JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: My name's Jeffrey Bussolini.
And by training, I'm a sociologist and a philosopher.
My main area of interest is to study cats--
feline-feline interactions and feline-human interactions.
Here's was one of my favorite shirts here.
This is probably my single favorite shirt here.
Hi.
You're soft.
I've lived with cats for a long time-- since I was about
10 or so or maybe 9.
We've done our best in the Center for Feline Studies to
pay heed to the way that cats interact with one another--
the way that humans interact with cats.
And we spent a lot of time meticulously observing and
trying to make sense of some of their behavior--
some of their communication repertoires.
The other thing that I study--
because I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico--
is the history of nuclear weapons development.
And one of my teachers told me, you can't just be thinking
about nuclear war all the time.
You've got to have something else to occupy your thoughts
that's less bleak-- that's funnier and more engaging.
AMY KELLNER: I get emails whenever
there's a new Mario video.
And as soon as I get one, I'm like, stop everything.
I need to see what Mario's up to.
It really is like a drug.
It just makes you feel good.
Just give me the cuteness unadulterated.
I don't want to hear anything.
I don't want to see anything.
I just want the cute stuff concentrated in my face.
My name is Amy Kellner.
I'm a photo editor at the "New York Times Magazine." Before
that, I worked at "Vice" magazine.
And when I was there, I invented "The Cute Show."
I don't even think you should be shooting me for this.
You should just hear my voice and just show a
close-up of a kitten.
That's all you really want to see.
My favorite episodes of "The Cute Show"--
"Cat Prin" was back in the days of Myspace.
People would use them as their profile picture on
Myspace all the time.
The popular ones were in a frog hat or the bunny hat.
I would just always see those.
And it was always the same cats.
And so I did some internet sleuthing.
And I saw that it was this Japanese woman in Japan who is
a cat tailor.
JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: Many animals--
especially younger members of animal species--
have resemblances to young humans--
so these things like larger eyes-- a particular kind of
facial structure-- kind of round facial structure.
And that humans have an evolutionarily developed
capacity to sympathize with and protect young humans.
So the theory is that many animals-- they trigger the
same reaction for us.
AMY KELLNER: She says that she started making clothes for
cats because God told her to.
I want a message from God like that.
JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: Hello, Juliette.
And welcome to the Center for Feline Studies.
Please come in.
This is where we study interactions between the cats
and between cats and humans.
They spend a lot of their time hanging out here in the
different areas of the center.
We've got our workstations where we can take notes about
what they're doing and transfer those
notes to the computers.
So this is from April 11, 2008.
We see two cardboard boxes of cats and four
people standing around.
Two tourists from Denmark are talking to the cats, trying to
calm them down, saying that if they weren't so far from home
and on vacation, they would take the cats in.
We have two different sites of the center.
This is the main site.
And there are four cats who are usually here.
We have another site--a two cat site-- where two sisters
named Esmeralda and Mimi live.
We also have a lot of photos.
And we have some videos.
But it's invaluable to have thousands or millions of
different vignettes of cat behavior
going on on the internet.
AMY KELLNER: It's a subculture of cuteness and humor.
JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: There's this underground notion that
the internet is made of cats.
Maybe you've seen that video.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: And that's a fairly persuasive notion.
Obviously, it doesn't hold any water technically.
AMY KELLNER: Maybe we've gotten so jaded from all the
sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that's there's nothing left
except for just cats.
AMY KELLNER: You know what?
I will say the one downside to all the cute cat videos is
it's kind of raised the cute bar so high that now when I
see a regular cat, I'm like, you're OK--
you know?
JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: We as humans are formed by our
interactions with cats, with dogs, with
other kind of animals.
That's something that's obvious to everyone who
actually lives with animals, I think.
Human culture is extensively indebted to animal references
and animal interactions.
AMY KELLNER: There is no deep thing to it.
That's the beauty of it.
There is no--
I don't know.
I just like it.
I don't have to think too hard about it.
I sound dumb.
JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: One of the things we work on in the
Center for Feline Studies is cat yoga.
JEFFREY BUSSOLINI: We're trying to systematically look
at yoga with cats.
So the way in which a lot of their movements are basically
a form of yoga because they're very limber.
But then beyond that, how they'll join in yoga with us
is a kind of intersubjective communicative experience.
Hey, Prima.
Come on.
It seems like a very likely story that yoga and a number
of martial arts were developed based on a really careful
observation of the way that animals behaved and then
trying to imitate that for humans.
I'll try another kind of breathing exercise.
During this one, if we're lucky, [INAUDIBLE]
might hop up here.
The thing that got me interested in cat yoga in the
first place is that I would just be
doing yoga at my house.
Or we would be doing yoga there in the context of the
Center for Feline Studies.
And they started to join in.
They started to show an interest in taking part,
either by imitating some of the poses or by joining in--
by getting on your stomach or getting on your back in
different poses.
Hey, [INAUDIBLE], come over here.
[INAUDIBLE], oh, hey.
[INAUDIBLE].
They're all doing their own thing I guess.
Sorry.