Mostly soundtracked by cats meowing a Billie Eilish song, these AI-generated fantastias tell tales of cheating, revenge and violence – and are being watched by millions
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t the (tail) end of 2024, Billie Eilish sat cross-legged on stage and began to miaow. Her fans erupted in harmony, each belting out an off-key miaow of their own. She knows, they realised! This is because Eilish’s Oscar-winning track What Was I Made For? – a lachrymose Barbie cut lamenting adulthood’s entailing ennui – has become the default soundtrack for a new breed of cat video.
You may recognise it: the song often plays over the top of these AI-generated fantasias featuring a cartoonishly fat cat or an equally buff feline with a suspiciously veiny human body. The cat cheats on her lover, falls pregnant or seeks revenge in a weirdly condensed soap opera. And like all soap operas, these videos are extremely addictive.
Here’s one, for example. While working an honest job, Mr Whiskers – wearing a red flannelette shirt – accidentally cuts his paw off while endeavouring to saw some wood into shape. He is fired (in fact, the signs around his warehouse explicitly state that all workers “must have two arms to work”), his wife divorces him and he attempts to pick up the pieces of his hard-knock life in 30 neat seconds. It’s all going swimmingly until his scorned ex-wife tries to kill him with an axe a little while later, but all is well … she falls into a puddle and humiliates herself.
