February 6, 2014

The Cat That Changed My Life

The past 24 hours have been a whirlwind of feathers and tequila shots for The Cackling Hen! I'm not talking about a typical Wednesday night at an unmarked bar or the Olympics. I've apparently caught a virus - a twinge of that popular Internet virus that makes stupid things popular for 15 minutes. I think I'm viral, going viral, or just have the flu. Regardless, I have to peck about it before that dreaded 16th minute.

In honor of Facebook's 10th birthday, it's given us a present: a one-minute video recapping some of our Facebook postings. Some turned out decently, reminding us of a few fond memories of pictures with friends or status updates friends claimed they liked. Some turned out random, boring, or stupid, depending on how one feels about photos of lobster tanks or cupcakes trumping graduation pics. Either way, my newsfeed was filled with everyone's one-minute life story. That was overwhelming.

In the midst of stories and people complaining about the stories, an amazing little cat flew onto the scene to articulate what many of us were thinking. Even if we weren't thinking it, it was hilarious.



Stay grumpy, cat.

I had to share it - that grumpy cat always cracks me up. But unlike the other pictures I've shared that got a few likes and a few eye rolls, this cat flew further than any hen could fly. It started with a few likes from friends and mother goose, then I started getting more notifications. Likes from unknown names. Comments from unknown names. A wingful of action turned into 2 wingfuls, which eventually turned into a tidal wave of notifications and feathers. The numbers quickly became incomprehensible. People were sharing. People were tagging their friends to see it. Their friends were responding with "hahaha"s and "Fuck You!"s, then tagging their friends. Within hours, there were so many feathers flying around on Facebook, I couldn't see straight and had to lay down on an Estonian bar floor.

After years of writing Cackling Hen articles, constantly clawing to increase my popularity at a snail's steady pace, something non-writing and non-bird related has given me more of an audience than any One Direction review or Chick-fil-A flogging. It's a pissed off cat with an 8-word caption and it gave me a virus. It's what any Internet personality dreams of, and on a moderate scale, it's kind of happened to me. I'm a little bit viral, at least for another minute.

I don't know where this cat will lead this bird-themed blog, but hopefully not in its mouth. Thank you to all my readers and followers, new and old, for I wouldn't have a reason to write this without an audience. And all this happened while in Estonia, so that's weird.


Keep reading! The Hen's peck at One Direction's late night!

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