The Internet Is for Cats

The Internet Is for Cats PDF Author: Jessica Maddox
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978827911
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
LOLCats. Grumpy cat. Dog rating Twitter. Pet Instagram accounts. It's generally understood the internet is for pictures of cute cats (and dogs, and otters, and pandas), but how did this come to be, and how are images of pets and animals unique online social practices? In this important and engaging book, The Internet is for Cats, Jessica Maddox provides a social framework for thinking about an outrageously popular cultural phenomenon: pets and animals online. She examines how these images help make digital spaces lighthearted and fun, as well as how these images function as relieving distractions from other aspects of life. However, we cannot speak of relief or distractions without also discussing what we need relief and distractions from. Combining insights from cultural studies and Internet studies, as well as interviews, textual work, and observation, Maddox offers an entirely new approach to pets and animals on the Internet, arguing the Internet may be for cats, but the cats are also for social practices.

A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet

A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet PDF Author: E.J. White
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503614034
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
This cultural history reveals how cats became the undisputed mascot of the internet—“an essential look at life online” (Ryan Milner, author of The World Made Meme). Journalists and their readers seem to need no explanation for the line, “The internet is made of cats.” Everyone understands the joke, but few know how it started. A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet is the first book to explore the history of how the cat became the internet’s best friend. Internet cats can differ in dramatic ways, from the goth cats of Twitter to the glamourpusses of Instagram to the giddy, nonsensical silliness of Nyan Cat. But they all share common traits and values. Bringing together fun anecdotes, thoughtful analyses, and hidden histories of the communities that built the internet, Elyse White shows how japonisme, punk culture, cute culture, and the battle among different communities for the soul of the internet informed the sensibility of online felines. Internet cats offer a playful and useful way to understand how culture shapes—and is shaped by—technology. Western culture has used cats for centuries as symbols of darkness, pathos, and alienation. The communities that helped build the internet represented themselves as outsiders, with snark and alienation at the core of their identity. Thus cats became the sine qua non of cultural literacy for the Extremely Online, as well as an everyday medium of expression for the rest of us. Whatever direction the internet takes next, the “series of tubes” is likely to remain cat-shaped.

How to Make Your Cat an Internet Celebrity

How to Make Your Cat an Internet Celebrity PDF Author: Patricia Carlin
Publisher: Quirk Books
ISBN: 1594746842
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
A “genuinely hilarious guide” that parodies get-rich-quick self-help tricks while celebrating the brightest stars on the internet (Washington Post). From creating funny viral videos to managing ‘diva’ behavior, this is the cat lover’s blueprint for achieving financial freedom with their one-of-a-kind feline friend. The Internet offers an unprecedented opportunity for cats to become superstar “personalities” with revenue-generating multimedia brands—but only if you know how to cash in. With How to Make Your Cat an Internet Celebrity, readers can unlock the secrets to: • grooming your kitty for success • creating a terrific viral video • managing your cat’s burgeoning stardom • and much more! Packed with practical tips and helpful diagrams, this indispensable resource shows how ordinary housecats can follow in the venerable pawprints of the Internet’s brightest stars.

Internet for Cats

Internet for Cats PDF Author: Judy Heim
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Following in the footsteps of French for Cats, 101 Uses for a Dead Cat, and other bestselling cat-oriented humor titles, Internet for Cats is a combination of fact (there are cat-related sites on the Internet) and fantasy (what would it be like if one's cat actually used the Net). Includes screen shots from the Net and 20 original cartoons.

CATTITUDE

CATTITUDE PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781338111484
Category : Cats
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"The planet's smartest, cutest and sassiest cats online! OK: Boo might be the cutest dog on the web, but now cats are fighting back. These fluffy bundles of cattitude know they've got true catwalk style. No way are dogs stealing their cute crown! Oh, and forget about famous human internet celebs like Zoella. The real internet royalty has four paws, a tail and a loud purr. Meet the web's coolest cats, check their profiles, see their best tricks and fall ouch-hard in love with them. Plus: laugh at the funniest ever lolcats. Ha ha miaow!"--

The Internet Is for Cats

The Internet Is for Cats PDF Author: Jessica Maddox
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978827911
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
LOLCats. Grumpy cat. Dog rating Twitter. Pet Instagram accounts. It's generally understood the internet is for pictures of cute cats (and dogs, and otters, and pandas), but how did this come to be, and how are images of pets and animals unique online social practices? In this important and engaging book, The Internet is for Cats, Jessica Maddox provides a social framework for thinking about an outrageously popular cultural phenomenon: pets and animals online. She examines how these images help make digital spaces lighthearted and fun, as well as how these images function as relieving distractions from other aspects of life. However, we cannot speak of relief or distractions without also discussing what we need relief and distractions from. Combining insights from cultural studies and Internet studies, as well as interviews, textual work, and observation, Maddox offers an entirely new approach to pets and animals on the Internet, arguing the Internet may be for cats, but the cats are also for social practices.

