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[Grigore Nora <ngrigore@libris.fil.unibuc.ro>]

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Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 11:07:00 +0200 (EET)
From: Rizeanu Mihai <a-urizen@libris.fil.unibuc.ro>
To: cconstan@libris.fil.unibuc.ro
cc: ngrigore@libris.fil.unibuc.ro
Subject: Forwarded mail....
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Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 12:41:54 +0200
From: Andrei Stan <andr@netappi.com>
To: a-urizen@libris.fil.unibuc.ro




Bonsai
Educatie si educabilitate
Paideia




Bonsai Kitten craze sweeps online world
By: Andrew Smith
Posted: 26/01/2001 at 09:23 GMT


Hardly a week goes by without computer games being blamed for turning people
into psychopathic killers, so it was strangely reassuring to see some of
these dangerous maniacs up in arms over the spoof Bonsai Kitten web site.

After being included as a novelty 'link of the day' on Blue's News, a
popular indie site almost as old as the online gaming scene itself,
BonsaiKitten.com was soon provoking an inevitable barrage of complaints.

"Someone hit an all time low with the kitten page," one reader vented.
"That's f#cking disgusting. Sick f#cks like that give the human race a bad
name."

Said another: "The bonsai kitten link is in really poor taste. I have even
more shame at being a member of this species now for having seen it."

Blue's News soon removed the link. The site administrator explained:
"Although personally I didn't find it offensive (and yes, I do have a cat)
obviously there are some of you that do, and I'd rather not offend our
readers."

So what is BonsaiKitten.com?

Well, it's a joke. A very convincing joke. Perhaps even a little too
convincing.

At first glance it would fool anyone, and even when you're really, really
sure it's all just an elaborate wind-up, you still have your doubts.

The intro to the site explains:

"Though once the sole province of Bonsai masters within Japan, Bonsai plants
have been available to fortunate consumers throughout the world for some
time. With this in mind, we are proud to now offer to you the animal
complement of this art form; the Bonsai Kitten."

Worried yet? It goes on:

"At only a few weeks of age, a kitten's bones have not yet hardened and
become osseous. The flexibility of the kitten's skeleton means that if the
bones are gently warped at this early age, they can be molded into any
desired shape. At Bonsai Kitten, we achieve this by placing the kitten into
a rigid vessel soon after birth, and allowing the young cat to grow out its
formative time entirely within this container. The kitten essentially grows
into the shape of the vessel!"

The site fools so many people because it goes into such great detail, even
offering advice for 'amateurs' wanting to experiment with their own kittens.

Understandably, this gives rise to concerns that the site's less intelligent
visitors -- the very people most likely to fall for it -- may set about
sticking kittens in glass jars and leaving them there for a few weeks.

There's even an illustrated example of one kitten supposedly being prepared,
complete with alarming comments such as: "Kitten was injected with 2mg
equivalent dosage of Valium via Ketamine after 12 hr fasting regimen."

And explaining how the jars are sealed: "Rear aspect, revealing
initialswelling reaction from Super Glue. Rectal diverticulum to side tube
usually spontaneously occurs in one week."

The owner of the site also runs a letters page, quoting praise and
supportfrom (hopefully) in-on-it readers and defending himself against those
who find the site distasteful. And the pretence doesn't stop here either.

"You are a sick son of a bitch," one letter says. "You are probably Chinese,
the most perverse of the Asians."

The response: "This message is typical of the bigoted and intolerant
individuals that have attempted to detract from our company ever since we
started it. It is a shame to spoil our guestbook with this sort of ignorant
filth."

Apparently started last month by a student at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Bonsai Kitten has been moving around from server to server, as
it unsurprisingly attracts a lot of complaints and some web companies are
unwilling to host it. There are currently eleven hosts listed that are said
to have deleted the site or refused to carry mirrors of it.

The new host, Rotten.com, which routinely carries material such as photos of
autopsies and car accidents, has given Bonsai Kitten a permanent home,
quoting a message from the US Humane Society to ease worried minds:

"When this site initially appeared in December, a local humane organization
did get involved on a local level in checking out this person, but
discovered no evidence of actual animal abuse having occurred."

However, the Humane Society isn't quite as positive about the site as may
appear from this quote. The society's full announcement says that Bonsai
Kitten "depicts and encourages cat cruelty", then explains the attempts made
to have it taken down, concluding:

"The Humane Society consistently works to increase public awareness of many
animal exploitative issues, including those encouraged by many of these
sites."

Whoever runs Bonsai Kitten is certainly treading a fine line between
devilishly clever satire and simple bad taste. But whatever the original
intention was, the joke is no longer the site itself, but the outrage it
provokes from some visitors.

Other sites guaranteed to offend some animal lovers include Cat-Scan.com -
featuring pictures of blindfolded cats taken using a flatbed scanner - and
several interactive animation sites that allow a variety of cartoon critters
to be dispatched using microwave ovens and blenders.

And if you really want to delve into the Net's seedier side, there are sites
dedicated to one of the more bizarre sexual fetishes, known as 'crush' or
'stomp'. These sites carry pictures and videos of women, usually bare foot
or wearing stilettos or combat boots, doing some decidedly unpleasant things
to insects and rodents.

Yahoo carries links to several 'crush' fetish sites, and even gives them a
category of their own. But according to BonsaiKitten.com, a Yahoo discussion
group about that site was removed after just a few days.




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