I never really got into the whole cat video craze, it never did much for me, but that doesn’t mean that some of the video and picture memes I’ve seen aren’t hilarious to look at. There are people out there who take things above and beyond this basic level and it is evident in the launching of Internet Cat Video Film Festival (yes, it does exist) and now with the documentary Lil Bub & Friendz from VICE employees Andy Capper and Juliette Eisner, we get to explore this world full of cat lovers and their memes.
Lil Bub & Friendz tells the story of a deformed cat named Lil Bub. Lil Bub is a cat with extra toes on each paw, very wide eyed, has a shortened jaw, suffers from dwarfism and has no teeth i.e. she’s been dubbed the cutest cat in the world. The film tells the story of Lil Bub and her owner Mike, how she was found in a shed, how a picture changed her and her Mike’s life, how she’s limited in her mobility and how she not only saved her owner and his sanity but how she makes so many people smile on a day to day basis as she tours the country. The film explores the growing obsession of cats on the internet and features stories of other famous cat memes like Grumpy Cat and obsessed Cat Video lovers who would go so far as to say they could be potential serial killers.
There are a lot of interesting items that are uncovered throughout the movie and it also shows just how weird and obsessed people can be. One of the things I learned was because cats don’t necessarily interact with each other like dogs, these videos are a way for cat lovers to bond over their favorite pets unlike dogs and their owners who could meet each other at a park. Being a dog guy myself, when I heard this idea explained all I could think was “we can now blame memes for letting the crazy cat people out of their house.” Thanks internet.
The only way to really describe the cat people who are obsessed with the memes and videos is to quote one of the weirder guys form the movie. He said that cat videos are like “porn for whoever doesn’t watch porn.” That should about sum these people up.
What I found completely absurd (yet genius) is that there is a guy out there who has become a meme ma
nager. It started with Keyboard Cat (one of the first famous cats) and then eventually led to Nyan Cat which spawned into a pop culture phenomenon that lead to the creation of a Nyan cat retail store. The extent to which cats have permeated our culture is insane and it has become hard to tell who truly is into it and who is just going along with the joke (I think the meme manager can’t believe he’s getting away with it).
Learning about Lil Bub and watching her travel with her owner is actually pretty cool, especially since her owner Mike is very humble and very funny. We experience the ups and downs of Lil Bub’s life and watch her interact with over famous cats, big cats and other people. The directors give us a short and sweet overview of their life to show how these types of internet stars live.
The film isn’t perfect and there are a bunch of segments that just don’t fit into the film but, like the various memes and YouTube videos on the internet, once you start watching Lil Bub & Friendz it becomes very hard to turn away and all you can do is surrender the next 60 minutes of your life to cat people and funny/cute cat memes.
Rating: Probably one of the cutest documentaries you’ll see this year (6/10)
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