Animal Internet

Animal Internet PDF Author: Alexander Pschera
Publisher: New Vessel Press
ISBN: 1939931355
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
"Animal Internet is a most important book. This excellent work could be a strong catalyst for people to rewild, to reconnect and become re-enchanted with all sorts of mysterious and fascinating animals, both local and distant. By shrinking the world it will bring humans and other animals together in a multitude of ways that only a few years ago were unimaginable." —Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, author of Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence "An original book that goes against the trend to stubbornly keep nature and technology divided from one another."—Der Spiegel "Animal Internet is one of the most interesting books that I've read in recent years."—Bavarian Radio "What Pschera describes sounds futuristic but it's already widespread reality . . . Pschera's book is not just popular science: he describes not only the status quo, but also thinks about an ongoing transformation."—Wired.de Some fifty thousand creatures around the globe—including whales, leopards, flamingoes, bats, and snails—are being equipped with digital tracking devices. The data gathered and studied by major scientific institutes about their behavior will warn us about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also radically transform our relationship to the natural world. With a broad cultural and historical perspective, this book examines human ties with animals, from domestic pets to the soaring popularity of bird watching and kitten images on the web. Will millennia of exploration soon be reduced to experiencing wilderness via smartphone? Contrary to pessimistic fears, author Alexander Pschera sees the Internet as creating a historic opportunity for a new dialogue between man and nature. Foreword by Martin Wikelski, Director, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology Alexander Pschera, born in 1964, has published several books on the internet and media. He studied German, music, and philosophy at Heidelberg University. He lives near Munich where he writes for the German magazine Cicero as well as for German radio.

IRL

IRL PDF Author: Chris Stedman
Publisher: Broadleaf Books
ISBN: 1506463525
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
What Does "IRL (In Real Life)" Really Mean in Today's Digital Age? It's easy and reflexive to view our online presence as fake, to see the internet as a space we enter when we aren't living our real, offline lives. Yet so much of who we are and what we do now happens online, making it hard to know which parts of our lives are real IRL, Chris Stedman's personal and searing exploration of authenticity in the digital age, shines a light on how age-old notions of realness--who we are and where we fit in the world--can be freshly understood in our increasingly online lives. Stedman offers a different way of seeing the supposed split between our online and offline selves: the internet and social media are new tools for understanding and expressing ourselves, and the not-always-graceful ways we use these tools can reveal new insights into far older human behaviors and desires. IRL invites readers to consider how we use the internet to fulfill the essential human need to feel real--a need many of us once met in institutions, but now seek to do on our own, online--as well as the ways we edit or curate ourselves for digital audiences. The digital search for meaning and belonging presents challenges, Stedman suggests, but also myriad opportunities to become more fully human. In the end, he makes a bold case for embracing realness in all of its uncertainty, online and off, even when it feels risky.

Because Internet

Because Internet PDF Author: Gretchen McCulloch
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735210950
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.

Purrieties of Language

Purrieties of Language PDF Author: Edith Podhovnik
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108911145
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
After conquering the Internet, cats are now taking on linguistics! Since the advent of social media, cats have become a topic central to online communication, and the multitude of cat-related accounts now online has made this a world-wide phenomenon. Through cat-inspired varieties of language, we have developed a genre of cat-inspired vocabulary. And on our special social media accounts for our cats, we take on their identities, as we post, write, talk, and chat - as our feline friends. This innovative book provides linguistic analyses of the cyber 'Cativerse', exploring online language variation, and explaining key linguistic concepts – all through the lens of cat-related communication. Each chapter explores a different sociolinguistic phenomena, drawing on fun and engaging examples including memes, hashtags, captions and 'LOLcats', from platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Innovative yet accessible, it is catnip for all 'hoomans' interested in how language is used online.

Memes to Movements

Memes to Movements PDF Author: An Xiao Mina
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 080705660X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
A global exploration of internet memes as agents of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on- and offline, and how they will save or destroy us all. Memes are the street art of the social web. Using social media–driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today’s politics. She finds that the “silly” stuff of meme culture—the photo remixes, the selfies, the YouTube songs, and the pun-tastic hashtags—are fundamentally intertwined with how we find and affirm one another, direct attention to human rights and social justice issues, build narratives, and make culture. Mina finds parallels, for example, between a photo of Black Lives Matter protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, raising their hands in a gesture of resistance and one from eight thousand miles away, in Hong Kong, of Umbrella Movement activists raising yellow umbrellas as they fight for voting rights. She shows how a viral video of then presidential nominee Donald Trump laid the groundwork for pink pussyhats, a meme come to life as the widely recognized symbol for the international Women’s March. Crucially, Mina reveals how, in parts of the world where public dissent is downright dangerous, memes can belie contentious political opinions that would incur drastic consequences if expressed outright. Activists in China evade censorship by critiquing their government with grass mud horse pictures online. Meanwhile, governments and hate groups are also beginning to utilize memes to spread propaganda, xenophobia, and misinformation. Botnets and state-sponsored agents spread them to confuse and distract internet communities. On the long, winding road from innocuous cat photos, internet memes have become a central practice for political contention and civic engagement. Memes to Movements unveils the transformative power of memes, for better and for worse. At a time when our movements are growing more complex and open-ended—when governments are learning to wield the internet as effectively as protestors—Mina brings a fresh and sharply innovative take to the media discourse.