The rapid development of AI technology is changing every aspect of our lives, but one thing seems to have remained the same – and that is people’s love for cats. This article will delve into how AI can be combined with cat culture to create a collection of amazing AI cat content. This content not only quickly became popular on social media, but also became a new wealth code, attracting a large number of creators and audiences.
Recently, you may have seen some interesting cat videos.
The protagonist is usually a very fat orange cat who is delivering food like a human, or rushes into the gym just after watching a movie and pretends to lose weight. These somewhat funny and cute “Big Orange Theaters”, with magical “meow” music, are spreading everywhere on Douyin, Xiaohongshu and TikTok.
If the “Big Orange Theater” is still imitating human joys, sorrows, sorrows, and joys, then another type of screen swiping video directly challenges the laws of physics. For example, the three-flower cat that completed a set of professional movements from the 10-meter platform in the Olympic Games. Its posture, flip, and entry into the water all look the same as the real thing. This made some netizens wonder if they were dazzled when they saw it for the first time.
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These videos are the hottest AI cat content right now. They probably have two paths. One is like the “Big Orange Theater”, adding an anthropomorphic plot to the cat, and the core is to tell a short story. Some have even developed into “pet short dramas” with continuous plots. For example, an AI fat orange cat named “Chubby” was arranged by the creator in various videos to “go to prison” and “be separated from children” tragic stories, earning enough tears from netizens around the world.
The other is a direct technology display, telling you how powerful AI is now. The diving cat is the best example. An overseas user named “Pablo Prompt” made a video, and after it was posted, he himself said “crazy” because the number of views on Instagram was rushing to 200 million.
These are not isolated cases, just look at the data.
A YouTube channel called Batysyr relied on 20 AI cat videos, which gained 770,000 followers and 100 million views in a month. Another channel, Cat channel 91, used to post real cat videos, and the playback volume was average. After switching to being an AI cat, 2 million new subscribers were added in a month, and the number of video views also jumped from tens of thousands to tens of millions.
There are also channels like AiCat7, which also increased by 1.27 million followers in 30 days.
The situation in China is the same, just search, you can see a large number of similar accounts, and there are thousands of likes.
Therefore, AI cats are not just fun, they have become a business that can quickly increase fans and attract attention.
01 AI cat, the new wealth code?
With such a popular video, it is natural that some people will want to use it to make money.
When I talked to a creator named An Sheng (pseudonym) on the AI new list, I got a very real answer.
Ansheng operates several AI cat accounts in batches on domestic and foreign platforms, including large accounts with millions of fans. He revealed that these accounts add up to bring him about 20,000 yuan a month.
Specifically, a TikTok video with 10 million views can be divided into about 1,200 to 2,000 yuan. Ansheng feels that this is already better than “entering the factory to drive screws”.
In addition to platform sharing, implanting advertisements for “AI pet short dramas” is also a method. An account called “LT Puppy Diary” advertised pet supplies and even Thai boat noodle sauce in its short drama. When Silicon Star contacted TikTok AI orange cat video blogger @orange.cat899, who has millions of followers, and asked about the production process, the other party’s answer revealed a more direct monetization model: “I will charge for the production process.” ”
Where there is money, it is usually accompanied by chaos. As more and more people flock in, something called “AI Slop” (AI inferior content) emerges.
To put it simply: the purpose of mass-producing a large number of low-quality, homogeneous content with AI is not to look good, but to cater to algorithms and deceive traffic. This is reminiscent of the “Shrimp Jesus” that flooded Facebook before – using AI to generate bizarre combination images of various Jesus and shrimp, although inexplicable, it really got a lot of views.
In the trend of AI cats, what is even more exaggerated is that some people also take advantage of this popularity to issue cryptocurrencies. A cat-themed meme coin called “Book of Meow” is using AI cat videos for marketing.
Why are these AI cat videos popular now? And, Why is the protagonist a cat again?
Behind this is not actually a reason, but technology and culture meet together, and a “perfect chemical reaction” occurs.
First of all, why now? The answer is that AI technology has finally reached an interesting tipping point.
These videos, which are now on fire, successfully combine a “pleasant sense of absurdity” and “shocking realism”. As Silicon Star learned when communicating with the owner of @orange.cat899, many times the source of creativity is very simple: “The topic is not what you think, but what you look at your peers.” The creators captured this “absurd + real” hit formula and quickly copied it.
What supports this formula being replicated on a large scale is an unprecedented low threshold. These videos that are played tens of millions of times may only cost a few dozen dollars.
With the popularity of AI drawing tools such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, as well as AI video platforms such as Keling and Pika, the threshold for creation has been repeatedly lowered. A typical process has been figured out by players: first write the script with ChatGPT and DeepSeek, then use AI drawing tools to generate the protagonist, then “draw a video” with one click, and finally use editing with music special effects. The whole process, even if you are a novice, can learn it by watching a tutorial in an hour.
But the low threshold only makes imitation easy, and what really makes these videos hot is the technological breakthrough of AI. It is no longer a simple “picture to be drawn”, but begins to simulate the laws of physics decently – knowing how to splash water and how to flip the body in the air. Technology companies themselves clearly understand this. Kuaishou intends to use its own Keling to create a cat content ecology. The official will post some well-made “worker cat” and “fitness cat” videos, which are not only to show off muscles, but also to provide users with templates to imitate.
For AI companies like MiniMax, the explosion of “cat diving” is a perfect case of viral marketing, turning technical capabilities into a market reputation known all over the world without bloodshed, and technology media TechRadar even suggested that competitors such as Google “look at what MiniMax is doing”.
02 Why a cat again?
The next question, why a cat again? It is no accident that AI can become the first “super Internet celebrity” in the AI era. As the owner of @orange.cat899 said, “This kind of video has always been popular”, and AI has just borrowed the “cat film worship” of the Internet for decades.
There are several psychological reasons behind this affection. One is called “childishness continues”, which means that cats look very much like babies, which can trigger our instinct to “feel cute”. Moreover, cats’ expressions are always mysterious, which makes them “the perfect canvas for projecting human emotions”. If you think it’s sad, it’s sad; You think it’s funny, it’s funny. This is why the stories of “struggling kittens” and “emo kittens” can easily make us empathize.
Technically, choosing a cat is a very smart strategy. The most critical point is to avoid the “uncanny valley effect”. Even if it is “just a little bit” when AI generates a human face, it will be noticeable, but our brain is not so picky about the details of the cat’s face. With cats as the protagonists, AI companies can showcase their technology without risking “scaring away” users. Another advantage is the massive data dividend. The decades of “cat sucking history” of the Internet have saved a huge training database for AI.
So you see, the popularity of AI cats is the result of a combination of careful calculation and cultural inertia.
So what does all this mean? This is not just an AI company showing off its muscles, nor is it just a carnival for netizens. The popularity of AI cats is more like a clear signal, the most cutting-edge technology, if you want to really enter the public, you must ultimately know how to cater to the oldest and most simple human emotions.
In the final analysis, AI-generated cats are still a mirror of human emotions. Whether it is the cool plot of the “struggle kitten” counterattack, or the grievances of the “emo kitten” being bullied by life, what we empathize with is actually our own shadow. What AI cats carry is human desire and narrative after all.
These AI cats are actually a large-scale, gentle social experiment. It uses the cutest and least aggressive way to adapt us to the future of AIGC in advance. When we like and comment on these furry virtual creatures, we are actually unknowingly accustomed to an era where everything can be generated and defined by AI.
A netizen said in the comments: “I can’t let my brothers know that I cried for this.” But is it embarrassing to shed tears for AI cats? Being amused by AI cats, is this low-level? No, it’s human.
