Bonsai Kittens (2000)

AKA Rectilinear Kittens

About

For centuries, people in the West have marveled at the delicate beauty produced by Oriental artists and sculptors. From gardening to tattooing to dance and martial arts, these craftsmen have enthralled us with complex forms and simplistic perfection. One of the most fascinating of the visual techniques to emerge from this highly cultured region is the Oriental art of miniature sculpture. Who has not been stricken with the expressive grace of Japanese Bonsai? Though once the sole province of Bonsai masters within Japan, Bonsai plants have been available to fortunate consumers throughout the world for some time. With this in mind, we are proud to now offer to you the animal complement of this art form; the Bonsai Kitten.

Bonsai Kittens is a well-known internet hoax that basically spread the rumor that tiny, little kittens could be made into ornaments by sealing them in glass containers when they’re still small so that their flexible bodies would take the shape of said container as they grew up.

It bears similarities to the Japanese practice of growing Square Watermelons wherein which several watermelons are grown in cubic glass containers so that they will retain the shape of said containers. Farmers do this so that their watermelons can be stacked and sliced much easier than regular watermelons. Though, these Square Watermelons are much more expensive than their regular counterparts:

Over the years, this meme has become a photoshopping trend where cats are shooped into pictures of containers of all shapes and sizes. Very often, real pictures of cats supposedly stuck in any glass container are used as examples of the meme, either being labeled or named a Bonsai Kitten image.

Origin

On December 20, 2000, a site known as www.BonsaiKitten.com (now defunct) was launched to the public eye. It was created by a group of MIT graduate students as an elaborate hoax and was hosted by a person who goes under the alias, Dr. Michael Wong Chang.

• A replica of the original site

Reception

The major reception towards the site was overwhelmingly negative at first. Listed are a few of the many things people did online against the idea of kitty anatomy remodeling:

• People started sending hate-mail and threatened to send the police after the makers of the site if they did not take it down
• Anti-Bonsai Kitten groups started appearing on Yahoo!
• The Humane Society of the United States of America denounced the site due to receiving numerous amounts of complaints

Numerous investigations were done by animal cruelty organizations and protests from animal rights activists were everywhere on the internet preaching hatred and anger towards the MIT graduates that created www.BonsaiKitten.com.

FBI Investigation

To the graduates’ surprise, the FBI began investigating the whole ordeal. The site had violated a law signed by President Bill Clinton a year earlier which states:

Whoever knowingly creates, sells, or possesses a depiction of animal cruelty with the intention of placing that depiction in interstate or foreign commerce for commercial gain, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

The tongue-in-cheek nature of the website gave the FBI enough justification to treat the matter as a federal felony. Though, it should be noted that plenty of sites think this law violates the First Amendment and that all forms of media, even if they are majorly offensive, should be left alone by the FBI.

SOURCE: Wired.com

Aftermath

After all those investigations, people started realizing that the site was a hoax and started warming up to the joke. All sorts of photoshops of cats in containers soon followed thereafter.

A noteworthy example of this meme was made on January 23, 2006. Worth1000 held another one of its photoshopping contests where members of the site would shoop images to depict “proof” of any existing urban legend (i.e. Alligators in the sewer, Bigfoot, Cocaine in Coca Cola, etc.) This is the fourth time this specific contest was held. The winning image was a reference to the Bonsai Kitten hoax.

Several YTMND sites referring to the meme were created as well with the first being Kitten in a jar! created by YTMND user isamiracle on August 15, 2008:

• Bonsai Babies!
• Square Melons vs. Bonsai
• bonsai cats
• Bonsai Homestar

The song, “The Internet is Made of Cats” by Rathergood.com refers to the meme around 0:45 – 0:50.

As for the site itself, some people will still dislike it even if it’s already down (though, multiple mirrors of the site are still around). Even though they already know it’s supposed to be a joke, they will still denounce it for the fact that not everybody knows that it’s a joke and that those people may take all that’s said in the site seriously and experiment on animals.

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