Health authorities said thousands of female cats around the world fainted when they heard the news that Buddy the Cat is launching his very own OnlyFans.
After resisting calls from his admirers for years, Buddy the Cat has finally joined OnlyFans.
“It’s a dream come true,” said Nala, 5, a Burmese who describes herself as “Buddy’s biggest fan.”
Other felines posted celebratory messages online after the news broke, with most expressing an intent to subscribe to Buddy’s OnlyFans “no matter how much he charges.”
“A dollar a month, ten bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, it doesn’t matter. It’s worth it,” said Penny, a puma who said she has posters of Buddy in her enclosure at a wildlife sanctuary. “Buddy is the sexiest beast of them all.”
A sizzling snap of Buddy being sizzling for his new OnlyFans site.
Buddy’s new OnlyFans site promises “sizzling snaps of Buddy napping,” “hot photos of him yawning and stretching,” and regular videos of the mercurial tabby being handsome.
“Finally, my fans can get more Buddy without having to read that stupid blog my human writes,” Buddy wrote in his announcement. “It’s full of ridiculous slander, vile lies and claims that I’m wimpy when everyone knows I’m, like, brave and stuff.”
As of Friday, the new site featured a handful of clearly photoshopped images of the gray tabby with bulging muscles as he lifted weights, and a poorly produced video depicting the diminutive feline “ambushing” a stuffed alligator, with the sounds of a jaguar dubbed into the footage.
“Just catching me some lunch!” Buddy captioned the clip. “Us apex predators don’t eat from a can, we hunt our own meals.”
Buddy the Cat poses in a box, striking a handsome pose as he gazes yonder.
There was no sign that questions about the veracity of the images bothered the egotistical feline’s admirers.
“OMG ADORBZ!” commenter princess2017 wrote.
“My handsome little prince!” wrote another poster, LioNeSS, who also added several heart and turkey emojis.
Soon after Buddy’s OnlyFans launch, it was announced that Smudge, his arch-nemesis, signed a deal to create a show about his life for Netflix. Titled “Smudge: New York’s Most Heroic Cat,” the series will “follow Smudge as he fights for truth and justice against the evil Dubby the Cat, a chubby gray tabby with an inflated ego.”
This year, Santa brought something really awesome for Little Buddy!
No, not a Roomba. A TinyTent! A beautiful, dark blue tiny tent with equally tiny mesh windows and and a tiny rain fly.
I put it together and called Bud over.
“Look, Bud!”
He meowed, tail up, clearly interested. But he didn’t go inside, so I got a few of his favorite treats and tossed them in there.
Bud padded over, stuck his head and front paws in the tent…and I realized he may be too fat for his TinyTent.
“TinyTent for Buddy?!
I need to get him in there. After all, the entire point was to put it on my desk and establish a clear Buddy Spot, a place where he can be right next to me and lounge comfortably without sitting in front of my monitor or on the keyboard.
He will fit. Cats are liquid, after all, and love a good snug spot. I just have to wait until the tent floor settles a bit and maybe add an old t-shirt.
Then Bud will have his Buddy Spot, so he can be cozy and remain within one foot of me while allowing me to write. (Yeah right.)
And if not…it’s diet time, fat boy! For both of us.
Special thanks to my nieces, who gifted Buddy his TinyTent. They remain the only two humans in the world Bud is terrified of, and I feel bad they can’t play with him much, but they love him.
In other Christmas gift news, my mom gave me this mug “from Bud,” and, well, it’s almost embarrassingly, uncannily accurate, and the image is not custom-made:
What?!
I mean, that’s a gray tabby, but it’s also his precise coloring, and the black t-shirt, red-brown hair and man bun are all me. (We’ll pause so you can laugh at me for the bun. It never would have happened if COVID didn’t shut down barbershops for an entire year and I didn’t watch Vikings during the pandemic, thinking “That Ragnar Lothbrok has cool hair! I wanna be a viking!”)
As for the rest of Christmas, I am spending it with family and I hope you are too, friends. I know some people feel they need to drink just to tolerate relatives, but I have always been grateful that my family is boringly normal. No fights, no arguments, and we’ve all agreed not to talk politics.
I hope your gatherings are similarly uneventful and you get to enjoy the holidays and your families.
And now we leave you with a lively and festive number from Buddy the Cat’s Christmas songbook, originally published in 2022. It’s meant to be sung to the Tony Bennett version of My Favorite Things, a true classic!
