also known as the Chinese New Year if you're a Chinese
American or live in a Chinese dominant community or Solal in Korea.
They actually don't celebrate it in Japan.
So in Vietnamese we call it "Têt" and "Têt"" just means a new year.
You don't call it Chinese New Year, we just call it the new year.
(07:49):
So Texas -- oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Ivy is based in Texas.
Something people don't realize about Texas, we are the second largest population of Vietnamese
people in the United States after California.
But our school system did not have a lot of Vietnamese leadership when I was growing up
and still doesn't really.
So when we would be kind of taught multicultural stuff in school, like in the 80s and 90s,
(08:11):
we were kind of trying to do this like melting pot, salad bowl, conception of multicultural
I had some really great teachers who wanted to be inclusive, yet a chapter about Kwanzaa,
yet a chapter about Chinese New Year and all this kind of stuff in school.
And it was so confusing to me because they did not have a cat on their calendar.
(08:32):
There was no Google, I couldn't just Google, "Okay, what's the Vietnamese calendar?"
Right?
So I was just hearing every year, the animals that I knew were just the animals that were
in my household.
Like my mom and I are born in the year of the pig, my brother's a cat, my dad's a dragon.
You know, so I know the animals that are people that I'm related to, they're most relevant
to me, right?
(08:52):
I didn't really have a way to cross-reference.
So in my mind, as the only English speaker at the time in my family, I was just trying
to use context clues and make sense of the world as best as I could do it.
And so for me, the easiest explanation was, I know that we have a cat, probably Americans
just mistranslated cat to tiger.
(09:14):
So what does it mean to be a cat?
It's really hard to find good English language, Asian horoscope sites that have any credibility,
whatsoever.
I'm just not good enough at astrology language to read it in Vietnamese.
Let me look it up.
There's like one side that I really like.
Yeah, it's his own jargon.
(09:36):
So you can kind of read it and you're like, "This is, they don't know what they're talking
about. They're just making stuff up to get like, clicks, you know, you can kind of try it."
We will in a later season explore all of this intrigue about the lunar horoscopes for East
Asian cultures.
There's so much more to it and it's really interesting to me.
For the record, I'm a metal rooster, but back to Ivy and her cat-brother.
(09:58):
Okay.
So it says, my brother would be born in the year of the "firecat."
Their cat people are usually open-minded, flexible and free-spirited.
They like to travel and explore.
And that absolutely 100% describes my brother.
I love this variation of a cat person.
(10:19):
According to that study that talked about the distribution of cats versus dogs in the
world, Vietnam does have more cat than dog lovers.
It remains to be seen if people born in the year of the cat feel an affinity with cats.
I did an informal survey of my immediate community of cat people friends and we are all over the
(10:40):
sky when it comes to the lunar zodiac signs.
So file that under to be continued.
I guess we ought to keep exploring other kinds of cat people.
Let's start with where they live as in "dwell"
What's interesting to me is the space we share when we bring animals into our tribes.
(11:02):
Animals are of the outdoors.
We automatically associate animals with nature.
When we brought nature indoors, that's when I think pets became a thing.
Pet ownership has existed a long time as evidenced by those burial sites we talked about in
season one.
Folks have formed emotional connections with non-human inhabitants of their domiciles
(11:25):
for a long time.
But are we qualifying animals as pets based on if they live indoor or outdoors?
Maybe that's causing us to overlook or under-represent cat lovers in this world.
So let's talk a little bit more about that.
Because y'all, cats are among many things, roommates.
Not all spaces are equal.
(11:47):
And some are better for cats, I'd say.
Like cats, the size is the size, right?
That's how big a cat is.
Because I keep seeing people with these dogs that look like horses, I know that you live
in a tiny ass apartment.
That is a real concern for me.
I'm trying to mind my business.
But when I see that in the street, I really struggle.
That was a rad producer and audio expert friend of mine.
(12:12):
I'm TK Dutes.
Also known as Keisha, TK Dutes, she / her pronouns.
A multimedia producer mainly in audio world podcasting, focusing on all things black, black
audio that's my love.
I also dabble in the visual arts these days.
I love TK's story with her furry flat-bushed-feel-in-friend.
(12:37):
I was living in this apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
My landlord wasn't the best, so there was some past issues.
Me and my creative partner conscious, we also had our studio there.
So I'm like, man, apparently cats are great for this sort of thing.
So I put on Facebook and I was like, if the universe blesses me with a cat from Facebook,
(13:00):
then I will take it.
Somebody replied to my post, I just say, yeah, I'll meet her.
She hopped out of the thing.
I saw her.
She was like a flash of light.
I was like, she's cute and then she ran and hid in my house.
And then that's why I was just like, well, I guess it's my cat now.
Literally my first interaction with a cat.
(13:24):
I took all the stuff and I just was like, I got a cat and Mrs. Peabody.
And then me and her became friends because it was truly a mattress on the floor situation
for me back then.
So that gave her easy access to like meet me.
TK brought up another aspect of cats as roommates, which grants them a special place in so many
(13:48):
of our domiciles.
I think behind a lot of creative people, there's a great cat behind them.
Or there's a great cat at their feet, you know?
Everybody's cat is different.
But she really gives me space to like create.
This need for space became more universal when folks who normally socialized and labored
(14:11):
outside of their homes weren't allowed or able to go outside as much.
I'm talking about the 'rona as in the coronavirus 2020.
There was a lot more cats.
It was a matter of they don't have to be taken outside for walks.
They are in the house with you a lot.
(14:33):
Like it was a partner to share space with you and be your friend without having to go
out and worry about things like getting sick.
I'm happy to introduce to you another literal cat person.
I'll let her explain.
My name is Tracy Michelle.
