Has your phone started receiving text messages containing fun, informative cat facts from an unknown number? Have you found yourself unable to unsubscribe, and the cat facts just keep on coming? Then you may be someone’s dumb friend or relative in the latest prank to hit the internet.
The prank got popular last week when someone posted a series of phone screenshots to Reddit with the title, “So my little cousin posted on FB that he was bored and gave everyone his new phone number…”
The top comment for this post was from a guy who asked, “Was this inspired by me at all? If so I’m flattered.” And you know what the guy who posted those screenshots did? He said yes and then the two of them had a very polite conversation! The first guy apologized to the second guy for using his idea and stealing his karma, and the second guy said it was totally cool and it wasn’t entirely his idea to begin with. That’s a horribly mundane story, but have you been on the internet before? Do you realize how rare that is? Two internet guys made similar jokes and then weren’t shitty to each other. That’s the four-leaf clover of human decency. Nice work, guys.
There have been more Reddit posts referencing Cat Facts. The joke is basically to annoy a friend or stranger with cat facts texts, then make it look like it’s impossible to quit. There. That is the joke. I have just dissected it and now it is dead to you. Sorry.
But the jokes have continued. Here’s Boromir on Cat Facts:
That’s how the internet understands new memes. It uses older memes to contextualize new ones. Of course, there are still more Cat Facts posts on Reddit, too.
You may as well understand the concept of Cat Facts so, should it come up again, you can nod knowingly at the joke instead of skipping it. This is the internet. It’s okay to fill your head with garbage.
All joking aside, the real victim here is the completely unrelated website CatFacts.org. I can only assume they’re getting harassed by people who want to unsubscribe from this fake Cat Facts service, so they’ve had to put a disclaimer at the top of their homepage.
“This Cat Facts page does not gather people’s emails or phone numbers and has no technology capable of sending out messages.” Man, not only is this unfortunate person on the defensive, but he’s sad that he doesn’t even have the means to bug everybody. He’s doing the internet equivalent of throwing his hands up in the air and shouting, “I couldn’t annoy you if I wanted to!”
The owner of CatFacts.org appears to be some nice person who just really likes cats and cat knowledge. Right now, hundreds of people could be getting prank Cat Facts text messages from their friends. Those people are angrily googling “cat facts”, ending up on CatFacts.org, then emailing some poor hobbyist. That is what is happening right now.
You’re all monsters.
