Why do you like cafes with cats and surpass Wang Xingren in cafes?

Follow the caf é (Wechat official account vdailycom) and found that Beautiful Cafe opened a small shop of its own.

I don't know when a large group of cats began to move into the cafe, either lying on the sofa, lying on the bookshelf, or leaning against the coffee machine, staring at you calmly.

If you think about it, cats seem to have some kind of mysterious connection with cafes, and people are more and more accustomed to accepting that silent creatures occupy a corner of cafes and their eyes. Many people even go to cafes specifically for cats-and as a result, more and more cafes begin to raise cats. Cats seem to be more popular in cafes than other animals.

How can the collocation of cats and cafes reflect the "mournful" ethos of modern people? Let's start with the cafe itself. Today, the cafe is no longer a simple place to sell coffee. As a relatively comfortable, relaxed and tidy place in people's minds, the coffee shop is not only different from the home, but also different from the office environment, it is a kind of "public space" between the two. Since it is a complete space, the function of simply selling coffee in a cafe will naturally become less obvious, otherwise a small takeout window will be enough. So in short, what cafes sell these days is not coffee, but "lifestyle".

Now that "lifestyle" has become the main selling point, cafes can naturally show people's general ideas about their ideal life. So it's not hard to understand why cafes are starting to integrate with more and more things, including comfortable sofas or beds, books, good background music and even live performances, as well as salons, movie shows and, of course, cats. Therefore, it can be said that the cat, as an "addition" to the cafe, is precisely a symbol of people's imagination of the ideal state of life.

Then the question becomes: what kind of spiritual characteristics do cats reflect in modern people? According to many articles analyzing the psychology of "cat slaves" and "shoveling shit officials", an answer can be drawn, that is, the love of cats reflects modern people's pursuit of "true self", and people are more and more willing to show their true self. a self that may not be so lovely and dishonorable, and a little "useless" self.

In recent years, many cats have become popular on the Internet, such as the "Grumpy Cat" with a smelly face and the "Uncle Cat" who looks lazy and often takes a nap with his eyes squinted. The avatars of one netizen after another have become the expression or posture of these cat celebrities, and group after group of stupid humans bow down under the meat mat of cats. It is worth noting that these popular cats seem to have a characteristic, that is, they have strong "personal emotions" and are often emotional states that are less rewarded in mainstream values, such as anger, entanglement, and laziness. And these are increasingly regarded by us as "cute"-does this mean that some subtle changes are taking place in our values?

The unhappy cat who is never happy.

And a cat uncle who can hold up the whole world with his eyes closed.

Michael Newall, a teacher in the Department of Visual Arts and Aesthetics at the University of Kent, once gave a more scientific explanation on why people like cats: because cats' big eyes, small nose and small mouth are easily reminiscent of human infancy, and this has a natural attraction to human beings, "in the Internet age, we are likely to usher in wave after wave of worship of cats." Because this love of cats is common to all mankind, no matter what the cultural context.

Under this explanation, it seems that we can understand why cats are more popular than other animals. But don't forget that there are also a large number of people who love dogs deeply, so why do cats seem to overtake the Wang Xing people in terms of "massive presence" in cafes when there are also a large number of human fans? This may need to mention the "temperament" difference between cats and dogs in the eyes of modern people.

According to data from a US study, dog owners are 15 per cent more extroverted, 13 per cent more sociable and 11 per cent more responsible than cat owners. Cat owners are 12% more neurotic than dog owners, and 11% more likely to break rules, love art, and take risks. In other words, it seems that the images displayed by dogs tend to be more "sunny", while those of cats are more "ancient and strange" and more "literary and artistic". In addition, because keeping a dog requires walking, the activity of owning a dog itself contains a lot of opportunities to get in touch with the outside world and real life. On the contrary, cats do not need to walk, and cats like to be arrogant "owners" in their own space, so owning a cat is much more personal than keeping a dog. It can also be carried out in a fixed space for a long time-anyway, cats probably disdain to appear in public every day.

The direct result of such a difference is that dogs are more likely to stay in touch with the outside world in terms of temperament, while cats are more likely to live in their own world. Combined with the previous discussion that cafes reflect modern people's vision of an ideal life, and cats often express more personal emotions, it can be concluded that people increasingly want to express their "true self". The angry, often lazy, unsociable but whimsical self in his own world, the lonely, often useless self. Being with such a group of cats who have no scruples to express their emotions in a cafe, a place where people yearn for a lifestyle, is like a metaphor that implies that people want to fight against mainstream values. against the simple and rude binary opposition of "good" and "bad"-I just have a bad temper, I'm just lazy, I just don't want to be positive and optimistic, this is the real me, this is the cutest.

In addition, the golden pairing of cafes and cats may reflect another inner trait of modern people-being too lazy to be responsible. If you don't want to shovel shit every day and become a cat slave, then often spend a little money to see them in the coffee shop-this arrangement is perfect.

All in all, the regular combination of cafes and cats is probably no accident. In the cafe, the "model room" of ideal life, the soft creature snoring on your leg may project a part of yourself that you don't show to the outside world. This kind of truth makes people feel comfortable in body and mind.