We all have our own ways of dealing with frustration. Some of us meditate, some of us drink peach schnaps until we can see in infrared, some of us go for long walks and some of us climb bell towers and fire an Uzi into a tightly packed crowd of tourists. For the more creatively minded, it can sometimes be helpful to circumvent that frustration into something that channels that creativity. H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds because he was agitated about the increasing xenophobia and imperialism present in the UK at that time (and to have an excuse to level some of his least favourite British townships), Michael Stipe penned ‘Bad Day’ after being ambushed by paparazzi at his front door and basically every film Ken Loach has made since Cathy Come Home has been inspired by some kind of social injustice.
Some things cut far deeper than issues like that. Some things cut to the very core of what it means to human, they tear at our brains and shriek through our bodies like thrashing wraiths molded from sheer outrage. Such is the driving force behind My Garbage Cat Wakes Me Up At 3AM Every Day. Courtesy of developer, animator, cartoonist and BuzzFeed creative director Will Herring, this ingenious, dangerously evocative browser game has you playing as a cat roving around its master’s bedroom at 3 in the fucking morning. As the cat you have the ability to jump around (thereby knocking shit over), yowl like an Ewok on heat and knead like you’re making a hearty loaf of screw you. This is powerful stuff right here.
The internet has no shortage of cats, if you were to write a storybook about online culture it would likely be titled ‘Of Cats and Trolls’, or similar, but there isn’t much to really reflect what cat ownership is like. Cats are bastards, at the best of times. I share a house with two of the damn things, one of them greeted me this morning with a small puddle of sick on my office chair and the other one follows me around all day trying to replicate Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in meows. Badly. I’ve been woken at stupid o’clock in the morning by both of them before, whether it be through incessant caterwauling (I thought I was being clever there but it turns out that’s exactly where that word comes from), pushing all the books off my shelf trying to reach the window sill or deciding that perching on top of me and sinking claws into my shoulder is in any way affectionate. Herring clearly knows my pain and he’s redirected it beautifully.
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