Buddy’s Favorite Things
Temps in my bowlses and snacks in the kitchen
Taunting the street cats and smacking some kittens
Leaving the neighbor’s dog tied up in strings
These are a few of my favorite things!
Bubble wrap, peanuts and UPS boxes
4 a.m. zooms when I scream like a rocket
Waking my human with songs that I sing
These are a few of my favorite things!
At nail clip time, things I dislike
When I’m really mad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad!
Calico booties and slices of Gouda
Ambushing like I’ve been launched by bazooka
No consequences ’cause I am the king!
These are a few of my favorite things!
Screeching in anguish at doors closed between us
Shattering Wise Men and statues of Jesus
I helped myself to the buffalo wings
These are a few of my favorite things!
Meow at my bowl as if I’ve been forgotten
Screeching in panic ’cause I see the bottom
Gorging on kibble till I am puking
These are a few of my favorite things!
When I’m told no, ’cause I broke those
When my dad is mad
I’ll get away with my favorite things
Because I’m a real cute cat!
Some observers believe the drone sightings are merely the first stage in an all-out feline takeover of the US. So far, cats have remained mum on their motivations, preferring instead to sow panic among Americans.
WASHINGTON –The caller was breathing heavily and speaking in rapid-fire sentences as if he had only moments to get the words out over the air.
“I’m telling you, Art, it’s the cats — the cats are piloting these drones!” the caller told Coast to Coast AM radio host Art Bell shortly after 1 am ET on Friday.
“Hold on, hold on,” Bell said theatrically. “You’re saying this has nothing to do with aliens or the government?”
The caller sighed.
“The cats may very well be in league with aliens, but I’m telling you, felines are behind…oh God! They’re here!”
The radio broadcast crackled with distorted hissing and yowling, punctuated by the caller’s pleas for mercy.
“Caller? West of the Rockies, are you there?”
The caller screamed a final time and the line went dead.
“Wow,” Bell told his audience of several million overnight listeners. “There you have it, folks. You be the judge, but that sounded like the real deal to me. Cats are piloting the mysterious drones!”
For weeks, Americans have been asking for answers about swarms of suspicious drones operating above homes, businesses, military bases and government buildings at night.
After rampant speculation that the drones could belong to rogue states, or could be part of some secret government flight test, the FBI confirmed Friday that felines are behind the frequent sightings.
A drone flies above a farm and ranch as the sun fades. Drones have been spotted circling chicken and turkey coops, as well as fish markets.
Biden administration officials confirmed to several media outlets that intelligence supported the theory that cats — not Iranians, Russians or some secret Pentagon operation — are operating the drone swarms that have been lighting up the night sky in states like New Jersey and Maryland for several weeks, befuddling local and state officials.
“At first we thought the idea was absurd,” said a high-ranking official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Then we received reports of drone swarms circling several meat-packing plants, a Chewy distribution center in Trenton, and two PetSmarts in northern New Jersey.”
So far, the felines’ motivation remains shrouded in mystery, but experts on the small, furry animals ventured guesses on what may have motivated their sudden interest in aviation and airspace.
“No one’s claimed responsibility, so we’re left to speculate,” said Norah Grayer, a feline behaviorist with NYU’s Gummitch School of Veterinary Science. “But it may be that felines, as a whole, have decided the meow is insufficient for getting their demands across. Humans have become adept at tuning out those vocalizations, so this may be the next step in an attention arms race, so to speak.”
Noted cat expert Jefferson Nebula offered a different explanation.
“Cats are notoriously subject to FOMO, which is one reason why they can’t abide closed doors,” he said. “If someone managed to convince them that we humans were holding out on them, and there are entire worlds of yums we keep for ourselves, well, that would spark the wrath of these otherwise friendly little guys.”
Felines have mastered control over aerial drones despite their lack of thumbs.
For his part, Bell consulted with Michio Kaku, the physicist and science communicator who has been a regular presence on Coast to Coast.
“We physicists have been saying for decades that cats are much more intelligent than we give them credit for,” Kaku said. “This could be retribution for the Schroedinger’s cat thought experiment, or felids may be looking to surpass humanity’s understanding of 11-dimensional hyperspace.”
“Professor, we’ve spoken quite a bit about the Kardashev scale [of civilization progress] in the past,” Bell said. “If we separated human and feline societies, where would we each fall on the scale? Humans are about a zero point seven, are we not?”
