ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I test the relevance of kinesic analysis for explaining why we love cats. I argue that cat scholars have been distracted by what I call the “internalist-communicational” paradigm: that there is something within cats that speaks to us. This error of appreciation is differently declined across relevant disciplinary fields (literary studies, (zoo-)archeology, ethology, evolutionary biology, socio-cultural anthropology), which I briefly survey. To bypass this paradigm, I turn to popular culture for the immensely popular phenomenon of cats on the Internet, with a focus on the cat video genre. The popularity of the genre suggests that looking at cats and watching them move helps us remember and celebrate some of our most basic kinetic, kinesic, and kinesthetic experiences—both those of our own bodies and of the world. Furthermore, rethinking human relations to cats through the lens of kinesthetic intelligence helps us to understand a good part of what we do when we interact with cats off-line as well as online: we watch them, but we do not “understand” them. Indeed, if we are seeking communication, perhaps we are (. . . ahem . . .) barking up the wrong tree.
