Japanese people compete for the worst cat photo on Twitter

The Internet is a huge repository of photos of cats looking cute, or doing things as they please, or even exhibiting some ninja moves. But in Japanese cyberspace, a contest on the worst cat photo is gaining popularity.

Among the photos “submitted” to Twitter with the hashtag #ねこの写真ヘタクソ選手権 (meaning worst cat photo contest), one particular photo has earned more than 60,000 retweets and more than 100,000 likes.

A cat and a dog were snapped on top of some stairs, staring down at the photographer. Coupled with the poor lighting and their sparkling eyes, it almost looked like they were the final bosses of a game.

But instead of judging the photo as badly taken, Twitter users found it cute that the cat and the dog got along well, standing next to each other. Others also shared similar photos of their own cats.

One user even took the opportunity to add a little horror element to the photo by making it black and white, and increasing the contrast to emphasise the laser beam-like eyes.

Or even replacing the image for a high-level game.

While it is all fun to share such photos of cats (or animals in general), we must all take into consideration not to use flash photography on animals unnecessarily. The camera flash is dangerous and may damage the animals’ eyes when looked at directly.