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Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong
“Fourteen writers take on perhaps the most important cultural issue of our figure out what we’re talking about when we’re talking about cat videos.” —New York magazine Are cat videos art? This essay collection, funded by a Kickstarter campaign, addresses not just our fascination with cat videos, but also how we decide what is good or bad art, or art at all; how taste develops, how that can change, and why we love or hate something. It’s about people and technology and just what it is about cats that makes them the internet’s cutest despots. This lively essay collection is intended as “an earnest attempt to uncover more about human nature—especially in today’s internet-driven world.” —Cool Hunting Contributors Sasha Archibald, Will Braden, Stephen Burt, Maria Bustillos, David Carr, Matthea Harvey, Alexis Madrigal, Joanne McNeil, Ander Monson, Kevin Nguyen, Elena Passarello, Jillian Steinhauer, Sarah Schultz, and Carl Wilson. “This clever collection is highly recommended for people who watch cat videos, which is apparently nearly everyone.” —Publishers Weekly “A delight.” —Chicago Tribune
201 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 7, 2015
14 people are currently reading
222 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 19, 2025
I gave this a go, batted it around the floor, pushed it off the table several times (just because), lost it under the sofa (temporarily, unfortunately), but never got far very actually reading it.
Only managed to finish a couple of the essays. The others —larded with incomprehensible jargon— just would not penetrate my thick primate skull.
I love cat videos, and now have learned that essays about cat videos may not be as endlessly entertaining.
A cute catchy title, but this book is not one most people will want to play with.
Only managed to finish a couple of the essays. The others —larded with incomprehensible jargon— just would not penetrate my thick primate skull.
I love cat videos, and now have learned that essays about cat videos may not be as endlessly entertaining.
A cute catchy title, but this book is not one most people will want to play with.
September 22, 2015
My review for the Chicago Tribune:
There's something perverse about making a traditional paper book about Internet ephemera: committing material that is readily available at the public's fingertips for free to ink and paper and a $16.95 price point. But so, too, is there something perverse about owning — and loving — a cat: being enamored of an imperious and mysterious creature that almost always seems to care less about us than we do about it, but remains compelling and adorable all the same.
It's precisely this kind of ambivalent-yet-appealing perversity that makes the anthology "Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong," an entire book of essays dedicated to cat videos, such a delight.The editors of the project, Caroline Casey, Chris Fischbach and Sarah Schultz of the Minneapolis-based Coffee House Press, have a sense of humor about their undertaking, thankfully. To wit: the book was funded in part by a "Catstarter" campaign, and this reviewer's copy arrived with a complimentary "Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong" laser pointer. Yet while they don't attempt to overly academicize their admittedly idiosyncratic subject, the editors are ambitious about its aims, writing in the introduction that "(i)t's about the boundaries of what art is, about spectacle and the communal and the personal, and about all of the places those things overlap."
The book was produced in partnership with the Walker Art Center, where the editors experienced the first Internet Cat Video Festival, about which they observe that "there's something about experiencing a phenomenon and pleasure particular to the (I)nternet, offline." That pleasure exists in each of these essays by 14 writers, including such well-known essayists as Ander Monson and Elena Passarello, as well as such Internet cat experts as Will Braden, whose "Henri 2, Paw de Deux" Roger Ebert called "the best (I)nternet cat video ever made," and Kevin Nguyen, a former content manager at I Can Has Cheezburger?
Lest it descend into redundancy, as can happen with lesser anthologies, this book offers a variety of lenses through which to view cat videos, including the historical. In "East of Intention: Cat, Camera, Music," Carl Wilson points out that humans' fixation with filming cats goes back to Thomas Edison's early short "Boxing Cats," and "(e)ven earlier, if you count Eadweard Muybridge's flipbook-style photographic animal locomotion studies in the 1880s."
Through these lenses, the authors explore some pretty big questions: Why do cat videos matter? Why does art matter? Why does anything — taste, technology, cuteness — matter? Each seems to arrive at the convincing conclusion that there's a lot to be learned about our own humanity — in all its admirability and ridiculousness — through our fascination with goofy films about our feline counterparts. Or as Maria Bustillos writes in "Hope is the Thing With Fur," cats "share, somehow, our central predicament. Beauty and panic, laziness, and the potential for real idiocy. A certain predisposition to cruelty and indifference, mixed indiscriminately with a certain unaccountable warmth and gentleness. … What we can but dimly apprehend of our own condition, we can readily see and identify in cats."
