pop culture – Page 20 – Pain In The Bud

‘They’re A Really Dope Companion’: Jordan Poole Is The NBA’s Most Doting Cat Dad

The Washington Wizards’ Jordan Poole loves cats, and he’s showing his fellow NBA players what awesome little buddies they can be.

Jordan Poole finds it difficult to leave the Falls Church, Va., animal shelter where he volunteers.

He likes the staff and fellow volunteers, but most of all he hates leaving while knowing the cats he’s interacted with still need homes.

“Every time I come, it’s: ‘Let me leave with all of them! Give me 14 of them right now!’” he joked to the Washington Post’s Candace Buckner, who calls him “the lead crusader of the Secret Society of NBA Cat Dads.”

Some aren’t so secret: teammate Tristan Vukcevic recently adopted a cat after Poole converted him to the dark side, and a coy Poole says he “may have” convinced NBA superstar Stephen Curry to adopt a feline friend.

Poole with one of his tabby cats, brothers he adopted together from a California shelter when he was with the Golden State Warriors. Credit: Jordan Poole/Instagram

In a 2022 profile in The Athletic, Poole’s mother Monet says her son adopted his first cat when he was in high school.

“And when I tell you he fell in love with cats,” she said. “He loves his cats. … And he’s got some pretty cats too.”

When Poole was drafted by the Golden State Warriors in 2019, his cat stayed with his mom back in Michigan because she wouldn’t have adjusted well to the move to the west coast, as well as an empty apartment when Poole was on road trips with the team. Later that year, the then-rookie adopted brother cats who had been abandoned by their former owner.

Since he was traded to the Washington Wizards, Poole has volunteered at a Virginia shelter.

His enthusiasm is one reason why he’s been able to get teammate and friends interested in adopting. The NBA has other notable cat dads, including twins Brook and Robin Lopez, whose cats hilariously can’t stand each other. But Poole takes it to another level.

“A lot of guys are dog people, but just the energy [and] the way I talk about [cats], the pictures and videos and stuff that I show them, it just gives them a little bit more interest,” Poole told the Post. “So I give them a different perspective. Maybe they’re not as much maintenance, but they’re still a really dope companion and friend to have. You don’t have to really take them out three or four times a day. You can still get your rest. Normally [my peers] like to explore it. I’ve had a lot of friends and teammates who are also cat people.”

Former Knicks center Robin Lopez, pictured with his cat Edward, says his brother’s cat is sneaky and evil for attacking Edward: “The second I lay eyes on him, he’ll act like, ‘I’m a cherub. I’m innocent.’ I’m not buying it.”

The 25-year-old Poole is averaging 20.3 points, 4.8 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game this season while shooting an excellent .391 on three-point attempts. The 6’4″ guard spent his first four seasons with Golden State before he was traded to Washington.

LISTEN: The Buddies Release Their Worldwide Smash No. 1 Single!

Buddy the Cat’s quest for world domination has moved into the realm of music. Listen to the new single here!

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat made history as the first feline to top the charts in multiple genres this week with the release of “Move Your Ass” by The Buddies.

Listen to it here, but before you do, make room to get funky. (“And use proper headphones or speakers please!” Buddy says. “Don’t do us dirty by playing it through a phone or a laptop. You’ll miss all the bassy goodness that makes it funky!”)

The incredibly funktacular nu-disco track pays homage to the talented feline, who played guitar, bass, keyboards and percussion, while his human assisted him with certain particulars that required an opposable thumb.

“Obviously I could have done this on my own,” Buddy says, “but I like my human to feel like he’s involved in things, you know? Camaraderie and all that. But for future documentaries, ‘Behind the Music’ episodes and other retrospectives, it should be clear I’m the musical genius and the talent. The brains and the brawn, so to speak. Also the beauty. Obviously.”

“Move Your Ass” hit the top of Japan’s pop charts after an early release on Jan. 20 in that country, while it’s dominated the dance music charts in Luxembourg, the Principality of Sealand, Monaco and France. After its Jan. 30 release in the US and UK, it was steadily climbing the charts on Spotify and terrestrial radio.

Asked about his musical influences, Buddy waxed poetic about the funk, disco, French house and nu-disco he grew up listening to.

“From my earliest days of kittenhood, I remember Big Buddy playing Earth, Wind and Fire, Kool and the Gang, McFadden and Whitehead, The Brothers Johnson, Daft Punk, the Galactik Knights and Televisor. I love Televisor! I would dance around and joyfully smack my human on the head, then go hide in his shoes.”

Buddy’s already hard at work on his next single, which he promises “will be just as delicious as this one.”

Are Cats Really Liquid? Yes, Says Physicist Who Specializes In Fluid Dynamics

After seeing memes about liquid cats, physicist Marc-Antoine Fardin set himself the task of figuring out whether the little ones really are liquid.

Pour water into a glass or a jug, and the water takes the shape of the object immediately. Pour honey into a bottle, and it’ll likely take minutes before the slow-moving stuff fully conforms to its new container.

Both are liquid, but they’re not the same.

To differentiate levels of liquidity, rheologists — scientists who study the “deformation and flow” of liquids — use something called the Deborah number. The quicker the liquid takes the shape of its container, the lower its Deborah number, the “more liquid” it is.

On the extreme end are liquids like glass and tar pitch. It took an astounding 69 years for a single drop of the latter substance to fall at Trinity College, which set up a tar pitch experiment in 1944 and finally recorded its first drop on camera in 2013.

So what about cats? Are they really liquid?

If you’re a cat lover and you haven’t been living under a rock for the last 10 or 15 years, you’ve almost certainly seen memes showing photos of felines and their uncanny ability to conform their bodies to containers, as well as their tendency to “pour” themselves.

