It’s a bit weird and it doesn’t have to do with other atrocious stuff on that website, but I noticed this a lot.
Cats are basically the official animals of reddit, even more so than the doggos, they are literally everywhere and it’s getting annoying, it’s not just reddit either, but most of the social media, cat literally does nothing, looks at camera and they post it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against cats, but why cats 24/7, why not some other animals like bears, monkes, crows, wolves, whales, dolphins, foxes, lizards etc? We have rodents here for example.
Idk what’s the reason for this but maybe I’m a bit biased because I like other animals more, but I’d like to know why is this, I’m interested.
Because of three primary reasons
They are fucking adorable at all stages of life.
We can own them.
Relatively easy to care for.
1 and 3 are your competitive reasons. If any animal were to meet these criteria more efficiently than a cat, and still be ownable by humans, then they would become the new masters of the internet but none do. Dogs are great but dogs take way more work. They are needy and sometimes people need to be alone and most dogs do not ever want to be away from their people. Also most dog breeds loose their adorability as they mature. Still cute sure, but does not hold onto as well as cats. In the end, for the average person that just wants a companion animal that is easy to take care of, intelligent enough to form its own personality, and can be left alone without developing crippling anxiety, cats just outperform all other animals.
Also they are the perfect pets to have into the small cubicles people are generally force to live in urban centers.
Well that’s the thing, to be ownable by humans, beside that except dogs, birds and rodents which can be owned by humans, there a lot cooler and better animals, including them:
Dogs obviously-our best friend
Bears-cute and powerful
Crows and ravens-one of the smartest
Apes-closest to us
Birds and reptiles-literal living dinosaurs
Snakes-cute, especially non-venomous ones
Rodents-cute and funny, sometimes fluffy
Orcas-most powerful and one of the smartest
Dolphins-same as orca just smol and funny
Wolves-smart and badass
Foxes-very funny
Being cool or “better” does not matter as these are not only only opinion based but irrelevant to the criteria. The internet will be most populated with images of what people own because that is what is available to them. Cats outcompete all other pets for the criteria of what makes a good, easy to cares for, and lovable pet,. Thus more people will own and become attached to them. People love posting pictures of their pets, thus cats win the internet. It’s that simple.
What about birds, hamsters/bunnies and reptiles tho? They are even easier to own.
None of these are easier than a cat to care for and none outcompete for cuteness. Bunnies are close to as cute but part of being cute for pets is also being intelligent, curious, and playful, which cats outcompete bunnies on. All of these things require cages that must be cleaned. Of the three only one of those animals can be safety potty trained, the bunny, and still it takes work to do it. A cat will use a litterbox almost instinctively. Most people don’t like owning birds majorly because of the need to clean the cage so much and that it feels cruel to cage a flying animal in general. Cleaning cages is at minimum a weekly exercise that is more work than simply scooping out soiled cat litter or just dumping out the whole bin of liter and replacing. Cages have to be washed and put back together in a manner the animal can actually live inside it. Additionally none of these can produce the same level of affection as a cat nor can be played with as easily or at all. You can train some birds to come to you, bunnies can be somewhat affectionate, neither of them match a cat. If you let a hamster out it will run away and unless you put in some serious training, probably never make it back to their cage because they are about the dumbest mammalian pet you can get.
This is not saying these are “bad” pets, but your question is why cat pictures are more prevalent than other pets and animals. This is why. They are superior pets as a whole based on those criteria. If this wasn’t the case and there was a more superior pet then that’s the pet that would prevail on the internet.