While International Cat Day is held on August 8, in Japan Cat Day is celebrated on February 22. Why? Well, the “2/22” date sounds a lot like “nyan nyan nyan” — the sound of a cat’s meow in Japanese. That’s reason enough to celebrate cats a whole half a year earlier than the rest of the world, right?
On top of the typical adorable pictures of the Internet’s unofficial mascot, Twitter Japan announced that they would hold a special photo fail contest during the week leading up to Cat Day. Participants could enter by posting their “hetakuso” (clumsy, awkward or crappy) photo of their cat on Twitter with the hashtag #猫の写真へたくそ選手権 or “Clumsy Cat Photo Contest” in English.
Their audience certainly delivered. In fact, Japan knocked the world’s socks off by having more cat-related tweets on Feb. 22 than on any International Cat Day ever.
You’ve got to be kitten me
Yesterday, they posted some of the most shared Tweets from the contest and they are well and truly modern-day masterpieces.
First up is Twitter user @shimethuu’s submission of her cat who is perplexed beyond reason at a basic toy. Ramu writes, “She got too riled up and can’t tell what’s what anymore lol.”
興奮しすぎて、何が何だか分からないwww pic.twitter.com/M9pTNlhHBz
— らむ (@shimethuu) February 19, 2019
The next cat photo fail is actually 100% user error, as @wavemomchan explains: “I messed up the panorama shot😩”
Typical human.
https://twitter.com/wavemomchan/status/1098041705490608128
Our next cat thinks he’s a hide-and-seek expert, but really, he needs to learn how to think outside the box.
#猫の写真へたくそ選手権
PS4と一体化 pic.twitter.com/STrfg2cH0o— y. (@pyoca_) February 20, 2019
“Becoming one with the PS4” quipped his owner, @pyoca_.
Next, Twitter user @iyoiyoiyo_14 submitted their cat photo, calling it “an awful face lol.”
#猫の写真へたくそ選手権
ひどい顔(笑) pic.twitter.com/b8uWllYsn9— イヨ (@iyoiyoiyo_14) February 20, 2019
Our next submission is a panel comic with narration by @ebisdani to guide us through their cat’s sweet yet misguided attempt at being a hero.
猫「え、お子？お子が引っかかってってますよ！？」
猫「え、ちょ、誰か、ちょ」
猫「お子！お子ー！」
猫「あああああ！！ジャーンプ！！」私「猫、お前を助けようとしてんな」
乳児「キャッキャッ」#猫の写真へたくそ選手権 pic.twitter.com/lQnZ0FpJJe— 胡谷陽 (@ebisdani) February 21, 2019
The Tweet reads:
“Cat: ‘What, a baby? A baby’s hanging up there!’
Cat: ‘Wha-, h-hey, someone, h-‘
Cat: ‘Baby! Baaabyyyy!’
Cat: ‘AHHHH!! I’M GONNA JUUUUMP!!'”
Me: ‘Looks like the cat’s trying to save you.’
Baby: ‘Ba ba’”
Next, @chikuwa_booo submitted a stellar face swap of her cat who could probably benefit from the instant attitude adjustment.
並べて撮りたかったのに反応しちゃったやつ#猫の写真へたくそ選手権#ネコノヒー pic.twitter.com/nwPCZwA2yR
— ちくわ。 (@chikuwa_booo) February 20, 2019
And lastly, @panstarrsison delivers the No.1 retweeted cat picture in the contest, titled: “Alien Basketball.” Truly a work of art, it has more than 38,000 retweets and over 108,000 likes.
https://twitter.com/panstarrsison/status/1098144445713702912
With Japan currently in the lead for cat photos on Cat Day, we’ll have to see if the US Twitter account has something similar planned in August to bump up engagement. Their cat-related Tweet below published the day after isn’t all that promising:
meow
— Twitter (@Twitter) February 24, 2019
Whatever they come up we’re pretty paw-sitive Japan’s cats will be up for the challenge!
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