0:00

Yaw! Can you say "mau"?

0:03

Okay, I guess Mandarin may be a little tough as your first foreign language.

0:08

Maybe Japanese. Let's see if you can do it Snug.

0:12

Can you say "nyan"? Oh my god, that's really good!

0:16

Folks, Snuggles can speak English and Japanese.

0:23

Welcome back fellow cats and cat allies alike to 6 Degrees of Cats.

0:28

The world's best and only cat-themed culture, history and science podcast.

0:34

Okay, kind of. Snuggles can kind of speak Japanese.

0:38

How, you might ask me, Captain Kitty or Amanda, how can you possibly understand what she's

0:45

saying in Japanese?

0:48

Well folks, I lived in Japan.

0:52

And that's right, Japan.

0:58

For five years I lived and worked in a very beautiful, pretty rural community west of Tokyo.

1:01

And I spoke no Japanese when I got there.

1:05

I had no connection to anything or anybody Japanese.

1:09

Super random. Kind of unsurprising for me, I guess.

1:13

"You'll be fine," they said at the Japanese consulate.

1:17

Everyone studies English. You don't need to speak Japanese, they said.

1:22

So I figured, why the heck not?

1:24

These were after all my people, as in cat people.

1:29

Uncomfortable imperialistic history with my own mother country aside.

1:33

I saw Japan as a warm and welcoming island of those white, "maneki neko"s with their

1:39

little paws raised as to say, "Hey Amanda, here we are.

1:43

We've just been waiting for you."

1:47

Their hello kitty, also known as Kitty-chan, was joined by variations of the adorable cartoon

1:54

kitty animated by a national treasure, Hayao Miyazaki.

1:59

And so for my first ever international trip, I boarded the flight knowing only how to say

2:05

"Good morning," sake, sushi, toilet, and cat.

2:12

Of course.

2:16

Now as y'all know, I am not ethnically or culturally Japanese, but tell them that.

2:23

Now seriously, it's a great way to pick up the language, let me tell ya.

2:27

Even better? Or so I thought at the time, asking folks, "Neko ga suki desu ka" - "do you like cats?"

2:34

And this was when I got a rude awakening.

2:37

90% of the time, would you guess what the response was?

2:42

"No, I don't like cats."

2:47

"Cats are scary"

2:49

Yeah, kinda hate them.

2:53

For half my life, I was marooned in a rural state in North America, surrounded by soy

3:01

fields, apple orchards, and almost as many churches as people born of sturdy Germanic

3:08

stock.

3:11

And tons of dog people.

3:14

I think you can get a sense of my disappointment.

3:16

My lifelong mission of finding my people was not over.

3:21

I'm talking about cat people, or cat lovers.

3:25

Apropos of this alleged, commercialized season of love.

3:29

I ask you, my beloveds, the cat lovers among you listeners, the majority of you I think.

3:36

Who are we?

3:38

And how do we recognize each other?

3:43

So in this episode, we'll be updating our understanding of who cat people exactly are.

3:50

Show yourselves. Let's let those feline freak flags fly.

3:55

(That took so many takes).

4:03

About three years ago, a global study showed that worldwide cats tend to be more preferred,

4:09

well by some metrics than dogs.

4:12

And interestingly, one report I found said that in 91 countries, cats turned out to be more

4:19

popular than dogs.

4:21

Yes, dogs are more popular than cats in Japan.

4:26

So there's something going on with that branding.

4:30

My question is always, how is this data collected?

4:35

If I were collecting this data, we'd make it very unambiguous.

4:39

You can't just like cats to earn the title of cat person.

4:43

I like ice cream. I like naps, but I don't call myself an ice cream person or a nap person.

4:49

In fact, I think that's kind of what it's all about.

4:54

You must self identify as a cat lover.

4:58

I'd use a Likert scale of agreement with the phrase, "I love cats".

5:03

Key word, "love"

5:05

I'm not calling you a cat person if you'd like to anything, but strongly agree there.

5:11

Or identify as a cat.

5:15

There actually are people who could technically say they are cats.

