#CATmageddon: An Internet Without Cats? This Commercial Imagines The Horrifying Prospect

So the Grammys 2016 took place yesterday evening, you may have seen some news about various performances and some stuff about musicians. After all it is the Grammys. But there was also something called #CATmageddon, which was probably the best thing about the event.

In a canny piece of anti-smoking marketing Truth—a national anti-smoking campaign run by the nonprofit American Legacy Foundation aimed at eradicating smoking in the young—used memes (which they've done before), cat memes, to show the horrors of smoking tobacco, along with some dubstep too.

And it's proved a winning combo.

Hitting the internet where it hurts the message is that cats are twice as likely to develop cancer, through second-hand smoke, if their owners smoke. "Smoking = No Cats = NO Cat videos." runs the campaign which results in #CATmageddon. Ouch. Along with the hashtag a video shows a compilation of cats who have won the internets' hearts and become viral legends: Pirate Cat, Shark Cat, OMG Cat, etc

And, well, it worked. Or at least it got people's attention, because #CATmageddon started trending and people were remarking how clever the commercial was. Along with pointing out that it was better than the actual Grammys. And it also had the backing of some other internet cats, who no doubt helped it trend.

Lets hope it works, a world without internet cats would be a terrible place to live and probably drive you to start smoking cigarettes in order to cope with the horror.