Type of site | Satirical |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Country of origin | Poland |
Owner | Paul Neve |
Founder(s) | Koos Plegt Paul Neve |
URL | www |
Commercial | No |
Launched | 2006 |
Cats That Look Like Hitler is a satirical website featuring photographs of cats resembling Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945. [1] Such cats are often referred to as kitler on the Internet. [2] Most of the cats are piebald, with a large black splotch underneath its nose, much like the dictator's toothbrush moustache, and other features that suggest a typically stern expression. Some have diagonal black patches on their heads resembling Hitler's fringe. The site was founded by Koos Plegt and Paul Neve in 2006 [3] and became widely known after being featured on several television programmes across Europe [3] [4] [5] and Australia. [6] The site was later run only by Neve. By February 2013 he had approved photographs of over 7,500 cats. [7] The website has not been updated since April 2014.
Stephen Colbert mentioned the site on The Colbert Report in July 2010. [8] The site was commonly referenced in the now defunct Australian gaming magazine Total Gamer and has become well known in New Zealand since it was mentioned on the Edge Nightshow by Brad Wattson that his cat 'Piggles' was the No. 1 "kitler" (kitty Hitler) in the world. The site was also mentioned fleetingly in The Social Network . [9]
Cats are a popular staple of Internet culture, and Cats That Look Like Hitler can be considered an offshoot of a broader cultural fascination with cats on the Internet. In 2011, The Daily Telegraph reported on a "kitler" that was unable to find adoption due to its facial resemblance to the dictator. [10]
Writer for The Times , Ben Machell, has interviewed the owners of sensational cats such as those on the site and has come up with various possible explanations for the creation and popularity of cats on the Internet, including Cats That Look Like Hitler. Machell mentions the cat's mysterious nature and personality as a perfect target for projecting personality and emotion on, and recalls the worship of cats by the ancient Egyptians. [11]
A meteorologist at Kansas City's news station, KCTV5, apologized after featuring a cat that looked like Hitler, also named "Kitler", during a segment called "Caturday" which features photos of local cats submitted by viewers along with the weather update. [12]
A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times of emergency. Like the terms "tyrant" and "autocrat", dictator came to be used almost exclusively as a non-titular term for oppressive rule. In modern usage the term dictator is generally used to describe a leader who holds or abuses an extraordinary amount of personal power.
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The toothbrush moustache is a style of moustache in which the sides are vertical, often approximating the width of the nose and visually resembling the bristles on a toothbrush. First becoming popular in the United States in the late 19th century, it later spread to Germany and elsewhere. Comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Oliver Hardy popularized it, reaching its heyday during the interwar years. By the end of World War II, the association with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler made it unfashionable, leading to it being colloquially termed the "Hitler moustache".
YTMND, an initialism for "You're the Man Now, Dog", is an online community centered on the creation of hosted memetic web pages featuring a juxtaposition of an image centered or tiled along with optional large zooming text and a looping sound file. Images and sound files used in YTMNDs are usually either created or edited by users. YTMND is generally considered to be a humor website, owing its tone and culture to the original YTMND and its early imitators.
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