5:21

I'm not joking here. My friend's brother is a cat.

5:25

I'm not talking about people who are like, biologically, chimeras between a cat and a human

5:30

or something. I'm talking about the lunar horoscopes associated with the lunar new year, which, incidentally,

5:39

just happened. Perfect timing.

5:41

Happy lunar new year.

5:46

So for the lunar new year zodiac following the lunar calendar, not the Gregorian calendar,

5:51

but that means it starts on the lunar new year in February, not January 1st.

5:57

There's a cycle of 12 animals under one of which falls your birth year.

6:02

There are dogs, tigers, rats, pigs, and dragons, even.

6:12

As well as the cat.

6:15

And I'm not talking about the tiger. I'm quite literally talking about felis catus.

6:20

"But wait", you might think, "I don't remember seeing a cat on those Chinese restaurant placemats

6:26

that we always had fun reading when I was a kid".

6:29

Well, Vietnam does include a cat in their horoscopes.

6:34

I'm going to let my friend, the one who I mentioned has a brother who's a cat, take it from

6:39

here. Remember AOL, user names?

6:42

My Yahoo messenger name was Viet Rapa.

6:45

I only want to tell you what my other user name is.

6:48

I'm Ivy Le with one e, and you can find me pretty much on all social media channels

6:53

at Ivy Le with one e.

6:55

And I actually spell that whole phrase out. Ivy Le with one e, because I think that's the one thing about me that will never change.

7:03

I am the host and creator of FOGO: Fear of going outside on Nature's show by the most reluctant

7:08

host ever. I think it should be noted that I'm not a nature person and run animal person.

7:13

Of course, like all individuals on this planet, Ivy doesn't speak for or

7:18

on behalf of the entire Vietnamese American community.

7:22

It just so happens that we are friends and her little brother is a cat, lucky me.

7:28

So back to that lunar new year, also known as the Chinese New Year if you're a Chinese

7:34

American or live in a Chinese dominant community or Solal in Korea.

7:39

They actually don't celebrate it in Japan.

7:42

So in Vietnamese we call it "Têt" and "Têt"" just means a new year.

7:46

You don't call it Chinese New Year, we just call it the new year.

7:49

So Texas -- oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Ivy is based in Texas.

7:53

Something people don't realize about Texas, we are the second largest population of Vietnamese

7:56

people in the United States after California.

7:59

But our school system did not have a lot of Vietnamese leadership when I was growing up

8:03

and still doesn't really. So when we would be kind of taught multicultural stuff in school, like in the 80s and 90s,

8:11

we were kind of trying to do this like melting pot, salad bowl, conception of multicultural

8:16

I had some really great teachers who wanted to be inclusive, yet a chapter about Kwanzaa,

8:20

yet a chapter about Chinese New Year and all this kind of stuff in school.

8:24

And it was so confusing to me because they did not have a cat on their calendar.

8:32

There was no Google, I couldn't just Google, "Okay, what's the Vietnamese calendar?"

8:35

Right? So I was just hearing every year, the animals that I knew were just the animals that were

8:40

in my household. Like my mom and I are born in the year of the pig, my brother's a cat, my dad's a dragon.

8:46

You know, so I know the animals that are people that I'm related to, they're most relevant

8:50

to me, right?

8:52

I didn't really have a way to cross-reference.

8:55

So in my mind, as the only English speaker at the time in my family, I was just trying

9:00

to use context clues and make sense of the world as best as I could do it.

9:04

And so for me, the easiest explanation was, I know that we have a cat, probably Americans

9:10

just mistranslated cat to tiger.

9:14

So what does it mean to be a cat?

9:18

It's really hard to find good English language, Asian horoscope sites that have any credibility,

9:25

whatsoever. I'm just not good enough at astrology language to read it in Vietnamese.

9:32

Let me look it up. There's like one side that I really like.

9:34

Yeah, it's his own jargon. So you can kind of read it and you're like, "This is, they don't know what they're talking

9:38

about. They're just making stuff up to get like, clicks, you know, you can kind of try it."

