On Internet Cats & Existential Dread

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Every morning of my workweek, I start my day by Googling “YouTube Merv the Cat.” I know this doesn’t make me sound like a stellar employee, but I work hard, and Merv brings me joy. Recently, I’ve been following up my Merv check-ins with another Google search: “YouTube Barong the Cat.” 

If you’re unfamiliar, Merv (aka Mervin Cumberland Weems) is a particularly vocal Siamese cat with a penchant for mischief and an enduring love for a man named Charles. Barong (aka The Fastest Running Cat in Indonesia) is an exceptionally fluffy, orange cat with a penchant for sprinting. They aren’t the first internet cats I’ve obsessed over — Ari the Panther, whose best friend is an almond; and the late, great, Thurston Waffles who fancied being walked like a dog, still bring me joy — but Mother Algorithm served me Merv and Barong when I needed internet cats to obsess over more than ever before. 

As many Americans can attest to, things aren’t going great in my country right now. Under the current administration, food safety is seemingly a thing of the past, the cost of living feels impossible, women are dying because they can’t obtain safe abortions, American tax dollars continue to fund brutality in Gaza, and the United States is yet again fighting a war most of its people don’t support.  

Things aren’t going particularly well globally, either. The Earth is on track to exceed the “grim milestone” of 1.5°C of global warming, and companies like Anthropic and OpenAI continue to develop artificial intelligence unhindered by significant guardrails. 

The potential for existential dread is high, and despite a lifetime of surviving false alarms, (Y2K and the end of the Maya calendar) promised terrors that fortunately never came to pass, (the second coming of Christ and my own gnarly martyrdom) and substantial trauma on both a personal and a communal level (intimate partner violence and Covid-19) I’m not immune to it. I’m freaked out, and I’ll take joy and peace wherever I can find them. Lately, two of the places I’ve been finding them are on the YouTube channels of Merv and Barong. 

Cheesy as it may sound, I’ve also been finding peace and joy in the small actions I can take (and observe) that foster community. When I tip generously, it feels like community. (When I discover the person ahead of me in the Starbucks drive-through line has paid for my order, that also feels like community.) When I feed and water the cats living in the brush by my local Kroger, it feels like community. (When I notice someone else has beaten me to it, that also feels like community.) When I buy kitty litter for my own cats and I choose the brand packaged in biodegradable cardboard instead of the brand packaged in plastic, it feels like community. (When I recently learned my coworker recycles their cardboard in a region where recycling isn’t easy to access, that also felt like community.) When I text a friend a short video of Merv or Barong because I know it’ll brighten their day, it feels like community. (When my siblings text me podcast episodes about wildlife encounters because they know I’ll enjoy them, that also feels like community.) 

Lions and domesticated cats like Merv and Barong aside, most cat species thrive in solitude. Beyond the point of raising their cubs, big cats (again excluding lions) aren’t pack animals because they don’t need to be. Humans, however, very much are pack animals, and we very much need to be.  As a species, we’ve survived, and sometimes thrived, for millennia for two reasons: we’re adaptable as hell, and we have each other. If we’re going to survive the future, much less find a way to thrive in it, we’re going to have to do it together. I’m not entirely sure what that needs to look like on a global scale — I’m not a policy maker or a world leader — but I have a feeling fostering community in the little ways accessible to us can only help. I have a feeling refusing to despair can only help as well, and one of the ways I’ll be doing that for the foreseeable future is by watching Merv and Barong.