Jillian Steinhauer's "The Nine Lives of Cat Videos" is another standout for its easy blend of erudition and conversationality. She cites John Berger's "Why Look at Animals?" and Pauline Kael's "Trash, Art, and the Movies," in which Kael offers the "simple, good distinction that all art is entertainment but not all entertainment is art," not to mention Guy Debord and Theodor Adorno as she muses on the distinction between that which distracts us and that which makes us think.
As is the case with the best creative nonfiction, these essayists allow room for ambivalence and ambiguity. The book is not afraid to be critical, touching on concerns about "catsploitation" and the fact that some people actually don't like cat videos, inclining instead to view them as insubstantial and time-wasting.
Editor Sarah Schultz's essay, which ends the book, though, leaves the reader with a positive assessment of the Internet Cat Video Festival that kicked this endeavor off: "After all, it isn't about watching cat videos. It is about watching cat videos together." There's something touching and hopeful in this affection for the chance to focus on what we share as opposed to what divides us, and that shared affection makes "Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong" a diverting read.
There's something perverse about making a traditional paper book about Internet ephemera: committing material that is readily available at the public's fingertips for free to ink and paper and a $16.95 price point. But so, too, is there something perverse about owning — and loving — a cat: being enamored of an imperious and mysterious creature that almost always seems to care less about us than we do about it, but remains compelling and adorable all the same.
It's precisely this kind of ambivalent-yet-appealing perversity that makes the anthology "Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong," an entire book of essays dedicated to cat videos, such a delight.The editors of the project, Caroline Casey, Chris Fischbach and Sarah Schultz of the Minneapolis-based Coffee House Press, have a sense of humor about their undertaking, thankfully. To wit: the book was funded in part by a "Catstarter" campaign, and this reviewer's copy arrived with a complimentary "Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong" laser pointer. Yet while they don't attempt to overly academicize their admittedly idiosyncratic subject, the editors are ambitious about its aims, writing in the introduction that "(i)t's about the boundaries of what art is, about spectacle and the communal and the personal, and about all of the places those things overlap."
The book was produced in partnership with the Walker Art Center, where the editors experienced the first Internet Cat Video Festival, about which they observe that "there's something about experiencing a phenomenon and pleasure particular to the (I)nternet, offline." That pleasure exists in each of these essays by 14 writers, including such well-known essayists as Ander Monson and Elena Passarello, as well as such Internet cat experts as Will Braden, whose "Henri 2, Paw de Deux" Roger Ebert called "the best (I)nternet cat video ever made," and Kevin Nguyen, a former content manager at I Can Has Cheezburger?
Lest it descend into redundancy, as can happen with lesser anthologies, this book offers a variety of lenses through which to view cat videos, including the historical. In "East of Intention: Cat, Camera, Music," Carl Wilson points out that humans' fixation with filming cats goes back to Thomas Edison's early short "Boxing Cats," and "(e)ven earlier, if you count Eadweard Muybridge's flipbook-style photographic animal locomotion studies in the 1880s."
Through these lenses, the authors explore some pretty big questions: Why do cat videos matter? Why does art matter? Why does anything — taste, technology, cuteness — matter? Each seems to arrive at the convincing conclusion that there's a lot to be learned about our own humanity — in all its admirability and ridiculousness — through our fascination with goofy films about our feline counterparts. Or as Maria Bustillos writes in "Hope is the Thing With Fur," cats "share, somehow, our central predicament. Beauty and panic, laziness, and the potential for real idiocy. A certain predisposition to cruelty and indifference, mixed indiscriminately with a certain unaccountable warmth and gentleness. … What we can but dimly apprehend of our own condition, we can readily see and identify in cats."
Jillian Steinhauer's "The Nine Lives of Cat Videos" is another standout for its easy blend of erudition and conversationality. She cites John Berger's "Why Look at Animals?" and Pauline Kael's "Trash, Art, and the Movies," in which Kael offers the "simple, good distinction that all art is entertainment but not all entertainment is art," not to mention Guy Debord and Theodor Adorno as she muses on the distinction between that which distracts us and that which makes us think.
As is the case with the best creative nonfiction, these essayists allow room for ambivalence and ambiguity. The book is not afraid to be critical, touching on concerns about "catsploitation" and the fact that some people actually don't like cat videos, inclining instead to view them as insubstantial and time-wasting.
Editor Sarah Schultz's essay, which ends the book, though, leaves the reader with a positive assessment of the Internet Cat Video Festival that kicked this endeavor off: "After all, it isn't about watching cat videos. It is about watching cat videos together." There's something touching and hopeful in this affection for the chance to focus on what we share as opposed to what divides us, and that shared affection makes "Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong" a diverting read.
September 18, 2023
“Cat videos are the crystallization of all that human beings love about cats, the crux of which is centered in the fact that cats are both beautiful and absurd.”