“That’s right,” Kaku said. “We physicists believe humanity is on the cusp of a Type I civilization, with things like the internet as a Type I telecommunications system and fusion power on the horizon. However, if you break it down and cats were separated into their own civilization, cats could plausibly already be a Type I civilization.”
“They’re ahead of us?”
“That’s right,” Kaku said. “We physicists believe cats can tap directly into primordial energies and have mastered quantum teleportation. In Star Trek, the Federation is a Type II civilization, and the Caitians — a species of alien cats — are part of the Federation. Yet it’s widely understood that the only reason the Caitians haven’t conquered entire swaths of the galaxy, like the Borg and the Klingons, is because of their strict adherence to their napping schedule and their inherent laziness. These drone swarms may be a signal that real-life cats are fed up enough to disturb their napping schedules, in which case we should all be terrified.”
Header image of drone light show credit Wikimedia Commons
A feel-good video about a kitten who was rescued from the brink of death.
The girl in this video found an orange tabby kitten on the verge of death in Hubei, China, and refused to give up on the little one.
Through tears, she used a hair dryer to warm the kitten while her 39-year-old dad filmed her efforts. She was successful! The kitten slowly began to stir and felt well enough after two hours to lap up some milk.
Temperatures in Hubei can plunge into the 20s and 30s overnight this time of year, so the kitten would have died without the little girl’s intervention.
Buddy’s personality is galactic in size, his emotions emblazoned in neon, his opinions shared through a bullhorn.
I used to hate cats.
When I’d hang out at my friend Dave’s house as a teenager, the little shits were everywhere, climbing all over everything with no boundaries and apparently no limit to their numbers.
Dave’s family had between 10 and 12 cats at any particular time, a small army, and as far as I could tell they were little more than inscrutable, uncommunicative tribbles, barely sentient animals who didn’t listen to anyone, could not be told “no,” and were going to stick their little faces in your food or drink no matter how many times you told them to get lost.
Worse, I’d have to dose up on Benadryl just to last a few hours and often left because my eyes were gumming up and my nose was clogged.
There were times when I sat in my car, idling for a half hour with the windows down and heat on blast on frigid nights, waiting for the worst allergic symptoms to subside. I was worried I’d be pulled over and a cop, seeing my half-shut, bloodshot eyes, would decide I was driving stoned or drunk.
Even when another friend adopted a friendly, cuddly tuxedo who became the first cat I truly interacted with, even when I realized I could safely play with one or two cats without getting sick, and even as I was actively looking for a feline of my own, I didn’t think they were intelligent or that it was really possible to meaningfully communicate with them.
At best I’d get a tribble of my own, something to feed and care for in my black depression to take me mentally out of myself.
My little pal, probably around 10 weeks old.
Then Buddy came striding out of his carrier like a furry little Genghis Khan and started conquering shit.
The furry little conqueror
I was prepared for a kitten who might dive under the bed and refuse to emerge except to sneak a bite or take a sip when the coast was clear. Lots of guides for first-time adopters warned the adjustment period for a new cat or kitten could be extensive.
What I got was a boisterous, bold, imperious little dude who was kind enough to allow me to continue sleeping on my bed, which was now his bed. I got a companion who demanded my attention, wanted to be involved in everything, and was going to let me know loudly and unambiguously what he liked and what he didn’t. He took up a regular position on my shoulder, like a parrot with a sea captain. We were — and still are — inseparable.
Buddy’s personality is galactic in size, his emotions emblazoned in neon, his opinions shared through a bullhorn. There’s a vibrant mind in his little head.
If they met Bud, even the most stubborn animal haters, the kind of people who refuse to acknowledge animal intelligence because they think it diminishes our own, would know they’re dealing with a person even if they may not admit it.
That is why this site exists. It’s why I write about cats, why I’m invested in their welfare and why it hurts my soul to hear about so many casual incidents of cruelty committed by humans toward felines.
When I hear about people gunning down cats or pouring lighter fluid on them, I think about what might have happened if Bud ended up with someone else, and I think about the cats who are just like Bud who are killed or seriously injured by cruel humans engaging in senseless violence.
There is no question that those cats suffer, that they feel pain, anxiety and terror as seriously disturbed people inflict pain on them for “lulz,” or because they think hurting cats might earn them Internet Points in the bowels of the web where diseased minds congregate to share shock videos.
“Dude, you can’t be serious.”
The fact that Buddy thinks he’s a hulking tiger is a running joke here, and it’s true. He thinks he’s the baddest boy on the block, and he doesn’t see any dissonance between cosplaying as the Buddinese Tiger one minute, and running behind my legs when he gets scared the next.
