A Tale of Two Kitties: How Cats and Porn Rule the Internet

When historians look back at the 21st century, the Internet might be narrowed down to two traits: cats and porn.

As popular blog BuzzFeed.com reports, cat stories routinely attract roughly 9,000 page views on average whereas dogs only get just over half of that figure. Other estimates show felines to be four times more viral online than their canine counterparts. While no one really knows the precise number, cat food company Friskies claims as much as 15 per cent of all Internet traffic is cat-related, leading to the rise of Cat Pack celebs like Grumpy Cat, the late Col. Meow and Hamilton the Hipster Cat (they even have their own agents). Indeed, lolcats can haz Internet to paraphrase the meme that started it all.

Online porn, on the other hand, bests kitties as the Internet’s top obsession. A widely quoted article on ExtremeTech.com estimates 30 per cent of web traffic is pornographic. While that outsized number is partly a reflection of the amount of bandwidth generated by video streaming and repeated visits, CovenantEyes.com reported 2.5 billion searches for porn in 2013 with nearly one-fifth coming from smartphones. A $3 billion industry in the U.S. alone, the glut of (mostly free) online porn has contributed to a 50 per cent decline in the global adult content market since 2007. As Damon Brown, author of Playboy’s Greatest Covers, wrote: “It seems obvious: if we invent a machine, the first thing we are going to do – after making a profit – is use it to watch porn.”

With the mainstream-ization of online adult content, a picture of consumer habits is taking shape. Ogi Ogas, co-author of A Billion Wicked Thoughts, recently wrote in Psychology Today there are two basic truths about women and porn: (1) most of them don’t like it; and (2) those who do tend to have the same taste as men. While there are erotica websites like ForTheGirls.com that cater to women, those sites generate less than 1/100th the amount that top male-targeted porn sites do. In fact, standard porn sites typically attract 50 to 100 times more women than female-targeted sites according to Ogas. The vast majority of U.S. women online (80 to 92 per cent) don’t visit porn sites at all whereas 70 per cent of men aged 18-34 do, according to SafeFamilies.org.

Other patterns are starting to emerge from the vast data surrounding porn. In its annual year-in-review analysis, prominent Montreal-based adult network PornHub.com made interesting discoveries about how we consume scantily clad web content, including:

– Canadians use porn to stay warm on cold winter nights. Like our American cousins, the busiest month for surfing porn is January whereas the least is August.

– Monday is the most common day for watching porn. The least popular is Saturday when we’re likely getting real-world action.

– North Americans last longer.Canadian and U.S. web surfers spend longer time viewing porn on their computers each visit – just over 10 and half minutes. Next up are Britons, Germans, French and Italians.

– Within Canada, British Columbians and Quebecers take the least amount of time to get their clicks.

– The Walking Dead, Season 3 Finale, was the top TV reason why people briefly stopped watching porn last year.

– New Year’s Eve is the holiday with the least porn consumption, followed by Christmas and Canada Day (with Manitobans having the most “patriotic” libidos). And unsurprisingly, Zoomer porn is a growing niche, led by Japan where one in five citizens is over 65 (it’ll be 40 per cent by 2055). Symbolized by veteran star, 74-year-old Shigeo Tokuda, the “elder porn” (and “mature women”) genre in Japan has doubled since the late ’90s. Given that 20 per cent of our population will be 65-plus by 2051, Canada will likely see a similar shift in pornographic tastes.

Given the popularity of cats and porn, it’s inevitable that someone would come up with a website combining both: BarelyFeral.tumblr.com. Don’t worry: it’s SFW (Safe For Work) – unless you’re a veterinarian.

McLean Greaves is the vice-president of interactive content for ZoomerMedia Ltd.

Zoomer magazine, April 2014.