Talk:Cute cat theory of digital activism

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A fact from Cute cat theory of digital activism appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 24 April 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the cute cat theory of digital activism draws a connection between Internet censorship and lolcats (pictured)?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Cute cat theory of digital activism.

Wikipedia

Passes purposes?

I think there is something wrong with this sentence, specifically the bit I have highlighted in bold.

In other words, Zuckerman notes, if a tool passes a "cute cat" purposes—if it is widely used for low-value ("dumb") purposes—it can and likely is used for online activism, too.

Should it say 'passes a "cute cat" test'?

Yaris678 (talk) 16:39, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing

I must say it seems a bit problematic: an essay, an opinion piece, a blog post, another blog post. Perhaps none of these are unacceptable on the face of it, but do they all fall under the "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" demanded by WP:SOURCES? - Biruitorul ^Talk 17:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The term is used in some academic articles, too, but the above ones offer more explanation. Feel free to look at Google Scholar and see if something can be referenced with more academic sources. I'll admit that while the term is notable, the sources are few and indeed we could wish to find better ones. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:09, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Biruitorul. These sources seem either tangentially related to the topic - for example an essay, an opinion piece - or self-referential. Zuckerman's blog post/talk would perhaps be better suited to live in a subsection of Internet_activism, and not as an article of its own, due to a lack of 3rd party topic-specific sources. fluxrad (talk) 19:09, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that I came to the article expecting to find something of a puff piece, and even to argue that it should be deleted. But I'm fairly pleased with it and might even send Piotrus a barn-star. The sources are adequate for an internet topic where non-blog sources are probably pretty hard to find. The term is useful and I expect it to stay that way. It could be a just section of Internet activism, but our practice is usually to break off an article this big from the main article. All in all, a surprisingly good job. Smallbones (talk) 20:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article is a good effort, I agree. But the fact remains that the topic is self-referential; the "cute cat theory" is a term used primarily by the person who coined it, and two of the references are by him. Primary sources don't count. Of the other two sources cited, one's an opinion piece, and one doesn't mention Zuckerman or his cute cat theory at all. So we really have only one secondary source, and that's an opinion piece. That isn't enough to keep it. 66.159.220.134 (talk) 12:46, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: While the sources in this article are insufficient, Google Scholar does reveal some mentions in more reliable sources, so maybe it's a keeper if adequate sources can be found that describe the cute cat theory in a significant context, and not just a trivial mention. 66.159.220.134 (talk) 14:36, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Grateful to Piotrus for starting the article, and appreciate the concerns on sourcing as well. The theory is not well sourced in the academic literature, though it's starting to appear, generally citing my notes on a talk at ETech in 2008: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ . A good press cite for the theory is this piece by Noam Cohen in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22link.html . I've not added the links to the article out of concern that it would be seen as editing a page directly related to me and my work. I am working on a more formal, academic paper on the topic for a chapter in a forthcoming political science book, but that's at least a year off. In the meantime, thanks for the article and for the constructive discussion about sourcing and relevance. Ethanz (talk) 21:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Both elinks seem fine, added to the article - thanks, Ethan. Please keep us updated if anything else appears and this article needs updating! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:50, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Illustration

The cat picture is pretty cute but also really misleading. It implies that the theory has something to do with cute cat pictures being used for activism, which is more or less completely the opposite of Zuckerman's argument, which assumes that the activists and the cat enthusiasts are two separate groups using the same channel of communication. I've removed it, because I'm secretly a mean jerk who hates cats and looking at cats. Theodolite ➹ 21:00, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so I'll restore it. I thought it captured the theme of the article perfectly. Daniel Case (talk) 22:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Someone else restored it while I was eating dinner. I took the liberty, however, of changing the cutline to reflect the points Theodolite was making. Daniel Case (talk) 23:03, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the current image and caption are fine. I wish we had a good picture of Internet censorship to add, as well. Didn't see anything nice enough on Commons, sadly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:07, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You could use a picture of me Theodolite ➹ 02:08, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why the pornography reference?

The theory has nothing specifically to do with pornography, so why sneak it into the introduction? Cute cat pictures are harmless, but pornography is not. It's the graphic representation of the subhuman status of women. Referring to is as casual or "mundane" only normalizes something that is damaging both to women and to the men who consume it, which is contrary to the idea of social justice activism.

Also, since nothing else in the article even discusses pornography, the mention of it is irrelevant.

90.157.234.124 (talk) 13:00, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because the source for this concept explicitly mentions porn sharing as the sort of use of Internet platforms that makes them effective tools for activists seeking social justice where more tradtional avenues for activists are foreclosed by repressive governments. WP:NPOV means we don't make this sort of value judgement, at least not in this context. Daniel Case (talk) 22:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Internet and cats

Please swing by and help improve this new article! :D--Coin945 (talk) 03:30, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]