A cat in a bowl, in the forest, wearing nerd glasses (video)

[YouTube link]. Stay with it for the elegant finale. From shironekoshiro's channel, which is basically full of videos exactly like this: inexplicably calm cats, putting up with stuff being put upon them. The blog is pretty great, too. You're welcome.

• [NoOneSpecific]

  Man that is one passive cat. Just slept the whole time. Right up until it’s less than graceful exit.

• [franko]

  that cat knows how to nail an exit.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Shouldn’t that be ‘stick a dismount’?

    • [franko]

      why yes, now that you mention it, that’s a perfectly acceptable phrase in this case.

• [CognitiveDissident]

  Of all the cat-sitting-in-a-bowl-whilst-wearing-nerd-glasses-whilst-being-in-a-forest videos I have seen, this is the bestest one.

• [renke]

  spoiler warning: the finale is great

• [Maria Pranzo]

  I tried to find a picture of “shironekoshiro” from the channel — every link just sends you to more cat pictures, more cat videos.  I suspect that shironekoshiro is a group pseudonym for the cats themselves, who make their (9) livelihoods through these videos.  It explains both the passiveness and the awesome exit.

  I suspect the person putting the objects on them is hired for the job — a feline photographer’s assistant — and that these cats reign supreme in an otherwise unhumanized world of boxes, bowls, cat toys, and all the fresh tuna they desire.

• [Lemoutan]

  Cat, alog.

• [psychedelicdonut]

  Hipster’s have appropriated those glasses for their own fashion. I can not remember a single person in high school or junior high who wore glasses of this nature. I think the last time a ‘nerd’ wore these glasses, they were not overly willing. Glasses were manufactured to be as small as possible, including relatively high perscription. Possible represented the large glasses you see in older photos of your grandparents, parents or yourself. They were extremely popular in hollywood’s representation of the generic nerd; think Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, or possibly a more serious movie of your choosing. They have just become a fashion accessory for those who want to look ‘nerdy’ with a few exceptions.

  • [s2redux]

    Or perhaps your memory just doesn’t go back very far. Add a little bit of rounding to the outer rim just below the endpiece on those frames (think: Mark’s frames), and you’re looking at every pair of glasses I had up until the end of junior high in the late ’60s. I needed big frames for my coke-bottle left lens; I wanted big frames for the eye protection; my parental units pushed them because they were cheap (both the glasses and the ‘rents). Friends who wanted to butch-up wore Clark Kent frames (a la Cory’s eyewear) or opted for a grown-up look with large horn-rimmed frames.

    A happy confluence of plastic lens advances, Midwest availability of Lennon-style wire frames, and a surprise burst of fashion pride (wanted to complement my small stud earring) led to a smaller, lighter, hipper frame in ’68 or ’69. In fairness, though, the term “nerd” p’bly didn’t apply back then. Guys like me were called “dorks”; our classification wasn’t upgraded to nerd until college, p’bly as a sop by “normal” peers who really wanted to eyeball our lecture notes ;-)

    • [skabob]

       I think you are could go back a touch further and find GI BCG’s (Birth Control Glasses) as the genesis of the style and “nerd” association.  Military style.

    • [penguinchris]

      I think I heard on the Gweek podcast that Mark used to buy Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and have the lenses replaced with regular clear prescription lenses (he mentioned it, as I recall, because at some point he found a source of lookalike frames that are a lot cheaper and doesn’t buy the expensive sunglasses anymore). Wayfarers can hardly be called nerdy and are a different shape from the stereotypical nerd frames :) 

      I have better than 20/20 vision but if I ever need glasses I will probably do the same thing, wayfarer or similar style, simply because it’s the only glasses shape that looks decent on me (though I am a nerd, too ;)

      I have a vintage pair (too small for my face) that I found in a thrift store on ebay which is getting a lot of attention (7 watchers).

      As for the actual style in the cat video, these are exaggerations made for fashion, no question about it. You realize this immediately when you see them in context (i.e. on a person’s face not on a cat ;) – they’re even more out of proportion than the gigantic glasses that were popular in the 80′s (everyone in my family apparently wore those according to old family photos). Mostly girls wear the really huge ones, guys are more likely to go for the wayfarer or classic stereotypical nerd style. In the US, you can buy them with clear (no prescription) lenses at places like Urban Outfitters (hence the hipster connotation) and H&M.

  • [catgrin]

    I’d be another one of those (not so few) exceptions (and a girl). I didn’t wear glasses when I was younger – not until I was in college in the early 90s. At that point it was popular to have thin, metal frame glasses. There are two problems with that for me.

    1. They make my big, wide nose just look bigger and wider.
    2. The clips on the nose pieces seriously hurt on my big, wide nose.

    I quickly found that (just like the single-piece molded goggles that I wore as a swimmer) one piece plastic frames hurt a lot less to wear all day. I don’t wear plastic frame glasses to be a hipster or as any sort of fashion statement (even though I regularly get compliments on them), I wear them mainly to be comfortable. When I go into a glasses shop, only a very few pairs will actually fit my face. It takes me a long time to find glasses that fit. I also can’t wear contacts thanks to extremely sensitive eyes, and as I mentioned earlier: swimming is my exercise of choice.

    So, unless this is something that you yourself deal with (it doesn’t sound like you actually wear glasses, just think you’re an expert) you may want to actually talk to some people who do before you make such sweeping statements. There are plenty of people sporting “nerd” glasses just because they fit.

• [catgrin]

  Now a much more important comment – great ending!

• [Robert]

  “Dude, these glasses don’t work. I’ma take them off. *sigh* And… exit stage left.”

• [jtegnell]

  Here in Japan, where this was filmed, those are anything but nerd glasses.

  A lot of very attractive young women wear those merely for fashion — they sometimes don’t even have lenses (although those do).

• [noah django]

  semi-relevant:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbO0ILGO7tw

• [ImmutableMichael]

  The niches of the intertubes are grinding exceedingly fine.

• [Zak McKracken]

  “inexplicably calm cats”That’s also what I thought about the last cat-in-basket video you posted here.And as it happens, there’s away to make cats very calm, and it’s not something I recommend doing if you like your cat …I sure hope there’s nothing of that sort going on behind the scenes here.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    The person who posts these videos has a set of extremely stuporous cats.