1 Sentence Summary: A collection of essays about cats and cat videos.
My Thoughts: I found this at a used book sale and bought it because I’m obsessed with cats. The essays were actually pretty interesting! I’ll let the quotes speak for themselves.
It's all too easy to see how the sad idea of a vengeful God has taken hold throughout human history, our perilous situation and the mysteries of the cosmos being what they are. For if I were God, and I were to come back after a few millennia to see how the planet I had made was faring, and I found human beings had grown so senselessly cruel, so ignorant and destructive, and visited such ruin on their beautiful home, their fellow creatures, and on one another, I can well imagine wanting to smite them to pieces and send along a lot of frogs and locusts and boils and things to reckon with. Maybe even wipe them out completely for making such a godawful mess.
But even then—if, before I smote, I were to chance on a video of a cat riding placidly around on a Roomba? Then I believe I would have to spare the human race, keep the jury out, give another chance: forced as I would be, in the face of this incontrovertible evidence, to conclude that there was something in us still worth saving.
Aside from their philosophical function, and their function as an international language of friendship and fun, cat videos serve a number of other valuable purposes worth mentioning. A cat video is ideal for use as an olive branch after a dispute; it's the perfect undemanding and friendly hello to a distant friend, intimate without being intrusive. The cat video can lend a welcome note of silliness to lighten the tone of a flirtation, or to express a bit of mirth to a grouchy coworker. They make every message to which they are appended feel softer, lighter, easier.
In loving animals, our simpler, sweeter selves come out. We're reduced to our most generous gerunds: feeding, playing, petting, and loving. We're beings, just being, just so. The world needs more cat videos.
Recommend to: cat-lovers:)
(Warnings: swearing)
May 28, 2016
Mostly interesting essays but read this only if you're really into cat videos.
October 8, 2019
The internet is a cat park.
My cat treads through your bedroom digitally. The cat itself is not aware of this.
Cats may be solitary, but we humans find safety in numbers.
Cuteness does not pause and rest content.
In chasing the cat’s exquisite not-need, we allow ourselves to need.
My cat treads through your bedroom digitally. The cat itself is not aware of this.
Cats may be solitary, but we humans find safety in numbers.
Cuteness does not pause and rest content.
In chasing the cat’s exquisite not-need, we allow ourselves to need.
September 18, 2015
❤️❤️❤️❤️ (will these hearts show up on the site?)
Sweet and thoughtful collection of essays about why cat videos have become a thing.
Sweet and thoughtful collection of essays about why cat videos have become a thing.
January 14, 2026
soooooo 2015, felt like such a time capsule. there were some essays i really enjoyed towards the beginning, but got kinda bored as it went on. just really niche topics with unclear theses. that's kinda on me though cause this was a super random read and it's definitely aimed at a very niche audience. funny af and still glad i read! full transparency i skipped one of the essays cause it was just so dull...
i would give a 2.5 if i could instead of 3 but alas
i would give a 2.5 if i could instead of 3 but alas
December 16, 2015
OK, I admit it--the title and cover of this book were mainly my reason for taking it out of the library. Unfortunately, it didn't reward my initial attraction.
A series of essays about cat videos and the reasons for their popularity on YouTube, only a few had interesting information or ideas. Actually, the only one I can now recall talked about the history of cats in cartoons. I did not know that Felix the cat led indirectly to the creation of Mickey Mouse, nor how subversive and wildly popular Felix was for many years.
I also remember David Carr's somewhat irritating homage to the superiority of dogs, in which he points out that a large enough house cat would gladly eat any human, while conveniently forgetting that "domesticated" dogs attack and kill humans, especially small humans, on a regular basis.
But he (and I) digress.
I think the book is meant to illuminate the way humans now interact with each other over the internet instead of in person, and how cat videos are one avenue of connection. I'm not a big fan of YouTube myself, except when searching for music I just remembered that I wanted to hear. So the appeal of cat videos is lost on me, even though I really enjoy watching cats in real life.
It may just be that I'm the wrong audience for these essays...but I still think the title has great possibilities.
A series of essays about cat videos and the reasons for their popularity on YouTube, only a few had interesting information or ideas. Actually, the only one I can now recall talked about the history of cats in cartoons. I did not know that Felix the cat led indirectly to the creation of Mickey Mouse, nor how subversive and wildly popular Felix was for many years.
I also remember David Carr's somewhat irritating homage to the superiority of dogs, in which he points out that a large enough house cat would gladly eat any human, while conveniently forgetting that "domesticated" dogs attack and kill humans, especially small humans, on a regular basis.
But he (and I) digress.
