Following the results of yesterday’s general election, many in the United Kingdom—and across the world—are in deep need of something to help cheer them up. While nothing short of widespread, meaningful changes to the worldviews and political systems that have brought us all to this moment are likely to really turn those frowns upside down, the BBC (perhaps in penance for the role it played in the Conservative victory) is doing its level best with an ongoing “livestream” of an adorable cat sitting on a roomba.
Entitled “Christmas cat hoovering,” the video being streamed is actually just an endless loop of a long-haired kitty sitting on a vacuum as it cleans the space in front of a tree and a bunch of presents. On one sweep, the cat’s back is turned to the camera. On the next, it’s facing the front. Occasionally, it gives out a little meow but still continues its ride. There is nothing else to it, and it’s been played on repeat for a little over 12 hours now.
There’s a meditative quality to the “livestream,” which contains no background music or any other form of distraction that would take away from the simple pleasure of watching a quiet, well-lit room being cleaned for the holidays by a contented cat on its Roomba. Watch it for long enough and it’s almost possible to imagine that all is right with the world—that our species’ ability to both create robot vacuums and live in harmony with wonderful furry animals means we’re doing okay in spite of everything else.
Perhaps this is the best we can expect of the world’s foremost news outlets going forward. Unable to reliably engage audiences with regular, thorough reporting on the hypocrisies, excesses, and short-sighted policy-making of those who somehow continue to control the world, they can at least offer us days-long streams of Christmas cats.
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39 Comments
I will admit I don’t pay a ton of attention to British politics. But Johnson seemed like, well, kind of a mess. Did Labour forget to name a candidate, or something?
Labour did. Its just that Corbyn was a mess in his own right and that turned off a lot of voters.
Corbyn wasn’t a mess at all, he was just the victim of a campaign from various parts of the media to assassinate his character. Yes, he wasn’t perfect, and he made mistakes, but in general he was one of the best leaders Labour has ever had and the way he was treated was truly sickening.
And I’ve defended the BBC for years but after their role in this election they can go fuck themselves quite frankly.
Nope. Not the case. While there was definitely was a smear job by the media on him, Corbyn made it too easy for them and didn’t help. He has no charisma and charm, media savvy, and leadership skills, as him flip-flopping and waffling over Brexit was the nail in the coffin. Especially since everyone knows he’s a Brexiteer, but he was too scared to be out and proud with it for the most bizarre reason. And he made the same mistake Hillary did by barely campaigning and connecting with those working class whites in the Midlands and The North. Like Hillary, he just assumed they were in the bag for Labour no matter what, so he stupidly didn’t care.Labour turnout was the lowest in years. Lots of Labour voters stayed home because they were so turned off by his personality as he didn’t do much to inspire, energize, and motivate voters and sell his ideas the way his American counterpart Bernie Sanders does.
While I agree with you that he mishandled Brexit (which is one of my biggest issues with his leadership) I disagree when it comes to his leadership skills, charisma and being media savvy, I think the leadership debates showed just how strong he was on those fronts.
100% your opinion. Reality as shown by the voters say otherwise. Saying again, he did not use the charm and charisma you think he has to connect, engage, and energize/inspire voters into voting for him.
Well I think the reason he lost the election is very complicated, and his response to Brexit was definitely an aspect, but I think part of it is also the vicious media campaign against him rather than any aspect of his personality / appearance, etc.. But this comes down to personal beliefs ultimately, so I think we can only agree to disagree.
The only person making it complicated is yourself as such a huge Corbynite and fan that you’re ignoring the polls, interviews, and evidence that suggests that Corbyn is one of the most unliked politicians in British history. There is no agreeing to disagreeing with the fact that if no one likes you because of negative aspects of your personality which Corbyn clearly had in the first place, then no one will vote for you no matter what the media says about you. You’re also conveniently ignoring too that Boris was as unliked as Corbyn too in some cases. But Boris knows how to play the media and voters to his advantage, Corbyn doesn’t and couldn’t and that’s why he lost.
Blimey, you’re a bit of a twat.