9:42

We will in a later season explore all of this intrigue about the lunar horoscopes for East

9:47

Asian cultures. There's so much more to it and it's really interesting to me.

9:53

For the record, I'm a metal rooster, but back to Ivy and her cat-brother.

9:58

Okay. So it says, my brother would be born in the year of the "firecat."

10:06

Their cat people are usually open-minded, flexible and free-spirited.

10:10

They like to travel and explore.

10:13

And that absolutely 100% describes my brother.

10:16

I love this variation of a cat person.

10:19

According to that study that talked about the distribution of cats versus dogs in the

10:24

world, Vietnam does have more cat than dog lovers.

10:28

It remains to be seen if people born in the year of the cat feel an affinity with cats.

10:34

I did an informal survey of my immediate community of cat people friends and we are all over the

10:40

sky when it comes to the lunar zodiac signs.

10:44

So file that under to be continued.

10:47

I guess we ought to keep exploring other kinds of cat people.

10:51

Let's start with where they live as in "dwell"

10:55

What's interesting to me is the space we share when we bring animals into our tribes.

11:02

Animals are of the outdoors. We automatically associate animals with nature.

11:08

When we brought nature indoors, that's when I think pets became a thing.

11:14

Pet ownership has existed a long time as evidenced by those burial sites we talked about in

11:19

season one. Folks have formed emotional connections with non-human inhabitants of their domiciles

11:25

for a long time. But are we qualifying animals as pets based on if they live indoor or outdoors?

11:32

Maybe that's causing us to overlook or under-represent cat lovers in this world.

11:38

So let's talk a little bit more about that.

11:40

Because y'all, cats are among many things, roommates.

11:45

Not all spaces are equal. And some are better for cats, I'd say.

11:49

Like cats, the size is the size, right?

11:52

That's how big a cat is.

11:54

Because I keep seeing people with these dogs that look like horses, I know that you live

11:59

in a tiny ass apartment. That is a real concern for me.

12:02

I'm trying to mind my business. But when I see that in the street, I really struggle.

12:06

That was a rad producer and audio expert friend of mine.

12:12

I'm TK Dutes.

12:14

Also known as Keisha, TK Dutes, she / her pronouns.

12:17

A multimedia producer mainly in audio world podcasting, focusing on all things black, black

12:25

audio that's my love.

12:27

I also dabble in the visual arts these days.

12:32

I love TK's story with her furry flat-bushed-feel-in-friend.

12:37

I was living in this apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

12:41

My landlord wasn't the best, so there was some past issues.

12:46

Me and my creative partner conscious, we also had our studio there.

12:50

So I'm like, man, apparently cats are great for this sort of thing.

12:55

So I put on Facebook and I was like, if the universe blesses me with a cat from Facebook,

13:00

then I will take it. Somebody replied to my post, I just say, yeah, I'll meet her.

13:09

She hopped out of the thing. I saw her.

13:11

She was like a flash of light. I was like, she's cute and then she ran and hid in my house.

13:18

And then that's why I was just like, well, I guess it's my cat now.

13:20

Literally my first interaction with a cat.

13:24

I took all the stuff and I just was like, I got a cat and Mrs. Peabody.

13:30

And then me and her became friends because it was truly a mattress on the floor situation

13:35

for me back then. So that gave her easy access to like meet me.

13:43

TK brought up another aspect of cats as roommates, which grants them a special place in so many

13:48

of our domiciles.

13:50

I think behind a lot of creative people, there's a great cat behind them.

13:54

Or there's a great cat at their feet, you know?

13:58

Everybody's cat is different. But she really gives me space to like create.

14:06

This need for space became more universal when folks who normally socialized and labored

14:11

outside of their homes weren't allowed or able to go outside as much.

14:17

I'm talking about the 'rona as in the coronavirus 2020.

14:22

There was a lot more cats.

14:27

It was a matter of they don't have to be taken outside for walks.

14:31

They are in the house with you a lot. Like it was a partner to share space with you and be your friend without having to go

14:38

out and worry about things like getting sick.