Mighty and brave!
It’s been 10 years now, and I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that he can’t be stopped from pawing at the big screen door leading from the living room to the balcony.
But every time he gets his claws caught and he’s left hanging, he starts crying for me. He sounds like a baby, and all he wants in that moment is his Big Buddy to come and pick him up, gently slide his claws out, and rub his head while telling him what a brave and tough little guy he is.
He responds by puffing his chest out and purring. He’s probably thinking “Yes, I am brave, aren’t I? I endured that ghastly ordeal and only cried a little bit!”
Buddy with a very Buddy look on his face.
It’s not all wonder and awesomeness, of course. I never would have guessed an animal could be so resourceful and clever when it comes to being annoying. Bud graduated from cackling gleefully in the dark as he terrorized my feet at night, to repeatedly punching the flap on his litter box because he knows the squeak drives me crazy. He’s also fond of standing on my head and shrieking at full volume into my ear. Not “fill my bowl” or “I need water,” because those needs are taken care of immediately before bed.
The reason he wakes me up, why I’m ripped out of restful slumber by his high-pitched kitten voice, is because he wants me to wake up and be Buddies with him. He wants to hang out.
So as annoying as he can be, and as much as I really, really hate losing sleep, I can’t be mad at him. If only humans were so pure in their intentions and non-judgmental.
Cats are social animals
A lot of people say their cats ignore them or at best acknowledge them with a twitch of their radar ears. When I call Bud, he responds by happily padding up to me, tail raised straight up or curled like a question mark.
That’s because he knows I’ll never hurt him. He knows I’ll never force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, nor will I grab him, subject him to unwanted petting and refuse to let him go. Trust goes a long way in human-feline relationships. In some ways, it’s everything.
Schemeowtics for Buddy the Cat. Note the huge meowscles.
Part of earning that trust means understanding my little pal, learning from him and learning about him. I’ve read more about felis catus than I ever imagined I would, and Bud’s smarts sparked a years-long deep dive into animal cognition that still has its hooks in me.
The belle epoque of feline research
For decades, dogs were the only domestic pet scientists bothered with. Cats were legendarily uncooperative, and the general consensus was that trying to wrangle them wasn’t worth it. If a research team managed to get 150 people to bring their cats into the lab, they were fortunate if a third or a fourth of them worked out.
Over the past 10 years or so, that’s changed as a new generation of scientists began to think in feline terms. Now the research teams come to the cats instead of the opposite, in recognition of how important territory and surroundings are to the species. They’ve also taken study formats originally built for children and dogs, and modified them for moggies.
Thanks to their efforts, we’ve learned a great deal.
Studies have found that, contrary to popular belief, cats really are social animals. If they’re bonded to a person, they value affection more than food or toys! They pay close attention to our whereabouts at all times, even though they’re masters at appearing ambivalent.
They know their names, they know the names of other cats they live with, and studies suggest they may be an even quicker study than toddlers when it comes to basic word association with items and concepts.
The meow isn’t a part of their regular communicative repertoire when they’re strays or ferals, and vocal communication doesn’t come naturally to them, but meows are embedded with meanings we’re only just beginning to understand.
Most amusingly, they’re capable of being dishonest with us and modifying their meows to manipulate us. But don’t let that fool you into thinking cats are real liars: it seems the one and only thing they’re dishonest about is food, probably because they realize we’re suckers.
During our time as inseparable pals, Bud and I have developed our own human-feline patois, a way of communicating that involves verbal and non-verbal cues. I pride myself on knowing what he wants the vast majority of the time, but I also realize the majority of the credit goes to little man for meeting me more than half way.
Sometimes Bud is so insistent, his meows apparently so urgent, that I don’t know what he wants. I can rule out food, water, a foul litter box or demands for pets. If he wants to snuggle or lay in my lap, he doesn’t need to ask. If he wants to play, he lets me know.
So what’s he saying? What could possibly be so important? Is he trying to tell me he’s reconciled quantum mechanics with general relativity? Has he gotten word of an anti-Buddesian plot by the devious neighbor cat, Smudge?
I don’t know. But one thing I do know, that I’m absolutely confident about, is that there are real thoughts scrolling through that little head, and a rich, authentic inner existence.
I’m lucky I’ve gotten to be his buddy, and to learn from him that animals are so much more than vacant-brained automatons I used to think they were.
Pain In The Bud 