Is "Bonsai Kitten" real or fake?

 Rumor: From Weibo, "There is a pet breeding technology in Japan, called bonsai kitten, which is to put underage kittens in glass bottles, glue the limbs with good glue, and use a thin tube to put them in front of them. To feed the immobile kitten, another tube is placed in the back for a rectal-like excretion. The kitten is fed a chemical that promotes softening of the bones to fit the shape of the glass bottle. After a period of time, The kitten will take the shape of the bottle itself, immobilized in the bottle, and become a bonsai."

Searching for "bonsai kitten" on the Internet, you can see many links, the content and wording are almost the same, and it can be seen that they are all from the same source. At the same time, the comments of netizens were unanimous, feeling "too cruel" and scolding "Japanese perverts".

Worth 1000 Image Change Contest champion,2006

Website 'Bonsai Kitten.com'

 The truth: This rumor originated from a website called 'Bonsai Kitten.com' [1], which was fiddled with by a group of graduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and introduced the basic situation and production methods of bonsai kitten. , sold at the same time or produced on behalf of. After being recommended as a Cruel Site of the Day on December 20, 2000 by the Crule.com website, Bonsai Kitten was pushed to the forefront. Because it is considered to be a mistreatment of cats, there is a flood of condemnation and scolding, and emails about "bonsai kitten" are spread wildly on the Internet. Western media and Internet have widely reported this incident, animal protection organizations and individuals. There was a movement, the Humane Society of the United States, local law enforcement, the FBI all investigating.

The government department's investigation ended in vain, because it was confirmed that it was just a prank. In fact, although the website claims to sell bonsai kitten, the website does not provide details such as price, how to pay, company address, etc., and the phone number provided on the website is also fake. The pictures provided on the website only saw the cat put into a large bottle, and there was no cat photo that was finally transformed successfully. In fact, no cats are actually made into bonsai kitten.

The original intention of the creators of the Bonsai Kitten website was to satirize "those who see nature as a commodity", "to humiliate these hypocrites by angering them, and those who understand these intentions will see a good show", no doubt These original intentions have been realized, even better than imagined. But unexpectedly, many people believed that this was true, so much so that animal protection agencies were involved. [2]

In 2003, this "bonsai kitten" crossed the sea to China, and caused projective anger because it was marked "Made in Japan". The title is: Seeing through the cruel animal nature of the Japanese from the "bonsai Kitten"! His post caused a lot of discussion on BBS. In the following years, it was mentioned several times, and recently it has been popularized on Weibo. Rumors are like tides that come and go, and come and go.

Why does this rumor have something to do with the Japanese? The introduction on the Bonsai Kitten website mentioned Japanese Bonsai, and the subsequent reprint email evolved into "In New York there is a Japanese who sells bonsai kittens" (In New York there is a Japanese who sells bonsai kittens ). In Japan, there are indeed examples of cultivating square watermelons. Coupled with imagination, it seems logical to apply a similar method to cats.

Conclusion

Rumors busted. In reality, no cat was abused and made into a bonsai kitten. The whole incident was just a prank that started on the Internet and was limited to the Internet.

Influence

In fact, in the end, the "Bonsai Kitten" incident has evolved from pure animal protection to a big discussion about freedom of speech. Animal protection organizations in the United States believe that the "bonsai kitten" website openly promotes cruelty to animals, and asks the government to shut down the website. Supporters believe that the "Bonsai Kitten" website only published mischievous remarks and cannot be punished by words. If the website is forced to close, it will violate the right to freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. At the end of the debate, it seems that freedom of speech has the upper hand, and several mirror sites of the "Bonsai Kitten" website are still accessible.

After people realized that this was just a joke, the topic of "bonsai kitten" became less, but as a sensational topic, in the years to come, it would still be brought up and ridiculed from time to time. In 2006, the winner of the Worth 1000 picture-changing contest was a PS picture about "bonsai kitten", which was also teased with "bonsai kitten" in the funny Internet song "The Internet is Made of Cats" [3] produced by Rathergood.com for a while.

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