Forbidden Cats: What’s The Deal With These Cute Little Critters?

I believe the choice of animals is not random, but what makes a “forbidden cat”? 

All five animals are quite popular online, especially raccoons, foxes and opossums, as they have seemingly unlimited potential for memes. And the internet does what it does, giving them all their own internet nicknames. The most concrete or wide-spread of these are probably the raccoon, aka “trash panda”, and foxes, which are often referred to as cat software running on dog hardware (and it’s definitely got friend firmware). 

One comment from four years ago on msfreckles’ post by user u/TheDalob states:

“Those aren’t fake cats they are a Trash Panda [aforementioned raccoon], a fake trash panda [red panda], a Trash Ferret [opossum] a Dog on Cat-Hardware [sic., fox] and the last one just stinks [skunk],”  

• u/TheDalob

-Showing that they are all loved by the internet.

Something curious is how none of the established forbidden cats are actually from the Felidae family (where we can find felines such as house cats and big cats like the lynx or lion), but rather the Canidae family (where we can find canines such as dogs and wolves)[4]. This is pointed out by comments in the Reddit posts, with several people saying that foxes are actually more like dogs than cats. I believe this is the point, as animals in the Felidae family such as the serval, lynxes or Pallas’ cats aren’t considered forbidden cats in the same manner. Of course the internet loves these as well, but they are perhaps too cat-like, as if we expect them to behave like, look like and have similar vibes to the house cats we know and love.

Another thing about the forbidden cats is that they’re typically not allowed as housepets, which explains the “forbidden” part. In Norway it’s not legal for any of the wild animals to be kept as house pets, although there are a few states in the US that allow foxes and raccoons as pets[5]. There have been attempts at domesticating the different animals, but very few have been successful in their endeavors. Of course you’ll see a handful of people online keeping a pet raccoon or fox, but these are the exceptions to the norm.