14:42

I'm happy to introduce to you another literal cat person.

14:46

I'll let her explain.

14:50

My name is Tracy Michelle. I'm the social media manager over at dat food and lifestyle brand Cat Person and I'm also

14:56

a cosplayer and spiritual content creator known as OhHeyTracy.

15:01

My podcast is called The Witches Brewcast.

15:05

Tracy counts herself among the creative folks who after 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic decided

15:11

to bring a fur friend into her life.

15:14

I've wanted a cat all my life but it wasn't until three years ago during lockdown like

15:21

many people I got my first cat Miko.

15:25

Lockdown is the right word for it.

15:27

Talk about indoor cats. Did anyone else feel like a trapped animal at times?

15:31

We'll have to dedicate an entire different episode to examine all the things connected to

15:35

Kitty's and the pandemic because there are quite a few.

15:39

The one we're focusing on right now is how well...

15:43

so many cat people were born during the pandemic.

15:47

Or should I say, converted.

15:50

I would say in the last few years the millennial to elder millennial groups have really, really

15:55

embraced cats into their lives, especially in cities where it's of course small apartments.

16:01

People in this age group are people who are now entering higher roles in their work position

16:05

and spoiling their cats more.

16:08

This totally resonates with TK.

16:10

Yeah, oh my god, feisty Mrs. Peabody, that's her whole name.

16:16

She has brought me so much joy during so many different phases of my life.

16:21

A lot of, you know, uncomfortable moments and then it's like when I glowed up, she glowed

16:27

up. I was like renting a room from an old lady and I was buying my groceries from the 99th

16:35

store. So if I'm buying groceries from me from the 99th store, then I'm buying groceries for

16:40

her. You know, so like I was able to sustain this cat that loved me no matter what and we just

16:46

made it work. I think that's what people love about pets, but especially about cats.

16:53

As I grew, she grew with me.

16:56

The first thing I bought her when I got a better apartment was a new mid-century modern

17:03

kitty litter box. That is a symbol of us glowing up together.

17:08

The loyalty and comfort that she has given me deserves a like masterful, beautiful place

17:13

to do number two. That's so sweet.

17:15

There's something in my eye. If I run for president, cats will be included in the child tax break and each cat household

17:22

will receive a robot litter box.

17:25

Captain Kitty 2024.

17:28

Let me not get carried away.

17:31

Let's pick up on how much money it takes to prove that you love cats after the break.

17:37

[music]

17:51

Per my research, cat people are distributed equally across the globe.

17:56

But, with the transformations of community spaces to bring the outside indoors more, it seems

18:02

like cats are more visibly loved or cared for in urban centers, such as New York City from

18:09

where I report.

18:12

And rent. Which, Binky and Snuggles have nothing to do with.

18:17

They get to live here rent-free.

18:19

And let me tell you, the rent is too damn high.

18:23

It is expensive to sustain myself, let alone two growing children.

18:28

(Or, actually am I caring for aging family members now?)

18:31

I'm guessing that for many of you, you're either in an urban or suburban area and live in

18:38

either a house or an apartment.

18:42

This is not to say that houseless folks can't be wonderful, responsible pet owners.

18:48

And I'm not meaning to exclude all you wonderful farm folk out there or rural people either.

18:53

[music] But, the vast majority of pet owners that I've been reporting on in this episode tend to

18:59

be very "comfortable", to appropriate rich people talk.

19:03

[music] Right now, it does look like dog owners spend the most money of small household pet owners.

19:10

We'll get into that a bit later. But it does hold true that millennial and Gen Z cat owners are also investing in our children's

19:18

nutrition, health and entertainment, at least far more than our boomer and Gen X antecedents.

19:24

[music] So this may be one of the reasons that for many folks owning a cat is kind of something

19:31

that richer people do.

19:34

Just look at those ads in your social media feed.

19:36

$75 dollar bubble backpacks, fancy, shmancy toys, and all manner of treats.

19:43

I can kind of see why people think that, but that is a very false cat person narrative.