Awww, lookit at the crybaby Corbynite prat, coming online to troll and attack people instead of accepting that Corbyn lost because he was such an unlikeable twat that nobody wanted to vote for.
Blimey, you’re a bit of a twat.
Boris doesn’t have to know how to play the media, the media help him regardless at every turn, especially the publicly funded broadcaster and most of print media.
The media treated the Labour candidate, Corbyn, like he was a Nazi made out of spiders.
For someone who portrayed himself as a righteous person, he did have a lot of anti semitic, terrorist friends. Plus there was that whole “taking money from the state TV of a nation that hangs gay people” thing.
It’s truly fucking staggering how many non-UK people are blissfully unaware of the type of person Corbyn is, not to mention other specimens at the top echelon of Labour like McDonnell and Abbott. It’s almost as if they just assume he’s a benevolent Bernie Sanders type as opposed to an unapologetic Marxist who’s never met a hate Preacher he didn’t like.
ah Nazi Spiders Man ..I think he’s in the spidergeddon comic.
No, he was an anti semitic terrorist supporting Marxist. The Media did not need to smear him, just report everything he’s ever wrote or video he’s been in.
which was only a slight exaggeration
plus, the English are much, much, much more racist than we realized.
fixed it for youplus, didn’t realize the English were just as racist as Americans
me neither. The amount of monkey chants at football games have increased dramatically since Boris took charge. It’s like he gave everyone permission to be racist dicks.ps what did you fix?
Who do you think taught the Americans everything they know about being racist?
Well, some of us. I’m Australian so I already had my suspicions.Yes, we’re also terrible.
Nah we knew. They just don’t feel the need to pretend now.
I posted something pretty sarcastically pointed here and thought better of it, but….yeah, the racism runs deep.
Oh just fuck off. Just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t make them racist.
Go to hell, you cunt.
Corbyn had an inspired manifesto and ran a strong campaign, whereas Boris Johnson was utter shite in every way.But Corbyn lost because:
a) he’s been relentlessly smeared by the media, especially the Murdoch press but also the BBC to an extent.b) despite his personality flaws being – IMO – vastly overstated (see a) he has failed in certain areas e.g. response to anti-semitism claims.c) a very flawed belief within the British electorate that the Tories are inherently good for the economy and Labour are always bad, which itself was exacerbated by Corbyn’s super-socialist manifesto.
But by far the most important reason is d): Corbyn never stood a chance in this election because it was never about anything else but Brexit. He chose to support a second referendum, which led to scores of pro-leave Labour voters abandoning him in favour of the Tories. But if he’d outright supported Leave, then remainers would’ve flocked to the Lib Dems. There was literally no way for him to win because apparently Brexit is all that matters now. We might ‘get it done’ now, as Boris says, but it’s gonna be at the cost of having the most far-right government Britain’s had since Thatcher in power for the next five years.
I thought Corbyn had it when he answered the most important question correctly.
He can comb his hair? I didn’t think it was possible.
Typical Corbyn, won’t specify Vol 1 or Vol 2. It’s Brexit all over again.
They named one, it’s just they should have gotten rid of Corbyn long ago, as his faults as a figurehead have been very apparent for a long time now. He was clearly, clearly kryptonite to electoral success, and now Labour has to suffer the consequences of that. What good is bringing all those young people into your party if you lose an election this badly…
my only question: what is the cat thinking?
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”
Meow am I become death, destroyer of worlds.
Needs moar shark suit!
While I am a cat owner/lover I’m usually not into cat videos and really frown on pet costumes. That said, it’s been a brutal fucking week and the video made me laugh so hard my own felines hid under the couch. Thanks.
Sorry to hear about your week. Glad this cheered you up a bit. That has to be the most chill cat.
Thanks for plugging the news outlet that helped get Boris elected. BBC isn’t doing their job, why should AVclub do theirs?
Indeed. Hopefully, at least, this election will put to rest the idea that the BBC is somehow an impartial observer in all of this. Johnson was literally publicly threatening the BBC management with “reviews” from the conservative government, should they fall out of the good graces of bigots and liars. It seems to have worked.
This is clearly the future of BBC’s reporting: