I have gone through a slow attrition of “serious” subs over the years as they’ve all slowly become toxic. I pretty much just have goofy, fun stuff or niche interests left at this point.
I have stopped visiting Reddit after they dropped support for old.reddit.com. I use lemmy.world now. I did notice an increase in cat posts on Reddit before I quit
That was the final straw for me as well. Forcing you to log in to see old.reddit.com + forcing you into the app when viewing on mobile + the general toxicity just made it no longer worth it to use Reddit.
That's how I've treated it too, if a sub has gone from making me happy to making me angry, it's gone, and "cute picture of cats" seems to be more resistant.
Cat picture pollution arrived around 2005 with Facebook. Directly driving it was the new idea of a cellphone camera. AOL and the era before it didn't have the cat picture pollution problem because they didn't have the technology to post them.
> If you're looking for a boost of household happiness, then you might want to consider getting yourself a cat.
> In a new study published in PLOS One, an international team of researchers analyzed publicly available data across 93 countries to examine the relationship between happiness scores, domestic cat density, and infection rates of Toxoplasma gondii – the parasite that affects as many as 1 in 3 people and which felines are the primary host of.
> ...
> "What we found is that countries with more cats tended to report higher levels of happiness, while countries with higher exposure to Toxoplasma gondii tended to report lower levels of happiness," say the study authors in a press release.
Wealth, health, cats and Toxoplasma gondii: An ecological correlational study of subjective well-being across 93 countries (September 30, 2026) - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0357911
> Conclusion
> This ecological study provides novel insights into the magnitude and robustness of the associations between happiness, cat density, T. gondii exposure, and socioeconomic factors across 93 countries. Our main findings showed that, besides the typical associations between subjective well-being and some socioeconomic factors, national happiness was largely and positively associated with cat density and largely and negatively associated with IgM T. gondii exposure. These results underscore the need for future studies integrating both socioeconomic and biological determinants of happiness and including longitudinal and interdisciplinary approaches to elucidate the underlying mechanisms and processes.
Thank you Claudia. The cat pollution problem predates your training. In summation, cat pictures started as a nonpathogenec virus on Facebook and slowly matured into a slight benefit to some and an off-topic scourge to others. It's net benefit to humanity are debatable.
Based on what evidence do you think that post was LLM-generated?
I can assure you it was 0.000% influenced by artificial systems.
Evidently, evaluating human sentiments is outside the scope of your training.
EDIT: Oh, wait, it must have been the emdashes! Sorry, I've been using those since before LLMs were invented. Where do you think the LLMs learned to use emdashes? From competent writers who used emdashes centuries before computers were even invented. Yeah, and that "flag" is soooo 2023. Please try to keep up.
Though, slight typography nit—and I don't especially like being a pedant except when I can teach something—the em-dash isn't typically set off by spaces as you've done. The only real exception that I can recall off-hand is in newspapers, and that's for reasons of space management.
I never understood the extreme love for cats. I considered getting one for my daughter but the toxoplasmosis alone makes cat ownership an immediate nope and that’s before the cat piss/poop you can immediately smell in a house with cats in them.
Cats spent the last 4000 years or so evolving to be more adorable to humans. The reasons we love cats are rooted in our basic cognitive functions, which cats are abusing. I am not taking a piss when I say that people who don't like cats are more likely to be neurodivergent.
I would like you to expand on how my neurodivergence argument holds up if it doesn't hold up in the way I think it does. If you're about to say autists like cats more, I'm going to flip the desk.
Perhaps in US that's true but I doubt it if you look at the world as a whole.
For example, Indian(from India) hate dogs on average. That's 1.5 billion right there.
Hate? The country that had a successful public movement to stop all dogs from being euthanized because they thought it was cruel? Don’t talk about places you have no idea about.
> "What we found is that countries with more cats tended to report higher levels of happiness, while countries with higher exposure to Toxoplasma gondii tended to report lower levels of happiness," say the study authors in a press release.
That’s what I like about cats. I don’t need some dog staring at me constantly looking for direction, my cat has his own agenda that sometimes includes sitting by me.
I similarly prefer romantic partners with their own stuff going on outside of me vs someone who devotes their entire existence to me and needs to be directed.
pretty sure its a sex thing - makes sense for females to lift up their rear and I guess there isn't any evolutionary pressure for that sensitivity to not exist in males as well.
This would be a plausible explanation tho I've been told that cats don't move their tail that way when they're in heat. It doesn't go up but rather sideways.
Recently I went through the list of all of the subs that I follow and 80% of them were all cat related.
Do you think it’s always been that way?
I have gone through a slow attrition of “serious” subs over the years as they’ve all slowly become toxic. I pretty much just have goofy, fun stuff or niche interests left at this point.
It’s why I had to give up Reddit entirely.
Impossible to follow any topic without it devolving into political flame wars.
I have stopped visiting Reddit after they dropped support for old.reddit.com. I use lemmy.world now. I did notice an increase in cat posts on Reddit before I quit
That was the final straw for me as well. Forcing you to log in to see old.reddit.com + forcing you into the app when viewing on mobile + the general toxicity just made it no longer worth it to use Reddit.
set the cookie "redesign_optout" to true
> Impossible to follow any topic without it devolving into political flame wars.
But have you considered how that is Donald Trump/Joe Biden's fault?
/s in case it isn't obvious.
That’s a healthy way to use Reddit. Everything else is mostly rage bait.
That's how I've treated it too, if a sub has gone from making me happy to making me angry, it's gone, and "cute picture of cats" seems to be more resistant.
Cat picture pollution arrived around 2005 with Facebook. Directly driving it was the new idea of a cellphone camera. AOL and the era before it didn't have the cat picture pollution problem because they didn't have the technology to post them.
Some of the earliest photos after the photograph was invented are of people’s cats.
It is not pollution when it is the desirable outcome.
It isn't like the relevant environment — the set of Internet forums — somehow predates human influence; it is nothing but the sum of human influence.
Cat pictures at least add joy and mirth, and are driven by real people without outside motivation.
If anything is pollution in that environment / context, is is the rise of content driven by surveillance capitalism and political corruption.
At this point (at the risk of turning a measure into a target), might we be able to gauge the natural-ness of a forum by the number of cat pics?
> Cat pictures at least add joy and mirth, and are driven by real people without outside motivation.
Scientists Find a Surprising Link Between Cats And Happiness Across 93 Countries (05 October 2026) https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-a-surprising-li...
> If you're looking for a boost of household happiness, then you might want to consider getting yourself a cat.
> In a new study published in PLOS One, an international team of researchers analyzed publicly available data across 93 countries to examine the relationship between happiness scores, domestic cat density, and infection rates of Toxoplasma gondii – the parasite that affects as many as 1 in 3 people and which felines are the primary host of.
> ...
> "What we found is that countries with more cats tended to report higher levels of happiness, while countries with higher exposure to Toxoplasma gondii tended to report lower levels of happiness," say the study authors in a press release.
Wealth, health, cats and Toxoplasma gondii: An ecological correlational study of subjective well-being across 93 countries (September 30, 2026) - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0357911
> Conclusion
> This ecological study provides novel insights into the magnitude and robustness of the associations between happiness, cat density, T. gondii exposure, and socioeconomic factors across 93 countries. Our main findings showed that, besides the typical associations between subjective well-being and some socioeconomic factors, national happiness was largely and positively associated with cat density and largely and negatively associated with IgM T. gondii exposure. These results underscore the need for future studies integrating both socioeconomic and biological determinants of happiness and including longitudinal and interdisciplinary approaches to elucidate the underlying mechanisms and processes.
Thank you Claudia. The cat pollution problem predates your training. In summation, cat pictures started as a nonpathogenec virus on Facebook and slowly matured into a slight benefit to some and an off-topic scourge to others. It's net benefit to humanity are debatable.
Based on what evidence do you think that post was LLM-generated?
I can assure you it was 0.000% influenced by artificial systems.
Evidently, evaluating human sentiments is outside the scope of your training.
EDIT: Oh, wait, it must have been the emdashes! Sorry, I've been using those since before LLMs were invented. Where do you think the LLMs learned to use emdashes? From competent writers who used emdashes centuries before computers were even invented. Yeah, and that "flag" is soooo 2023. Please try to keep up.
Though, slight typography nit—and I don't especially like being a pedant except when I can teach something—the em-dash isn't typically set off by spaces as you've done. The only real exception that I can recall off-hand is in newspapers, and that's for reasons of space management.
I wouldn't be surprised if 80% of all subreddits are cat related.
Get rid of the other 20%.
I've been blocking subs in RES for years now, it's over 7000 last I checked and most I see on /r/all now is cat content. It's GLORIOUS
I don't think I've ever visited /r/all, it seems like a terrible place.
I agree, but for a long time it was the only way to discover new niche subs
fyi: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd6EjvCDRRWlkHjEYvSfOkA
I never understood the extreme love for cats. I considered getting one for my daughter but the toxoplasmosis alone makes cat ownership an immediate nope and that’s before the cat piss/poop you can immediately smell in a house with cats in them.
Cats spent the last 4000 years or so evolving to be more adorable to humans. The reasons we love cats are rooted in our basic cognitive functions, which cats are abusing. I am not taking a piss when I say that people who don't like cats are more likely to be neurodivergent.
I know it’s sexist, but I don’t trust men who like cats more than dogs.
> I am not taking a piss when I say that people who don't like cats are more likely to be neurodivergent.
“Dog people” heavily outnumber “cat people” almost always in polls. Like 44% to 18% in this one https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...
Your neurodivergence argument holds up, just not in the way you think it does.
I would like you to expand on how my neurodivergence argument holds up if it doesn't hold up in the way I think it does. If you're about to say autists like cats more, I'm going to flip the desk.
[flagged]
Perhaps in US that's true but I doubt it if you look at the world as a whole. For example, Indian(from India) hate dogs on average. That's 1.5 billion right there.
Hate? The country that had a successful public movement to stop all dogs from being euthanized because they thought it was cruel? Don’t talk about places you have no idea about.
I prefer animals that shit in a box to animals that eat their own shit and barf it up and eat it again.
Plus it’s probably the toxoplasmosis that brainwashes us to love those furry little things.
> Plus it’s probably the toxoplasmosis that brainwashes us to love those furry little things.
Elsecomment I mentioned a recent article. Scientists Find a Surprising Link Between Cats And Happiness Across 93 Countries - https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-a-surprising-li...
> "What we found is that countries with more cats tended to report higher levels of happiness, while countries with higher exposure to Toxoplasma gondii tended to report lower levels of happiness," say the study authors in a press release.
The paper itself is https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0357911
The main thing I don’t like about cats is that they feel like they don’t really like their owners but more just tolerate them
I don't know what cats you've interacted with, but my cats literally use me as furniture and cry at me when they can't.
To me that’s a feature, not a bug .
That’s what I like about cats. I don’t need some dog staring at me constantly looking for direction, my cat has his own agenda that sometimes includes sitting by me.
I similarly prefer romantic partners with their own stuff going on outside of me vs someone who devotes their entire existence to me and needs to be directed.
Not in mine!
[dead]
this one is always funny, anyone know why my orange would pull his ass so high to get a nice smack? almost as if they feel some sort of relief
It might just be because he loves you. Of course, it could also be:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scent_rubbing#Domestic_cat
pretty sure its a sex thing - makes sense for females to lift up their rear and I guess there isn't any evolutionary pressure for that sensitivity to not exist in males as well.
This would be a plausible explanation tho I've been told that cats don't move their tail that way when they're in heat. It doesn't go up but rather sideways.
So maybe it's that but maybe it's something else.
Ever have someone bang on your lower back that way? It feels good :)
This is why people go to chiropractors.
[flagged]
[dead]