A post on BoingBoing Tuesday alerted me to the existence of CatRank, a site that allows users to view cat photos two at a time and pick the one they like better.
Or as the site puts it, “tap the superior cat.”
When you make your selection, the page instantly refreshes with two new cats. Per BoingBoing:
“A big part of winning seems to have to do with getting the right photo of your cat, which is a challenge on its own — anyone who has tried to photograph a cat knows they rarely cooperate on command. All cats are created equally, of course, but this site is like an online pageant they’ll never even know they participated in.”
I decided to volunteer Bud for the “pageant” and uploaded a derpy photo of him looking excited. If memory serves, he was happily pawing at a wand toy at the time.
He was #34 on Tuesday, #12 last night, dropped all the way to #68 earlier today, and was #22 last time I checked.
The rankings have a simple win/loss component and a weighted ELO component, borrowed from chess and sports, that awards more points for “wins” against high-ranking “opponents.”
As for my own voting habits, I tend to vote for photos more tightly focused on the kitties since the images are relatively small as presented on the site. It’s difficult to see a feline’s features if the image isn’t cropped properly. I’ve got a subconscious bias toward clear, well-lit photos of voids since they’re notoriously difficult to shoot, and because they’re often unfairly overlooked.
My only real complaint is the top photo for most of this week is AI-manipulated, and at least one other is an AI creation. It looks like the vast majority are legitimate photos of real cats, though I’m sure we’ll see more generated images as the site becomes more popular.
Which is pointless because there’s no prize or money involved, just bragging rights, but people can be weird.
Ah well. Naturally, Bud expects all readers of his blog to head to the site and vote for him, and if you don’t he’ll do something ferocious and meowscular.
“They better vote for me or else!” he says. “If they don’t I’m gonna do something tremendous, something the likes of which they’ve never seen before, believe me. A lot of people are saying I’m the most handsome cat, a lot of people are saying it. I’m the most — and by the way, no other cat is as stylish as me. It’s incredible. So readers better vote for me by 10 am tomorrow and if they don’t, I’m gonna make more threats and extend the deadline. It’s tremendous.”
Pain In The Bud 
I went and voted for Buddy … I hope I did it right as tech always flusters me …
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Hah I hope I didn’t violate any rules by joking about that because he’s listed as #4 right now. There’s no way to actually link people to vote for him anyway since the pairings are random.
There are a lot of very cute cats and I think it’s just the first week, because when I clicked on “past winners” it said there haven’t been any yet.
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I don’t even have to look at the photos. And I must say the numbers are simply appalling! 12???? 68???? Little Buddy is WITHOUT A DOUBT Number 1 in strikingly good looks! Anyone with eyes would reach the same conclusion. Please tell Little Buddy I think he is handsome and meowscular. End of story.❤️❤️
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Flattery will get you everywhere with Buddy.
He was #4! And then he was #68 when I went back to get another screenshot of the site. Very weird, but maybe there’s an anti-Buddesian conspiracy! Who but the Los Gatos catnip cartel would do such a thing?
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Way to go, Buddy! I love the quote from you in the final paragraph. You plainly have presidential ambitions; if only you were orange, then victory would be assured! Meanwhile I have voted for you on CatRank and bookmarked the site to ensure that I get regular feline sightings, even on days when my visiting cats decide to punish me by staying away.
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I informed him of your heroic and patriotic actions, and he said:
“Those Platypy are tremendous people, really terrific people. It’s incredible. We’re gonna have — and by the way, my numbers are very powerful. A lot of people are saying it, okay? Tremendous numbers. So we’re gonna go ahead and tell our allies to distribute more treats to Caramel and Malteser and Milky Bar. They’re terrific cats.”
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This is so well observed and written. Hilarious. Buddies both big and small, you are superstars.
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Buddy FTW!!
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Hey quilpy!
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I recently listed my two cats Jersey Joe – currently 118, and Ivy Spivington – currently 157.
I was VERY VERY VERY certain that Jersey Joe would be in the top 10 -wish I could post his pic here, it’s a beauty – at the moment the pic was snapped he leaned in. So what you see is his face with his very green eyes. His face takes up so much of the photo that the the rest of his body doesn’t seem connected. I expected Ivy to do way better than 157 I think she belonged in at least the top 20.
I guess I’m a product of my grandmother, who was under the impression that her grandchildren were the world’s very very very smartest, and most most most beautiful children. It would have been impossible to make her think otherwise.
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Well Buddy was up in the 200s at one point, so it bounces around a lot. I saw Jersey Joe and Ivv on the rank page and they are both very cute cats. I think Joe’s photo is perfect highlighting his cute face.
I just voted some 100 times and didnt get either of them to show up but got some other cats 3 or 4 times, so there’s definitely something weird going on with the algorithm that makes the pairings. You’d think it would rotate them, but that is apparently not the case.
I’m guessing the creators are still working out some glitches.
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Have you been letting Buddy watch the political news? He sounds a lot like someone known for monopolizing the media. 🙂
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lol yeah it’s kind of a long-running joke going all the way back to Trump’s first term during COVID, when I envisioned President Buddy coming up with increasingly ridiculous ways to combat COVID, like moving the Earth closer to the sun “to take advantage of all those tremendous heat rays.”
And also accusing Dr. Anthony Meowci of manufacturing the virus in a dastardly plan to keep cats scared and indoors so he could take all the snacks for himself. For a while there I had Dr. Deborah Purrx in the mix, but the real Dr. Birx wisely retired and got the hell out of that mess.
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That’s hilarious. That sun idea might have been considered
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The humor was therapeutic at the time when that first wave hit New York. Thank GOD for Bud during that time.
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Those are hilarious. I worked at Walmart during the pandemic. It was a scary time.
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