19:49

[music] [music]

19:51

Income is a harder one to really nail down.

19:55

We're definitely all over in terms of spend and what can be afforded.

19:58

Sometimes I see people commenting about how they spend like $5 a week on cat food and

20:03

I'm spending like $300 a month.

20:06

I just saw someone spend $13,000 just to build the perfect indoor playground for their cats

20:11

and I'm like, "What?" We don't know what they think, but I feel like they just want someone to like, you know,

20:18

open the can for me, give me a warm place to cuddle and I will just rock with you for as

20:25

long as this thing lasts.

20:29

As all bonafide cats, stewards know cats don't actually care about how much money you're

20:35

spending on them.

20:38

Cats feel loved when you feed them when they're hungry and most importantly when you give

20:44

them time and when you play with them.

20:47

Cats are so smart and creative, they only need a box and a shoelace for endless hours

20:52

of curiosity and play. Which is why I'm done buying these toys for you too.

20:56

I've wasted too much money on this crap.

21:01

Overall, kitties are seen to be the more economical of small indoor pets than dogs.

21:07

I do think that's going to change though.

21:09

More people are taking their kitties for backpack trips and traveling.

21:13

Starting to give rise to an adapted stereotype about cat people.

21:18

There is more and more targeted advertising recognizing people who love cats.

21:23

Well, they're money, really.

21:26

Spending is definitely catching up.

21:31

So I think that cat lady trope it's evolving and diversifying in some ways.

21:38

Take me for example.

21:41

You're the only Asian American I've ever known that was such an animal person.

21:46

I did not know many intersectional people who have really strong opinions about cats and

21:52

dogs and pets until I met you.

21:55

Making any kind of consumption your entire personality to me is very specific to a certain

22:02

ethnicity. That is white folks.

22:06

Until Ivy really made this explicit.

22:08

I hadn't really thought of being a cat person as being in contradiction with my race.

22:15

I kind of thought it went hand in hand with my gender.

22:18

Identity is very multi-layered and I mean, look, I am definitely a cat person.

22:24

No way, don't say.

22:26

And I'm a transracial adoptee. I'm left-handed.

22:29

I'm Korean American. I'm a musician.

22:31

Politically for anything. I'm probably, holistically, not quite the cat person.

22:38

Just marketers think of to represent their brand yet.

22:41

Spread the word about 6 Degrees of Cats.

22:45

We are now in the second decade of the 21st century.

22:49

Cats have taken over the internet.

22:51

And more and more, I'm seeing tons of ads with cats that aren't just cat food or cat

22:57

books. There were cats in the Super Bowl Sunday ads.

23:00

Oh, there we go talking about the Super Bowl.

23:04

Yep.

23:06

It's time to address that 5'10" shadow cast over this entire episode.

23:13

One that belongs to a singular Pennsylvania-born entertainment powerhouse who happens to be one

23:20

of the most visible cat people in the world.

23:26

That's right. I am talking about Miss Taylor Allison Swift.

23:34

The 30-something daughter of a stockbroker and former fund marketing executive who started

23:40

her ascent into the nails of pop music at the tender age of 9, sharply honed into that

23:46

perfect pop machine by the entertainment training ground that is, Asheville.

23:52

At the time of this broadcast, you cannot open an English-language news website without

23:56

seeing something about her.

23:59

And for cats, that's not a bad thing.

24:01

Tracy concurs. I do not listen to Taylor Swift, but if anything is making cats look cool right now, it's the

24:10

fact that Taylor Swift is taking over the world and she is highlighting her cats every step

24:14

of the way, which we love. It's harder to push the crazy cat lady stereotypes when so many people who are seen as cool

24:23

have cats. It's definitely becoming more mainstream to just be like, "I love cats."

24:27

I think Taylor Swift is doing amazing things for cat people in general.

24:30

There's an interview where I never related to someone more where she's just like, "I

24:34

need to get home to my cats," and I'm like, "me, absolutely me."

24:38

Samesies. But, yeah, obviously, in a lot of ways, that's kind of where the similarities end.

