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Henri The Existentialist Cat: Bastet

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Maru. Suprise Kitten. Nyan Cat. Henri the Existentialist Cat. Grumpy Cat. Big names with big claws. Cat videos have been on the rise since 2006 when "Puppy v. Cat" became the first viral cat video exceeding well over 16 million views on YouTube. Since then the cat obsession has grown and lead to cat memes, many of which star "Grumpy Cat" with a snarky remark such as "If you 're happy and you know it I don 't care" or a classic Grumpy Cat line of "I had fun once it was awful", and even explored onto the musical plane by mixing cat actions with music, like in the viral "Cat Jump Fail" video to AWOLNATION 's song Sail.
Cat memes are a current social phenomenon that celebrate and worship the symbolic cat. By worshiping the cat and emphasizing its relation to human beings through highlighting cat tendencies that are near human like, this new social trend begs the question, what is the cat symbolic for? …show more content…

Tracing back to ancient Egypt, cats were a glorified part of their society and were often symbolic for women, as well as played a prominent role in Egyptian mythology. One particularly highly worshiped goddess of early Egyptian myth is Bastet. Bastet is the goddess of cats, protection, joy, dance, music, love and warfare. She is often illustrated with the head of a cat and is the epitome of a strong and powerful female character.
Many centuries later in Norse mythology the presence of worshipped strong females characters with a relation to cats remained. Freyja is the Norse goddess associated with love, sexuality, beauty, fertility, gold, war, and death. Freyja was depicted consistently riding her chariot being pulled by two cats who fought alongside her. Farmers who sought out protection for their crops would leave gifts of milk and food for Freyja 's two cats. She was a wife, a mother, a sister, and on top of that, a

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