My Buddy is an expert in the latter, often electing to drop down from the couch in the laziest possible way, by shifting his weight and letting his body follow the path of least resistance until he slides off the side and onto the floor.

“Watchu lookin’ at, human? Haven’t you seen a liquid cat before?”

Marc-Antoine Fardin, a physicist with the French National Center for Scientific Research and Paris City University, won an Ignoble Prize for taking the memes seriously and studying the fluid properties of felines. Cats, Fardin wrote in an article about feline liquidity, “are proving to be a rich model system for rheological research.”

Cats, he concluded, are a “non-Newtonian liquid” with the ability to “alter their shapes to fill out the container without changing their volume,” putting them in the same general category as ketchup.

So the next time my cat gets all imperious with me, I’m going to remind him he’s a glorified condiment.

Wordless Wednesday: Nibbles The Cat From Cyberpunk 2077

Nibbles is the feline star of Cyberpunk 2077, a little buddy who adds a little levity and fun to the game’s dystopian future.

For PITB’s inaugural Wordless Wednesday, which is turning out to be a somewhat Wordy Wednesday, we’re celebrating Nibbles, the pet cat of protagonist V in Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk is an open world video game set in Night City, a sprawling dystopian city-state. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to live in the perpetual gloom of Blade Runner’s rainy, neon-soaked future, Cyberpunk 2077 is as close as you’re going to get.

Notably, you don’t start the game with Nibbles, who is initially a stray living in the filthy hallways of your apartment building and subsisting on garbage. You’ve got to find him, feed him real food and convince him you’ll be a worthy servant, because even trash-eating strays have standards.

A gamer shows off her pet cat, who bears a striking resemblance to Nibbles. Credit: Elissa Ayadi/Instagram

After you rescue Nibbles, he makes himself at home in your apartment, faithfully greets you when you return, protests when you use the shower, and meows impatiently for yums. He also enjoys lounging in your laundry basket.

You can pose with Nibbles anywhere in Night City for screenshots.

Nibbles is quite demanding, like all members of his species.

Another gamer with a sphinx cat doing her best Nibbles impression.

Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves, also takes a liking to Nibbles. Meanwhile, Nibbles takes a liking to the laundry basket.

Finally, some screenshots I took of Nibbles, V, Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves) and Reed (Idris Elba):

When Cute Is Cruel: Breed Beloved By Celebrities Like Taylor Swift Suffers Painful Genetic Mutation

Scottish Folds are cute, but the genetic mutation responsible for their folded ears also causes lifelong pain, joint problems and misshapen bones.

In 1961, a shepherd named William Ross found a barn cat with a curious feature: instead of the upright, swiveling, satellite dish ears of a normal feline, this cat’s ears were floppy and shapeless, resting atop her head like a tiny knitted cap.

Ross took the cat home and named her Susie. Susie gave birth to a litter of kittens with the same floppy ears, and it all gets a bit murky from there, with a dozen variations of the story online claiming it was Ross himself or a neighbor who “created” the breed.

Regardless of who it was, the floppy ears were transformed from an abnormal feature into the unmistakable characteristic of a breed, and the Scottish Fold was born.

The cute cats quickly caught on and were officially recognized in competitions by 1971.

Now they’re more in vogue than ever. They’re the preferred pets of music superstars Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, who regularly feature photos and videos of their Scottish Folds in social media posts. People across the world are buying them, and they routinely appear in “best breed” lists online, lauded for being cuddly and docile in addition to adorable.

Ed Sheeran with his Scottish Fold cat. Credit: Ed Sheeran/Instagram

But they’ve also been banned by the same cat fancy groups that initially welcomed them, they’re prohibited outright in some countries, and animal welfare groups are begging people to stop emulating celebrities by buying them.

That’s because the same deformity that gives Scottish Folds their distinctive ears is also responsible for weak and brittle cartilage and bones elsewhere in the body, which results in lifelong pain and disability.

According to the RSPCA:

“The disease is evident on x-rays of cats from as young as seven weeks of age. Serious abnormalities in joints and bone growth lead to arthritis (painful, swollen joints), short, abnormally thick, and inflexible tails, spinal abnormalities and short, stiff legs. The welfare impacts of Scottish Fold Osteochondrodysplasia can be severe in terms of pain and inability to perform natural behaviours, as these cats can be lame, walk with an abnormal gait, can be reluctant to engage in normal movements such as walking or jumping, and can even become completely crippled.

There is no cure for this progressive condition.”

Sadly, the deformities and resulting pain may be the reason Scottish Folds are considered docile and cuddly: they may simply be in too much pain to move or protest when their humans hug them or pick them up.

Ross and Turner didn’t know it in 1961, but the folded ears and brittle cartilage were the result of a genetic mutation. It wasn’t until 2016 that a group of American and Australian scientists found a mutation in a single gene, TRPV4, was responsible for weak cartilage and bones, leading to the deformities highlighted by the RSPCA in the passage above, as well as “progressive joint destruction.” The condition is called osteochondrodysplasia.

Taylor Swift and Scottish Fold cat — Swift’s cats have appeared in her music videos, feature prominently in her online posts, and were photographed in her arms for her 2024 post announcing she was supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election.

Cats Protection, a UK charity, raised the issue in 2024, warning that Scottish Folds were becoming even more popular, with breeders struggling to meet high demand. The group issued a public statement asking cat lovers and Swift fans to avoid buying Scottish Folds. Scottish Folds are equally popular in the US, spurring resistance from stateside animal welfare groups as well.

The Governing Council of Cat Fancy, which registers breeds in the UK — and no longer recognizes Scottish Folds — was even more direct.

“We strongly advise members of the public not to try to acquire cats of this breed,” Steve Crow, chairman of Cat Fancy’s governing board, told The Guardian.