I think the book is meant to illuminate the way humans now interact with each other over the internet instead of in person, and how cat videos are one avenue of connection. I'm not a big fan of YouTube myself, except when searching for music I just remembered that I wanted to hear. So the appeal of cat videos is lost on me, even though I really enjoy watching cats in real life.
It may just be that I'm the wrong audience for these essays...but I still think the title has great possibilities.
October 5, 2015
I admittedly skimmed some of the essays contained in this book, either due to lack of interest in a particular one or because it was too academic for my liking when it comes to pleasure reading. But what I did read was interesting and enjoyable. People talking about cats will always be of interest to me, and this was a neat way to interrogate our culture's obsession with cats.
April 22, 2016
Smart and fun.
August 30, 2017
Raise your hand if you think there are still not enough cat videos available online. This collection of essays discusses cat vids as art, cat vids as time wasters and everything else you can think of about cats and the videos we obsessively watch. Much of what can be said about cats also includes personal history, poetics, memes, Instagram, community, politics, celebrity and what makes a cat the cutest despots.
The idea for this book started with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and their Internet Cat Video Festival. The festival has been around for years now and shared with other museums. To the shock of all involved, the first festival was a huge hit and each subsequent very well attended.
Lets face it, in addition to ruling the internet, cats also pretty much rule the world!
The idea for this book started with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and their Internet Cat Video Festival. The festival has been around for years now and shared with other museums. To the shock of all involved, the first festival was a huge hit and each subsequent very well attended.
Lets face it, in addition to ruling the internet, cats also pretty much rule the world!
November 2, 2018
Half of the essays were fun and lighthearted, the other half tried too hard. If Goodreads had a half rating, this would have been a 2.5
February 12, 2021
More like 'Cat Is Boring Written Badly.' What the essays lack in wit is more than made up in self-indulgent musings. Literary without being literate.
December 1, 2016
This is one of these very tough to rate kind of books. It's essentially a series of essays on the topic of the popularity of cat videos on the Internet. If that seems like a bit of a niche target, it is. The essays range from comedic stories about cats to well-researched articles with citations discussing the relationship between cat videos and art.
As you can expect with this sort of mix, I found some of the articles interesting or amusing or enjoyable, while others were sort of like reading chapters four and five of your textbook for the next class.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't really captivating in the way a good novel or really good nonfiction book is. That said, if you like cats, if you are interested in art, or if you have an interest in that philosophical discussion about "what is art?", then this may be a good read for you!
As you can expect with this sort of mix, I found some of the articles interesting or amusing or enjoyable, while others were sort of like reading chapters four and five of your textbook for the next class.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't really captivating in the way a good novel or really good nonfiction book is. That said, if you like cats, if you are interested in art, or if you have an interest in that philosophical discussion about "what is art?", then this may be a good read for you!
December 16, 2015
This book, the result of a Kickstarter (adorably called "CatStarter", and with a full page listing the names of donors in the shape of a cat) campaign, is a collection of essays about why we can't stop watching cat videos on the internet. Some funny, some serious, some personal essays, and some academic journal-worthy, they are all full of joy and wonder at the cultural phenomenon that is internet cat videos. I doubt that you will ever read another book with as many references to cats in shark costumes riding roombas, chasing ducklings as this one has. Now, I really want to go to Minneapolis for next year's CatVidFest!
September 7, 2015
Thoughtful, engaging essays that effortlessly combine the high and the low, referencing Derrida and Manet in one breath and Lil BUB and I Can Has Cheezburger in the next. Some essays take a more analytic approach while others remain in a narrative mode. While there is some overlap of ideas, generally each author takes the prompt of 'cat video' in a unique enough direction to prevent the topic from getting repetitive and stale. Even if you are not a cat video aficionado, you'll enjoy these forays into pop culture analysis.
October 30, 2015
Certainly not what I expected...which was more science, psychology, philosophy...there was a lot of opinion, critical attitude and maybe my humor is off, but a couple of the essays were not comfortable to find in a book one is expecting to be an enjoyable read for cat lovers. There are enough sharp, interesting essays however to have been worth the time, a good amount of intelligent observation, and some fun or curious historical influences.
December 28, 2015
A Kickstartered book of loosely-connected essays on cats, cat videos, art and internet culture. Essays range from delightful and breezy to eye-rollingly academic. Mostly pretty enjoyable with lots of good insights and clever ideas, but as a sum total it amounts to less than its parts; like an afternoon spent watching cat videos, it's not a self-evidently productive use of time.
May 26, 2016
This is a great little volume on art criticism for people who are intimidated by art criticism because this book is about cat videos. The premise sounds ridiculous, but it's an interesting exploration of what art means in the time of internet cat videos.
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