I'm the social media manager over at dat food and lifestyle brand Cat Person and I'm also
(14:56):
a cosplayer and spiritual content creator known as OhHeyTracy.
My podcast is called The Witches Brewcast.
Tracy counts herself among the creative folks who after 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic decided
to bring a fur friend into her life.
I've wanted a cat all my life but it wasn't until three years ago during lockdown like
(15:21):
many people I got my first cat Miko.
Lockdown is the right word for it.
Talk about indoor cats.
Did anyone else feel like a trapped animal at times?
We'll have to dedicate an entire different episode to examine all the things connected to
Kitty's and the pandemic because there are quite a few.
The one we're focusing on right now is how well...
(15:43):
so many cat people were born during the pandemic.
Or should I say, converted.
I would say in the last few years the millennial to elder millennial groups have really, really
embraced cats into their lives, especially in cities where it's of course small apartments.
People in this age group are people who are now entering higher roles in their work position
(16:05):
and spoiling their cats more.
This totally resonates with TK.
Yeah, oh my god, feisty Mrs. Peabody, that's her whole name.
She has brought me so much joy during so many different phases of my life.
A lot of, you know, uncomfortable moments and then it's like when I glowed up, she glowed
(16:27):
up.
I was like renting a room from an old lady and I was buying my groceries from the 99th
store.
So if I'm buying groceries from me from the 99th store, then I'm buying groceries for
her.
You know, so like I was able to sustain this cat that loved me no matter what and we just
made it work.
I think that's what people love about pets, but especially about cats.
(16:53):
As I grew, she grew with me.
The first thing I bought her when I got a better apartment was a new mid-century modern
kitty litter box.
That is a symbol of us glowing up together.
The loyalty and comfort that she has given me deserves a like masterful, beautiful place
to do number two.
(17:14):
That's so sweet.
There's something in my eye.
If I run for president, cats will be included in the child tax break and each cat household
will receive a robot litter box.
Captain Kitty 2024.
Let me not get carried away.
Let's pick up on how much money it takes to prove that you love cats after the break.
(17:37):
[music]
Per my research, cat people are distributed equally across the globe.
But, with the transformations of community spaces to bring the outside indoors more, it seems
(18:02):
like cats are more visibly loved or cared for in urban centers, such as New York City from
where I report.
And rent.
Which, Binky and Snuggles have nothing to do with.
They get to live here rent-free.
And let me tell you, the rent is too damn high.
(18:23):
It is expensive to sustain myself, let alone two growing children.
(Or, actually am I caring for aging family members now?)
I'm guessing that for many of you, you're either in an urban or suburban area and live in
either a house or an apartment.
This is not to say that houseless folks can't be wonderful, responsible pet owners.
(18:48):
And I'm not meaning to exclude all you wonderful farm folk out there or rural people either.
[music]
But, the vast majority of pet owners that I've been reporting on in this episode tend to
be very "comfortable", to appropriate rich people talk.
[music]
Right now, it does look like dog owners spend the most money of small household pet owners.
(19:10):
We'll get into that a bit later.
But it does hold true that millennial and Gen Z cat owners are also investing in our children's
nutrition, health and entertainment, at least far more than our boomer and Gen X antecedents.
[music]
So this may be one of the reasons that for many folks owning a cat is kind of something
(19:31):
that richer people do.
Just look at those ads in your social media feed.
$75 dollar bubble backpacks, fancy, shmancy toys, and all manner of treats.
I can kind of see why people think that, but that is a very false cat person narrative.
[music]
[music]
Income is a harder one to really nail down.
(19:55):
We're definitely all over in terms of spend and what can be afforded.
Sometimes I see people commenting about how they spend like $5 a week on cat food and
I'm spending like $300 a month.
I just saw someone spend $13,000 just to build the perfect indoor playground for their cats
and I'm like, "What?"
We don't know what they think, but I feel like they just want someone to like, you know,
(20:18):
open the can for me, give me a warm place to cuddle and I will just rock with you for as
long as this thing lasts.
As all bonafide cats, stewards know cats don't actually care about how much money you're
spending on them.
Cats feel loved when you feed them when they're hungry and most importantly when you give
(20:44):
them time and when you play with them.
Cats are so smart and creative, they only need a box and a shoelace for endless hours
of curiosity and play.
Which is why I'm done buying these toys for you too.
I've wasted too much money on this crap.
Overall, kitties are seen to be the more economical of small indoor pets than dogs.
(21:07):
I do think that's going to change though.
More people are taking their kitties for backpack trips and traveling.
Starting to give rise to an adapted stereotype about cat people.
There is more and more targeted advertising recognizing people who love cats.
Well, they're money, really.
Spending is definitely catching up.
(21:31):
So I think that cat lady trope it's evolving and diversifying in some ways.
Take me for example.
You're the only Asian American I've ever known that was such an animal person.
I did not know many intersectional people who have really strong opinions about cats and
(21:52):
dogs and pets until I met you.
Making any kind of consumption your entire personality to me is very specific to a certain
ethnicity.
That is white folks.
Until Ivy really made this explicit.
I hadn't really thought of being a cat person as being in contradiction with my race.
(22:15):
I kind of thought it went hand in hand with my gender.
Identity is very multi-layered and I mean, look, I am definitely a cat person.
No way, don't say.
And I'm a transracial adoptee.
I'm left-handed.
I'm Korean American.
I'm a musician.
Politically for anything.
I'm probably, holistically, not quite the cat person.
(22:38):
Just marketers think of to represent their brand yet.
Spread the word about 6 Degrees of Cats.
We are now in the second decade of the 21st century.
Cats have taken over the internet.
