I originally joined Reddit in 2011, and in the beginning it was dominated by cat content. It was rare to see a post about dogs. Sometime in the mid 20-teens this phenomenon reversed. It’s always been a “pet theory” of mine that this reversal was due to Reddit becoming mainstream, and that it’s initial nerdy/techie user base preferred cats to dogs.

I think my theory is further supported by Lemmy. It’s pretty clear that most of Lemmy’s user base are techies, and currently it’s dominated by cat content. Just a shower thought. May be wrong.

NOTE: I love dogs and cats. This post isn’t arguing favoritism.

  • alien@lemm.ee
    191·
    1 year ago

    Oooo it makes sense doesn’t it, the techy ones would be more likely to stay indoors stroking a cat than to go outside to walk a dog.

    • variants@possumpat.io
      8·
      1 year ago

      I dont know, all my non techie friends have cats because they arent home enough or dont have a yard for a dog even thought they wish they could, so they settle for a house cat. I wonder if there is a connection with the economy and percentage of dog/cat owners

      • alien@lemm.ee
        6·
        1 year ago

        Dam this gives us a whole new tool to study society and economy, dogs are defintely more expensive to own than cats right, just in general? Not just in terms of money, but time also.

        • ophelia@lemmy.ca
          7·
          1 year ago

          I recently read a theory that house plant ownership rises with poor economy performance as well, for this same reason.

        • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
          3·
          1 year ago

          I would disagree with that. Had both most of my life. Cats live much longer on average and tend to have health problems that go longer term, especially kidney and bladder issues. But I’m just going off my own experience, I have no idea what the numbers would look like overall.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      That’s only true for evil techies with lairs, who spend their time sitting on the command chair in the control room, overseeing their minions’ work on their masterplan, slowly stroking their cat and laughing with a maniacal laughter at seemingly random moments.