Why Are We So Fascinated With the "Cat Bin Lady?"

In Coventry, England, a woman was caught by a security camera petting a cat and then dumping her in a nearby trash bin, where the cat was stuck without food or water for 15 hours before her owners found her. Lola, the cat, was okay, but her owners posted the video online to try and find out the identity of the woman. The "cat bin lady" was identified as Mary Bale and the video went viral.

Mary's response to the flurry of media and internet attention was "I really don't see what everyone is getting so excited about — it's just a cat." That only made things worse, because no animal deserves to be trapped in a bin for hours.

It was cruel and inexplicable, and Lola and her family deserve justice. But when you consider all the cases of cruelty where pets suffer and die from neglect and torture, animals are painfully exploited for entertainment in bloodsports or circuses, and millions of animals suffer on factory farms and in laboratories, why has everyone gotten so excited about the "cat bin lady?"

The video has been cross-posted all over YouTube and the internet. Several Facebook pages sprung up, many of them with thousands of members ... at least one was taken down for containing death threats against Mary. There's a parody video, Revenge of the Cat, and a whack-a-mole style internet game, where Mary pops out of trash bins. A fake Twitter account, @catbinlady, mocks her "split second of misjudgement" (as she called it), with tweets such as: "Lovely coffee at Brenda's, but as soon as she left the room I couldn't help tipping it down the back of her telly. Regretting it already."

What's behind this internet uproar? Is it because, as The Guardian's Euan Ferguson put it, we love "bored, point-mouse-clicky-clicky, recreational vengeance?" That could explain the whack-a-cat-woman game, but for the rest, there's more to it.

A lot of it has to do with the players: Mary Bale is a middle-aged bank employee who looks like she could be your mom or your neighbor walking home from work. When you see her stop to stroke the cat, she comes across like the type of person any animal lover can relate to. Lola is a healthy cat who is well cared for. Millions of households have cats just like her, who are members of the family. When Lola was treated so callously by someone who appeared so normal, it hit too close to home. If it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone's pet, in any neighborhood, right?

If there had been no video for us to see Mary and Lola, the story probably wouldn't have had this much traction. But that doesn't mean putting cameras in slaughterhouses, for instance, would have the same effect. Plenty of investigative videos at puppy mills and factory farms have gone virtually unnoticed outside of activist circles. Why aren't people more upset over thousands of chickens dying as they are over the cat who spent a day in a bin?

The fact is, as a society, we feel very differently about cats than we do about chickens. Mistreatment of animals we see as "pets" tends to spark more outrage than those we see as "food," or even the cute-and-furry wild animals who don't share our homes.

Mary's actions didn't make sense to any sane person and may very well be an indication that she's capable of worse, but it's not on the same sadistic level as a crime like setting a dog on fire. So much of the animal abuse happening today is on such a large scale or is so shockingly horrible, that people can't wrap their heads around it. So they read about a dog learning English instead of the latest update on earthquake victims, or they focus on the woman who tossed a cat in a trash bin. Easier stories with happy endings.

Is it wrong to be upset about what Mary Bale did to Lola — to sign the petition, share the video, play the game? Not at all. Just don't forget that many animals aren't nearly as lucky as Lola. Don't walk away now that she's out of harm's way and Mary is being investigated; save some indignation and activism for the other animals who need people to care, too.

Photo credit: karindalziel