And more and more, I'm seeing tons of ads with cats that aren't just cat food or cat
books.
(22:58):
There were cats in the Super Bowl Sunday ads.
Oh, there we go talking about the Super Bowl.
Yep.
It's time to address that 5'10" shadow cast over this entire episode.
One that belongs to a singular Pennsylvania-born entertainment powerhouse who happens to be one
(23:20):
of the most visible cat people in the world.
That's right.
I am talking about Miss Taylor Allison Swift.
The 30-something daughter of a stockbroker and former fund marketing executive who started
her ascent into the nails of pop music at the tender age of 9, sharply honed into that
(23:46):
perfect pop machine by the entertainment training ground that is, Asheville.
At the time of this broadcast, you cannot open an English-language news website without
seeing something about her.
And for cats, that's not a bad thing.
Tracy concurs.
I do not listen to Taylor Swift, but if anything is making cats look cool right now, it's the
(24:10):
fact that Taylor Swift is taking over the world and she is highlighting her cats every step
of the way, which we love.
It's harder to push the crazy cat lady stereotypes when so many people who are seen as cool
have cats.
It's definitely becoming more mainstream to just be like, "I love cats."
I think Taylor Swift is doing amazing things for cat people in general.
There's an interview where I never related to someone more where she's just like, "I
(24:34):
need to get home to my cats," and I'm like, "me, absolutely me."
Samesies.
But, yeah, obviously, in a lot of ways, that's kind of where the similarities end.
As with Tracy, I'm Swift Agnostic.
When it comes to at least having strong opinions on her merit as an artist or as a person,
that's kind of none of my business.
(24:56):
But I will say she has become by default one of the faces of my people, the cat people.
And I think that's pretty intentional.
She has very much integrated her love of these three purebred cats, all named after television
characters beloved by her target, Listenerface, who are middle-class and white, like her, probably
(25:21):
a lot of you too.
We cat people are a really wonderfully diverse group of people.
But unless you're, say, a member of a pet group by and for your communities, you wouldn't
know that.
Because as Ivy mentioned, for the most part, and for the longest time, self-identified pet
parents, specifically cat parents, have been represented in media and in print and digital
(25:47):
marketing images by mostly people who look like or want to look like Taylor Swift.
And there are some pretty fundamental reasons for this.
None of which are necessarily Taylor Swift's fault, but she certainly benefits from it.
There's a lot of gatekeeping in media and the way that we are presented in the United States
(26:09):
through stories and television shows and marketing or whatever about what certain things
like look like and who does them.
There is like a stereotype of like black pet owners and white pet owners and people of color
from marginalized communities.
I think that we prioritize our pets differently in our lives.
(26:33):
We can't buy a designer handbag or we don't want to buy a designer handbag to place a pet
inside and carry it around, but we will take care of it and we will love it.
The heart is tied to this creature and the heart is going to take care of it.
We have a series that showed different types of people.
One of my favorite pictures that we posted, we had some artists where it showed just a
(26:56):
couple of people in their neighborhood hanging out, blasting hip-hop and they're with their
cats.
Which is something you'll see right often.
Everyone has a different way of taking care of them that they grew up learning.
There's different ways that each culture shows that care.
And I know it can feel trivial saying that representation matters about loving on cats.
(27:17):
But it's about so much more than just who prefers the company of a small, squeezable apex predator
that shits in a box to a large, loyal, pack animal that can rip your trachea out and needs
a chauffeur to pee.
I am born and raised here in New York.
I am first gen on my mom's side here in New York.
(27:39):
The rest of my family was actually born in Colombia and my stepdad was born in Greece.
I myself am half black half Colombian.
I love cats and I don't always look like these stereotypes.
I never saw a lot of myself.
And I know our team is super diverse based on race, gender, everything.
(28:04):
We are all over the place and I always like we should be able to represent that and show
people that we represent that.
And the response is great.
I really love seeing themselves outside of this stereotype of the crazy cat lady and seeing
that they are the fashionable ones.
I think that brands taking a step out of this stereotype is the first step in really understanding
(28:29):
that we are a diverse group.
But there's a lot of value in understanding that cats can be owned by anybody who is willing
to give them that attention and love and that they are also willing to take care of you
right back.
There is no specific kind of person that can have a cat.
Everybody really can take one in and give it the care and also get the benefits of having
(28:50):
that partner.
There's always something healthy and fun that fits almost every budget.
You just have to know how to do your research.
We don't all have to signal our cat personhood like Ms. Swift, an incredibly successful,
talented, empowered and very rich white lady who loves cats and travels with them and brings
(29:11):
them to her photo shoots.
I love to see that for her.
That is just not most of us.
Social media cat owners, you know, like people you see walking around with the cat in a
book bag and better than me and Mrs. Peabody, we don't do that shit.
We just vibe.
(29:32):
We love taking nabs and to me with the pet ownership thing or like the pet love thing.
Of course we all love our pets the same or more or differently or whatever at the end
of the day.
The heart wants what it wants and it wants to be cuddle.
Heal the world.
Cuddle more.
(29:53):
Parts.
Cat people unite.
We need a badge so that we can recognize each other.
(Would have helped me find my cat people in Japan)
We self declared cat people are all over the map.
We're musicians.
We're artists.
We're doctors.
We're marketers.
(30:14):
We're lawyers.
We're rich.
We're poor.
We're black.
White.
Working class.
Religious.
Agnostic.
Asian.
Arab.
Indigenous.
We are everything across all the spectra of lifestyles and identities.
Since we are not actually generalizable by race, ethnicity or gender really, is there any
(30:37):
trait that we can ascribe specifically to cat people?
Cat people are desperate to learn and I love that.
I have seen into the bookshelves of my co-workers and I can tell you 90% of the books are like
how to knit a jacket for your cat.
How to make cat hair crafts.
(30:58):
It does my cat like.
I think that it really shows how much cat people want to take the best care of their cats.
When you see from the data, like our top post, our educational post and I started this when
I joined the team because I knew all of us are googling something about our cat.
(31:19):
So really, it's a group of people interested in doing that research I've noticed.
I feel seen.
Hold your head high cat person.
You are indisputably a person of distinction who loves cats and learning and you don't mind
sharing power being told no or get away or stop touching me or feed me and then leave
(31:43):
me alone.
Oh, and if I may add, you are very, very attractive.
So in Amandaland, that, I think, makes you one of the best people in my book.
Okay, I may be biased.
I am, we all are.
Folks, we love us.
Can we make cat people like the BTS Army where we rise up and raise our voices for more
(32:06):
kindness, more compassion, understanding and freedom from all these ridiculous systems
and messages that make things so darn ridiculously awful for so many people?
Can we make loving on cats...(It really does sound like I'm running for office)
I hope that we all channel that open-minded, free-spirited firecat energy this year and
(32:29):
all years.
Thanks for tuning in everybody.
Since the time we recorded, TK's sweet Mrs. Peabody has crossed the rainbow bridge, so I really
wanted to take a moment to dedicate this episode to the late Mrs. Peabody.
And of course, as I say in the sign-off, for all the cats we've loved and lost.
(32:51):
Peabound times day to our little fur friends and feathered friends and scaled friends and
leathered friends, all the friendly beasts.
This one's for you.
In the next episode, here's a hint.
My cat people are like David Bowie, good friend there, Freddie Mercury is another one I really
(33:12):
love.
I'd least share as a cat person and I do love share.
I want to thank my wonderful experts.
Ivy Le with one e, Tracy Michelle and TK Dutes.
While the opinions are my own, the research and work is theirs.
If you'd like to learn more about them, please check out our show notes, which also include
the references and research that went into this episode.
(33:34):
If you loved it, please don't be shy about being a cat person.
Shout it from the rooftops.
And then, when people look at you kind of funny and you have their attention, tell them
all about 6 Degrees of Cats to learn and unlearn more about this world than they ever realized
was relevant to cats.
I appreciate y'all.
(33:55):
Thank you for being one of my people, cat people.
And remember, everything is connected.
One, two, one, two, three, four.
6 Degrees of Cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly, Captain Kee,
aka Amanda B. Please subscribe to our mailing list by going to linktr.ee/6degreesofcats
(34:21):
or look us up on all those social media platforms.
You'll be first in line for the extra audio and more treats that we connect with us there.
All episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and the
weird, and of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
(34:47):
Nobu is chaos in a cat.
He makes the doofiest little faces all the time.
Miku can pershade, and she also knows exactly how to get your attention.
They have what we call the attention table, which is a table they're not allowed on, and
they know they're not allowed on.
But when they want us to look at them, they will go there, and if you try to ignore them,
(35:07):
they will start screaming until you pay attention to them being on the attention table.
Yeah, they're little babies.
Yaw!
(00:01):
Can you say "mau"?
Okay, I guess Mandarin may be a little tough as your first foreign language.
Maybe Japanese.
Let's see if you can do it Snug.
Can you say "nyan"?
Oh my god, that's really good!
Folks, Snuggles can speak English and Japanese.
(00:23):
Welcome back fellow cats and cat allies alike to 6 Degrees of Cats.
The world's best and only cat-themed culture, history and science podcast.
Okay, kind of.
Snuggles can kind of speak Japanese.
How, you might ask me, Captain Kitty or Amanda, how can you possibly understand what she's
(00:45):
saying in Japanese?
Well folks, I lived in Japan.
And that's right, Japan.
For five years I lived and worked in a very beautiful, pretty rural community west of Tokyo.
And I spoke no Japanese when I got there.
I had no connection to anything or anybody Japanese.
(01:09):
Super random.
Kind of unsurprising for me, I guess.
"You'll be fine," they said at the Japanese consulate.
Everyone studies English.
You don't need to speak Japanese, they said.
So I figured, why the heck not?
These were after all my people, as in cat people.
Uncomfortable imperialistic history with my own mother country aside.
(01:33):
I saw Japan as a warm and welcoming island of those white, "maneki neko"s with their
little paws raised as to say, "Hey Amanda, here we are.
We've just been waiting for you."
Their hello kitty, also known as Kitty-chan, was joined by variations of the adorable cartoon
(01:54):
kitty animated by a national treasure, Hayao Miyazaki.
And so for my first ever international trip, I boarded the flight knowing only how to say
"Good morning," sake, sushi, toilet, and cat.
Of course.
(02:16):
Now as y'all know, I am not ethnically or culturally Japanese, but tell them that.
Now seriously, it's a great way to pick up the language, let me tell ya.
Even better?
Or so I thought at the time, asking folks, "Neko ga suki desu ka" - "do you like cats?"
And this was when I got a rude awakening.
(02:37):
90% of the time, would you guess what the response was?
"No, I don't like cats."
"Cats are scary"
Yeah, kinda hate them.
For half my life, I was marooned in a rural state in North America, surrounded by soy
(03:01):
fields, apple orchards, and almost as many churches as people born of sturdy Germanic
stock.
And tons of dog people.
I think you can get a sense of my disappointment.
My lifelong mission of finding my people was not over.
I'm talking about cat people, or cat lovers.
(03:25):
Apropos of this alleged, commercialized season of love.
I ask you, my beloveds, the cat lovers among you listeners, the majority of you I think.
Who are we?
And how do we recognize each other?
So in this episode, we'll be updating our understanding of who cat people exactly are.
(03:50):
Show yourselves.
Let's let those feline freak flags fly.
(That took so many takes).
About three years ago, a global study showed that worldwide cats tend to be more preferred,
well by some metrics than dogs.
(04:12):
And interestingly, one report I found said that in 91 countries, cats turned out to be more
popular than dogs.
Yes, dogs are more popular than cats in Japan.
So there's something going on with that branding.
My question is always, how is this data collected?
(04:35):
If I were collecting this data, we'd make it very unambiguous.
You can't just like cats to earn the title of cat person.
I like ice cream.
I like naps, but I don't call myself an ice cream person or a nap person.
In fact, I think that's kind of what it's all about.
You must self identify as a cat lover.
(04:58):
I'd use a Likert scale of agreement with the phrase, "I love cats".
Key word, "love"
I'm not calling you a cat person if you'd like to anything, but strongly agree there.
Or identify as a cat.
There actually are people who could technically say they are cats.
(05:21):
I'm not joking here.
My friend's brother is a cat.
I'm not talking about people who are like, biologically, chimeras between a cat and a human
or something.
I'm talking about the lunar horoscopes associated with the lunar new year, which, incidentally,
just happened.
Perfect timing.
(05:41):
Happy lunar new year.
So for the lunar new year zodiac following the lunar calendar, not the Gregorian calendar,
but that means it starts on the lunar new year in February, not January 1st.
There's a cycle of 12 animals under one of which falls your birth year.
(06:02):
There are dogs, tigers, rats, pigs, and dragons, even.
As well as the cat.
And I'm not talking about the tiger.
I'm quite literally talking about felis catus.
"But wait", you might think, "I don't remember seeing a cat on those Chinese restaurant placemats
(06:26):
that we always had fun reading when I was a kid".
Well, Vietnam does include a cat in their horoscopes.
I'm going to let my friend, the one who I mentioned has a brother who's a cat, take it from
here.
Remember AOL, user names?
My Yahoo messenger name was Viet Rapa.
I only want to tell you what my other user name is.
(06:48):
I'm Ivy Le with one e, and you can find me pretty much on all social media channels
at Ivy Le with one e.
And I actually spell that whole phrase out.
Ivy Le with one e, because I think that's the one thing about me that will never change.
I am the host and creator of FOGO (07:03):
Fear of going outside on Nature's show by the most reluctant
host ever.
I think it should be noted that I'm not a nature person and run animal person.
Of course, like all individuals on this planet, Ivy doesn't speak for or
on behalf of the entire Vietnamese American community.
It just so happens that we are friends and her little brother is a cat, lucky me.
(07:28):
So back to that lunar new year, also known as the Chinese New Year if you're a Chinese
American or live in a Chinese dominant community or Solal in Korea.
They actually don't celebrate it in Japan.
So in Vietnamese we call it "Têt" and "Têt"" just means a new year.
You don't call it Chinese New Year, we just call it the new year.
(07:49):
So Texas -- oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Ivy is based in Texas.
Something people don't realize about Texas, we are the second largest population of Vietnamese
people in the United States after California.
But our school system did not have a lot of Vietnamese leadership when I was growing up
and still doesn't really.
So when we would be kind of taught multicultural stuff in school, like in the 80s and 90s,
(08:11):
we were kind of trying to do this like melting pot, salad bowl, conception of multicultural
I had some really great teachers who wanted to be inclusive, yet a chapter about Kwanzaa,
yet a chapter about Chinese New Year and all this kind of stuff in school.
And it was so confusing to me because they did not have a cat on their calendar.
(08:32):
There was no Google, I couldn't just Google, "Okay, what's the Vietnamese calendar?"
Right?
So I was just hearing every year, the animals that I knew were just the animals that were
in my household.
Like my mom and I are born in the year of the pig, my brother's a cat, my dad's a dragon.
You know, so I know the animals that are people that I'm related to, they're most relevant
to me, right?
(08:52):
I didn't really have a way to cross-reference.
So in my mind, as the only English speaker at the time in my family, I was just trying
to use context clues and make sense of the world as best as I could do it.
And so for me, the easiest explanation was, I know that we have a cat, probably Americans
just mistranslated cat to tiger.
(09:14):
So what does it mean to be a cat?
It's really hard to find good English language, Asian horoscope sites that have any credibility,
whatsoever.
I'm just not good enough at astrology language to read it in Vietnamese.
Let me look it up.
There's like one side that I really like.
Yeah, it's his own jargon.
(09:36):
So you can kind of read it and you're like, "This is, they don't know what they're talking
about. They're just making stuff up to get like, clicks, you know, you can kind of try it."
We will in a later season explore all of this intrigue about the lunar horoscopes for East
Asian cultures.
There's so much more to it and it's really interesting to me.
For the record, I'm a metal rooster, but back to Ivy and her cat-brother.
(09:58):
Okay.
So it says, my brother would be born in the year of the "firecat."
Their cat people are usually open-minded, flexible and free-spirited.
They like to travel and explore.
And that absolutely 100% describes my brother.
I love this variation of a cat person.
(10:19):
According to that study that talked about the distribution of cats versus dogs in the
world, Vietnam does have more cat than dog lovers.
It remains to be seen if people born in the year of the cat feel an affinity with cats.
I did an informal survey of my immediate community of cat people friends and we are all over the
(10:40):
sky when it comes to the lunar zodiac signs.
So file that under to be continued.
I guess we ought to keep exploring other kinds of cat people.
Let's start with where they live as in "dwell"
What's interesting to me is the space we share when we bring animals into our tribes.
(11:02):
Animals are of the outdoors.
We automatically associate animals with nature.
When we brought nature indoors, that's when I think pets became a thing.