24:46

As with Tracy, I'm Swift Agnostic.

24:49

When it comes to at least having strong opinions on her merit as an artist or as a person,

24:54

that's kind of none of my business.

24:56

But I will say she has become by default one of the faces of my people, the cat people.

25:03

And I think that's pretty intentional.

25:06

She has very much integrated her love of these three purebred cats, all named after television

25:13

characters beloved by her target, Listenerface, who are middle-class and white, like her, probably

25:21

a lot of you too.

25:24

We cat people are a really wonderfully diverse group of people.

25:28

But unless you're, say, a member of a pet group by and for your communities, you wouldn't

25:33

know that. Because as Ivy mentioned, for the most part, and for the longest time, self-identified pet

25:40

parents, specifically cat parents, have been represented in media and in print and digital

25:47

marketing images by mostly people who look like or want to look like Taylor Swift.

25:54

And there are some pretty fundamental reasons for this.

25:58

None of which are necessarily Taylor Swift's fault, but she certainly benefits from it.

26:04

There's a lot of gatekeeping in media and the way that we are presented in the United States

26:09

through stories and television shows and marketing or whatever about what certain things

26:15

like look like and who does them.

26:19

There is like a stereotype of like black pet owners and white pet owners and people of color

26:25

from marginalized communities. I think that we prioritize our pets differently in our lives.

26:33

We can't buy a designer handbag or we don't want to buy a designer handbag to place a pet

26:37

inside and carry it around, but we will take care of it and we will love it.

26:42

The heart is tied to this creature and the heart is going to take care of it.

26:48

We have a series that showed different types of people.

26:51

One of my favorite pictures that we posted, we had some artists where it showed just a

26:56

couple of people in their neighborhood hanging out, blasting hip-hop and they're with their

27:02

cats. Which is something you'll see right often.

27:05

Everyone has a different way of taking care of them that they grew up learning.

27:08

There's different ways that each culture shows that care.

27:12

And I know it can feel trivial saying that representation matters about loving on cats.

27:17

But it's about so much more than just who prefers the company of a small, squeezable apex predator

27:23

that shits in a box to a large, loyal, pack animal that can rip your trachea out and needs

27:29

a chauffeur to pee.

27:33

I am born and raised here in New York.

27:36

I am first gen on my mom's side here in New York.

27:39

The rest of my family was actually born in Colombia and my stepdad was born in Greece.

27:44

I myself am half black half Colombian.

27:47

I love cats and I don't always look like these stereotypes.

27:51

I never saw a lot of myself.

27:56

And I know our team is super diverse based on race, gender, everything.

28:04

We are all over the place and I always like we should be able to represent that and show

28:09

people that we represent that.

28:11

And the response is great.

28:13

I really love seeing themselves outside of this stereotype of the crazy cat lady and seeing

28:19

that they are the fashionable ones.

28:23

I think that brands taking a step out of this stereotype is the first step in really understanding

28:29

that we are a diverse group. But there's a lot of value in understanding that cats can be owned by anybody who is willing

28:36

to give them that attention and love and that they are also willing to take care of you

28:39

right back. There is no specific kind of person that can have a cat.

28:45

Everybody really can take one in and give it the care and also get the benefits of having

28:50

that partner. There's always something healthy and fun that fits almost every budget.

28:55

You just have to know how to do your research.

28:59

We don't all have to signal our cat personhood like Ms. Swift, an incredibly successful,

29:04

talented, empowered and very rich white lady who loves cats and travels with them and brings

29:11

them to her photo shoots. I love to see that for her.

29:15

That is just not most of us.

29:20

Social media cat owners, you know, like people you see walking around with the cat in a

29:24

book bag and better than me and Mrs. Peabody, we don't do that shit.

29:28

We just vibe.

29:32

We love taking nabs and to me with the pet ownership thing or like the pet love thing.

29:38

Of course we all love our pets the same or more or differently or whatever at the end

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of the day. The heart wants what it wants and it wants to be cuddle.

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Heal the world. Cuddle more.

