Orange 🧡 cat 😺

If you’re a cat lover — and you’re here, reading this article, so it feels pretty safe to assume that you are — you may have recently noticed your algorithm going extra hard on a specific type of cat content, i.e. orange cat content. Even more specifically, orange cat behavior.
Although exactly what that is can be hard to pin down, based on the videos racking up millions of views on TikTok these days, orange cat behavior is generally endearing, often derpy, occasionally spicy, and, at times, completely and utterly banal. And, in typical human fashion, everyone posting or engaging with such content seems to have a different definition of exactly what it is and feel very strongly that their definition is the right one. 
Having grown up with an orange cat and recently fostered an orange cat, my definition of “orange cat behavior,” were I to have one, would most likely be distant, stoic, independent, and proud — and maybe a little ferocious. My mother’s cat, Sophie, was a lovely orange tabby, and she and I never got along when I was a kid. I resented her aloofness, and she was not above making me bleed if I cornered her.
As for my foster, Mufasa, well, three days into our association, he ripped a six-inch gash in my wrist when I tried to pick him up. Not his fault, of course; he was my first foster and I got cocky. He also broke a vase, knocked a 40-pound mirror off the wall, scratched the surface of my dining table, and ripped my pants. It was a very eventful 10 seconds.