Pet ownership has existed a long time as evidenced by those burial sites we talked about in
season one.
Folks have formed emotional connections with non-human inhabitants of their domiciles
(11:25):
for a long time.
But are we qualifying animals as pets based on if they live indoor or outdoors?
Maybe that's causing us to overlook or under-represent cat lovers in this world.
So let's talk a little bit more about that.
Because y'all, cats are among many things, roommates.
Not all spaces are equal.
(11:47):
And some are better for cats, I'd say.
Like cats, the size is the size, right?
That's how big a cat is.
Because I keep seeing people with these dogs that look like horses, I know that you live
in a tiny ass apartment.
That is a real concern for me.
I'm trying to mind my business.
But when I see that in the street, I really struggle.
That was a rad producer and audio expert friend of mine.
(12:12):
I'm TK Dutes.
Also known as Keisha, TK Dutes, she / her pronouns.
A multimedia producer mainly in audio world podcasting, focusing on all things black, black
audio that's my love.
I also dabble in the visual arts these days.
I love TK's story with her furry flat-bushed-feel-in-friend.
(12:37):
I was living in this apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
My landlord wasn't the best, so there was some past issues.
Me and my creative partner conscious, we also had our studio there.
So I'm like, man, apparently cats are great for this sort of thing.
So I put on Facebook and I was like, if the universe blesses me with a cat from Facebook,
(13:00):
then I will take it.
Somebody replied to my post, I just say, yeah, I'll meet her.
She hopped out of the thing.
I saw her.
She was like a flash of light.
I was like, she's cute and then she ran and hid in my house.
And then that's why I was just like, well, I guess it's my cat now.
Literally my first interaction with a cat.
(13:24):
I took all the stuff and I just was like, I got a cat and Mrs. Peabody.
And then me and her became friends because it was truly a mattress on the floor situation
for me back then.
So that gave her easy access to like meet me.
TK brought up another aspect of cats as roommates, which grants them a special place in so many
(13:48):
of our domiciles.
I think behind a lot of creative people, there's a great cat behind them.
Or there's a great cat at their feet, you know?
Everybody's cat is different.
But she really gives me space to like create.
This need for space became more universal when folks who normally socialized and labored
(14:11):
outside of their homes weren't allowed or able to go outside as much.
I'm talking about the 'rona as in the coronavirus 2020.
There was a lot more cats.
It was a matter of they don't have to be taken outside for walks.
They are in the house with you a lot.
(14:33):
Like it was a partner to share space with you and be your friend without having to go
out and worry about things like getting sick.
I'm happy to introduce to you another literal cat person.
I'll let her explain.
My name is Tracy Michelle.
I'm the social media manager over at dat food and lifestyle brand Cat Person and I'm also
(14:56):
a cosplayer and spiritual content creator known as OhHeyTracy.
My podcast is called The Witches Brewcast.
Tracy counts herself among the creative folks who after 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic decided
to bring a fur friend into her life.
I've wanted a cat all my life but it wasn't until three years ago during lockdown like
(15:21):
many people I got my first cat Miko.
Lockdown is the right word for it.
Talk about indoor cats.
Did anyone else feel like a trapped animal at times?
We'll have to dedicate an entire different episode to examine all the things connected to
Kitty's and the pandemic because there are quite a few.
The one we're focusing on right now is how well...
(15:43):
so many cat people were born during the pandemic.
Or should I say, converted.
I would say in the last few years the millennial to elder millennial groups have really, really
embraced cats into their lives, especially in cities where it's of course small apartments.
People in this age group are people who are now entering higher roles in their work position
(16:05):
and spoiling their cats more.
This totally resonates with TK.
Yeah, oh my god, feisty Mrs. Peabody, that's her whole name.
She has brought me so much joy during so many different phases of my life.
A lot of, you know, uncomfortable moments and then it's like when I glowed up, she glowed
(16:27):
up.
I was like renting a room from an old lady and I was buying my groceries from the 99th
store.
So if I'm buying groceries from me from the 99th store, then I'm buying groceries for
her.
You know, so like I was able to sustain this cat that loved me no matter what and we just
made it work.
I think that's what people love about pets, but especially about cats.
(16:53):
As I grew, she grew with me.
The first thing I bought her when I got a better apartment was a new mid-century modern
kitty litter box.
That is a symbol of us glowing up together.
The loyalty and comfort that she has given me deserves a like masterful, beautiful place
to do number two.
(17:14):
That's so sweet.
There's something in my eye.
If I run for president, cats will be included in the child tax break and each cat household
will receive a robot litter box.
Captain Kitty 2024.
Let me not get carried away.
Let's pick up on how much money it takes to prove that you love cats after the break.
(17:37):
[music]
Per my research, cat people are distributed equally across the globe.
But, with the transformations of community spaces to bring the outside indoors more, it seems
(18:02):
like cats are more visibly loved or cared for in urban centers, such as New York City from
where I report.
And rent.
Which, Binky and Snuggles have nothing to do with.
They get to live here rent-free.
And let me tell you, the rent is too damn high.
(18:23):
It is expensive to sustain myself, let alone two growing children.
(Or, actually am I caring for aging family members now?)
I'm guessing that for many of you, you're either in an urban or suburban area and live in
either a house or an apartment.
This is not to say that houseless folks can't be wonderful, responsible pet owners.
(18:48):
And I'm not meaning to exclude all you wonderful farm folk out there or rural people either.
[music]
But, the vast majority of pet owners that I've been reporting on in this episode tend to
be very "comfortable", to appropriate rich people talk.
[music]
Right now, it does look like dog owners spend the most money of small household pet owners.
(19:10):
We'll get into that a bit later.
But it does hold true that millennial and Gen Z cat owners are also investing in our children's
nutrition, health and entertainment, at least far more than our boomer and Gen X antecedents.
[music]
So this may be one of the reasons that for many folks owning a cat is kind of something
(19:31):
that richer people do.
Just look at those ads in your social media feed.
$75 dollar bubble backpacks, fancy, shmancy toys, and all manner of treats.
I can kind of see why people think that, but that is a very false cat person narrative.
[music]
[music]
Income is a harder one to really nail down.
(19:55):
We're definitely all over in terms of spend and what can be afforded.
Sometimes I see people commenting about how they spend like $5 a week on cat food and
I'm spending like $300 a month.
I just saw someone spend $13,000 just to build the perfect indoor playground for their cats
and I'm like, "What?"
We don't know what they think, but I feel like they just want someone to like, you know,
(20:18):
open the can for me, give me a warm place to cuddle and I will just rock with you for as
long as this thing lasts.
As all bonafide cats, stewards know cats don't actually care about how much money you're
spending on them.
Cats feel loved when you feed them when they're hungry and most importantly when you give
(20:44):
them time and when you play with them.
Cats are so smart and creative, they only need a box and a shoelace for endless hours
of curiosity and play.
Which is why I'm done buying these toys for you too.
I've wasted too much money on this crap.
Overall, kitties are seen to be the more economical of small indoor pets than dogs.
(21:07):
I do think that's going to change though.
More people are taking their kitties for backpack trips and traveling.
Starting to give rise to an adapted stereotype about cat people.
There is more and more targeted advertising recognizing people who love cats.
Well, they're money, really.
Spending is definitely catching up.
(21:31):
So I think that cat lady trope it's evolving and diversifying in some ways.
Take me for example.
You're the only Asian American I've ever known that was such an animal person.
I did not know many intersectional people who have really strong opinions about cats and
(21:52):
dogs and pets until I met you.
Making any kind of consumption your entire personality to me is very specific to a certain
ethnicity.
That is white folks.
Until Ivy really made this explicit.
I hadn't really thought of being a cat person as being in contradiction with my race.
(22:15):
I kind of thought it went hand in hand with my gender.
Identity is very multi-layered and I mean, look, I am definitely a cat person.
No way, don't say.
And I'm a transracial adoptee.
I'm left-handed.
I'm Korean American.
I'm a musician.
Politically for anything.
I'm probably, holistically, not quite the cat person.
(22:38):
Just marketers think of to represent their brand yet.
Spread the word about 6 Degrees of Cats.
We are now in the second decade of the 21st century.
Cats have taken over the internet.
And more and more, I'm seeing tons of ads with cats that aren't just cat food or cat
books.
(22:58):
There were cats in the Super Bowl Sunday ads.
Oh, there we go talking about the Super Bowl.
Yep.
It's time to address that 5'10" shadow cast over this entire episode.
One that belongs to a singular Pennsylvania-born entertainment powerhouse who happens to be one
(23:20):
of the most visible cat people in the world.
That's right.
I am talking about Miss Taylor Allison Swift.
The 30-something daughter of a stockbroker and former fund marketing executive who started
her ascent into the nails of pop music at the tender age of 9, sharply honed into that
(23:46):
perfect pop machine by the entertainment training ground that is, Asheville.
At the time of this broadcast, you cannot open an English-language news website without
seeing something about her.
And for cats, that's not a bad thing.
Tracy concurs.
I do not listen to Taylor Swift, but if anything is making cats look cool right now, it's the
(24:10):
fact that Taylor Swift is taking over the world and she is highlighting her cats every step
of the way, which we love.
It's harder to push the crazy cat lady stereotypes when so many people who are seen as cool
have cats.
It's definitely becoming more mainstream to just be like, "I love cats."
I think Taylor Swift is doing amazing things for cat people in general.
There's an interview where I never related to someone more where she's just like, "I
(24:34):
need to get home to my cats," and I'm like, "me, absolutely me."
Samesies.
But, yeah, obviously, in a lot of ways, that's kind of where the similarities end.
As with Tracy, I'm Swift Agnostic.
When it comes to at least having strong opinions on her merit as an artist or as a person,
that's kind of none of my business.
(24:56):
But I will say she has become by default one of the faces of my people, the cat people.
And I think that's pretty intentional.
She has very much integrated her love of these three purebred cats, all named after television
characters beloved by her target, Listenerface, who are middle-class and white, like her, probably
(25:21):
a lot of you too.
We cat people are a really wonderfully diverse group of people.
But unless you're, say, a member of a pet group by and for your communities, you wouldn't
know that.
Because as Ivy mentioned, for the most part, and for the longest time, self-identified pet
parents, specifically cat parents, have been represented in media and in print and digital
(25:47):
marketing images by mostly people who look like or want to look like Taylor Swift.
And there are some pretty fundamental reasons for this.
None of which are necessarily Taylor Swift's fault, but she certainly benefits from it.
There's a lot of gatekeeping in media and the way that we are presented in the United States
(26:09):
through stories and television shows and marketing or whatever about what certain things
like look like and who does them.
There is like a stereotype of like black pet owners and white pet owners and people of color
from marginalized communities.
I think that we prioritize our pets differently in our lives.
(26:33):
We can't buy a designer handbag or we don't want to buy a designer handbag to place a pet
inside and carry it around, but we will take care of it and we will love it.
The heart is tied to this creature and the heart is going to take care of it.
We have a series that showed different types of people.
One of my favorite pictures that we posted, we had some artists where it showed just a
(26:56):
couple of people in their neighborhood hanging out, blasting hip-hop and they're with their
cats.
Which is something you'll see right often.
Everyone has a different way of taking care of them that they grew up learning.
There's different ways that each culture shows that care.
And I know it can feel trivial saying that representation matters about loving on cats.
(27:17):
But it's about so much more than just who prefers the company of a small, squeezable apex predator
that shits in a box to a large, loyal, pack animal that can rip your trachea out and needs
a chauffeur to pee.
I am born and raised here in New York.
I am first gen on my mom's side here in New York.
(27:39):
The rest of my family was actually born in Colombia and my stepdad was born in Greece.
I myself am half black half Colombian.
I love cats and I don't always look like these stereotypes.
I never saw a lot of myself.
And I know our team is super diverse based on race, gender, everything.
(28:04):
We are all over the place and I always like we should be able to represent that and show
people that we represent that.
And the response is great.
I really love seeing themselves outside of this stereotype of the crazy cat lady and seeing
that they are the fashionable ones.
I think that brands taking a step out of this stereotype is the first step in really understanding
(28:29):
that we are a diverse group.
But there's a lot of value in understanding that cats can be owned by anybody who is willing
to give them that attention and love and that they are also willing to take care of you
right back.
There is no specific kind of person that can have a cat.
Everybody really can take one in and give it the care and also get the benefits of having
(28:50):
that partner.
There's always something healthy and fun that fits almost every budget.
You just have to know how to do your research.
We don't all have to signal our cat personhood like Ms. Swift, an incredibly successful,
talented, empowered and very rich white lady who loves cats and travels with them and brings
(29:11):
them to her photo shoots.
I love to see that for her.
That is just not most of us.
Social media cat owners, you know, like people you see walking around with the cat in a
book bag and better than me and Mrs. Peabody, we don't do that shit.
We just vibe.
(29:32):
We love taking nabs and to me with the pet ownership thing or like the pet love thing.
Of course we all love our pets the same or more or differently or whatever at the end
of the day.
The heart wants what it wants and it wants to be cuddle.
Heal the world.
Cuddle more.
(29:53):
Parts.
Cat people unite.
We need a badge so that we can recognize each other.
(Would have helped me find my cat people in Japan)
We self declared cat people are all over the map.
We're musicians.
We're artists.
We're doctors.
We're marketers.
(30:14):
We're lawyers.
We're rich.
We're poor.
We're black.
White.
Working class.
Religious.
Agnostic.
Asian.
Arab.
Indigenous.
We are everything across all the spectra of lifestyles and identities.
Since we are not actually generalizable by race, ethnicity or gender really, is there any
(30:37):
trait that we can ascribe specifically to cat people?
Cat people are desperate to learn and I love that.
I have seen into the bookshelves of my co-workers and I can tell you 90% of the books are like
how to knit a jacket for your cat.
How to make cat hair crafts.
(30:58):
It does my cat like.
I think that it really shows how much cat people want to take the best care of their cats.
When you see from the data, like our top post, our educational post and I started this when
I joined the team because I knew all of us are googling something about our cat.
(31:19):
So really, it's a group of people interested in doing that research I've noticed.
I feel seen.
Hold your head high cat person.
You are indisputably a person of distinction who loves cats and learning and you don't mind
sharing power being told no or get away or stop touching me or feed me and then leave
(31:43):
me alone.
Oh, and if I may add, you are very, very attractive.
So in Amandaland, that, I think, makes you one of the best people in my book.
Okay, I may be biased.
I am, we all are.
Folks, we love us.
Can we make cat people like the BTS Army where we rise up and raise our voices for more
(32:06):
kindness, more compassion, understanding and freedom from all these ridiculous systems
and messages that make things so darn ridiculously awful for so many people?
Can we make loving on cats...(It really does sound like I'm running for office)
I hope that we all channel that open-minded, free-spirited firecat energy this year and
(32:29):
all years.
Thanks for tuning in everybody.
Since the time we recorded, TK's sweet Mrs. Peabody has crossed the rainbow bridge, so I really
wanted to take a moment to dedicate this episode to the late Mrs. Peabody.
And of course, as I say in the sign-off, for all the cats we've loved and lost.
(32:51):
Peabound times day to our little fur friends and feathered friends and scaled friends and
leathered friends, all the friendly beasts.
This one's for you.
In the next episode, here's a hint.
My cat people are like David Bowie, good friend there, Freddie Mercury is another one I really
(33:12):
love.
I'd least share as a cat person and I do love share.
I want to thank my wonderful experts.
Ivy Le with one e, Tracy Michelle and TK Dutes.
While the opinions are my own, the research and work is theirs.
If you'd like to learn more about them, please check out our show notes, which also include
the references and research that went into this episode.
(33:34):
If you loved it, please don't be shy about being a cat person.
Shout it from the rooftops.
And then, when people look at you kind of funny and you have their attention, tell them
all about 6 Degrees of Cats to learn and unlearn more about this world than they ever realized
was relevant to cats.
I appreciate y'all.
(33:55):
Thank you for being one of my people, cat people.
And remember, everything is connected.
One, two, one, two, three, four.
6 Degrees of Cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly, Captain Kee,
aka Amanda B. Please subscribe to our mailing list by going to linktr.ee/6degreesofcats
(34:21):
or look us up on all those social media platforms.
You'll be first in line for the extra audio and more treats that we connect with us there.
All episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and the
weird, and of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
(34:47):
Nobu is chaos in a cat.
He makes the doofiest little faces all the time.
Miku can pershade, and she also knows exactly how to get your attention.
They have what we call the attention table, which is a table they're not allowed on, and
they know they're not allowed on.
But when they want us to look at them, they will go there, and if you try to ignore them,
(35:07):
they will start screaming until you pay attention to them being on the attention table.
Yeah, they're little babies.
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