29:53

Parts.

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Cat people unite. We need a badge so that we can recognize each other.

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(Would have helped me find my cat people in Japan)

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We self declared cat people are all over the map.

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We're musicians. We're artists.

30:12

We're doctors. We're marketers.

30:14

We're lawyers. We're rich.

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We're poor. We're black.

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White. Working class.

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Religious. Agnostic.

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Asian. Arab.

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Indigenous. We are everything across all the spectra of lifestyles and identities.

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Since we are not actually generalizable by race, ethnicity or gender really, is there any

30:37

trait that we can ascribe specifically to cat people?

30:43

Cat people are desperate to learn and I love that.

30:47

I have seen into the bookshelves of my co-workers and I can tell you 90% of the books are like

30:53

how to knit a jacket for your cat.

30:56

How to make cat hair crafts.

30:58

It does my cat like. I think that it really shows how much cat people want to take the best care of their cats.

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When you see from the data, like our top post, our educational post and I started this when

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I joined the team because I knew all of us are googling something about our cat.

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So really, it's a group of people interested in doing that research I've noticed.

31:24

I feel seen. Hold your head high cat person.

31:31

You are indisputably a person of distinction who loves cats and learning and you don't mind

31:38

sharing power being told no or get away or stop touching me or feed me and then leave

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me alone. Oh, and if I may add, you are very, very attractive.

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So in Amandaland, that, I think, makes you one of the best people in my book.

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Okay, I may be biased.

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I am, we all are.

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Folks, we love us.

32:01

Can we make cat people like the BTS Army where we rise up and raise our voices for more

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kindness, more compassion, understanding and freedom from all these ridiculous systems

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and messages that make things so darn ridiculously awful for so many people?

32:18

Can we make loving on cats...(It really does sound like I'm running for office)

32:23

I hope that we all channel that open-minded, free-spirited firecat energy this year and

32:29

all years. Thanks for tuning in everybody.

32:34

Since the time we recorded, TK's sweet Mrs. Peabody has crossed the rainbow bridge, so I really

32:40

wanted to take a moment to dedicate this episode to the late Mrs. Peabody.

32:45

And of course, as I say in the sign-off, for all the cats we've loved and lost.

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Peabound times day to our little fur friends and feathered friends and scaled friends and

32:57

leathered friends, all the friendly beasts.

33:00

This one's for you. In the next episode, here's a hint.

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My cat people are like David Bowie, good friend there, Freddie Mercury is another one I really

33:12

love. I'd least share as a cat person and I do love share.

33:16

I want to thank my wonderful experts.

33:18

Ivy Le with one e, Tracy Michelle and TK Dutes.

33:24

While the opinions are my own, the research and work is theirs.

33:27

If you'd like to learn more about them, please check out our show notes, which also include

33:31

the references and research that went into this episode.

33:34

If you loved it, please don't be shy about being a cat person.

33:38

Shout it from the rooftops.

33:40

And then, when people look at you kind of funny and you have their attention, tell them

33:44

all about 6 Degrees of Cats to learn and unlearn more about this world than they ever realized

33:51

was relevant to cats.

33:53

I appreciate y'all. Thank you for being one of my people, cat people.

33:58

And remember, everything is connected.

34:03

One, two, one, two, three, four.

34:05

6 Degrees of Cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly, Captain Kee,

34:11

aka Amanda B. Please subscribe to our mailing list by going to linktr.ee/6degreesofcats

34:21

or look us up on all those social media platforms.

34:25

You'll be first in line for the extra audio and more treats that we connect with us there.

34:30

All episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and the

34:35

weird, and of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.

34:47

Nobu is chaos in a cat.

34:49

He makes the doofiest little faces all the time.

34:52

Miku can pershade, and she also knows exactly how to get your attention.

34:57

They have what we call the attention table, which is a table they're not allowed on, and

35:01

they know they're not allowed on. But when they want us to look at them, they will go there, and if you try to ignore them,

35:07

they will start screaming until you pay attention to them being on the attention table.

35:12

Yeah, they're little babies.