How to replace Tony Abbott with cats

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, February 7th, 2014 - 22 comments
Categories: interweb, social media lolz - Tags:

The internet is a strange place full of the most ingenious yet worthless developments.  One of these is a recent release which allows you to install a chrome extension that will then replace pictures of Tony Abbott on web pages with pictures of cute kittens.

At one level such software is banal in the extreme although when you think about it this software will make looking at Australian news sites considerably less stressful and so at this level it is actually a very helpful piece of software.

This is an interview with one of the creators from the Guardian:

Stop Tony Meow is an extension that replaces pictures of Tony Abbott with cats. Can you explain what made you decide to build it?

A few months ago Matt (@mattro) tweeted that he was “sick of looking at pictures of Tony’s face” and wanted to replace them with kittens. Ben Taylor (@taybenlor) put together a concept, and Matt asked me to build it into a browser extension. It was honestly just a little bit of fun that seems to have really resonated with people.

How does it work?

It’s a script that looks for the name “abbott” and then drops in a cute kitten photo from placekitten.com. It’s super, super simple and the simplicity seems to be why people are liking it so much.

Why cats? Aren’t there already enough on the Internet?

It’s not like there’s a level of saturation for them online. There can never be enough cats on the internet. We think of it as repurposing existing cat photos so that you can have a bit of joy brought to your day, instead of politics-linked stress. If you don’t like cats … well, that’s your own personality failing, it’s not on us.

I wonder if there is a John Key version being contemplated?

22 comments on “How to replace Tony Abbott with cats ”

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  2. Debbie Brown 2
    7 February 2014 at 12:33 pm

    I love it!!

    And it’s not worthless at all! I reckon we could also replace Paula Bennett with cute puppies. And certain right wing bloggers, well you could probably replace with nearly anything, and it would make the Internet a much better looking place.

    And I do so like pretty things. Maybe butterflies in place of bloggers?

  3. fender 3
    7 February 2014 at 12:36 pm

    Interesting.. so the cats are merely relief from the nauseating Abbott mugshot, not a reflection of feelings toward the out-of-his-depth PM, otherwise rats would have been used instead.

    A slippery snake could easily fill in for our pathetic PM, or a close-up of some cancerous growth.

    • srylands 3.1
      7 February 2014 at 1:19 pm

      “A slippery snake could easily fill in for our pathetic PM, or a close-up of some cancerous growth.”

      That is totally disrespectful. And childish.

      • fender 3.1.1
        7 February 2014 at 1:28 pm

        I find your constant cheerleader slogans on behalf of the 1%, and your TINA mantra far more disrespectful and childish.

        Respect isn’t automatically gained, it needs to be earned. Key hasn’t done anything to earn mine.

      • framu 3.1.2
        7 February 2014 at 1:40 pm

        coming from the person who once claimed that people on public transport are icky?

        and frankly – why should anyone show that shell of a person any respect? – i dont have any time for race baiters, liars, crooks and ego centric show ponies – do you?

        as fender rightly points out “Respect isn’t automatically gained, it needs to be earned”

        note: lack of respect doesnt equal thinking key is stupid

      • McFlock 3.1.3
        7 February 2014 at 3:33 pm

        says the potty-brain.

    • thechangeling 3.2
      7 February 2014 at 4:12 pm

      LMAO

  4. Psycho Milt 4
    7 February 2014 at 1:36 pm

    There can never be enough cats on the internet.

    I like a programmer who thinks big.

    I wonder if there is a John Key version being contemplated?

    Nah – not many stock photos of weasels out there. Apparently there can be enough weasels on the internet…

    • Ron 4.1
      7 February 2014 at 3:25 pm

      Can we please have one that replaces Gareth Morgan with pix of kittens. That would be so much nicer

      • Chooky 4.1.1
        7 February 2014 at 9:35 pm

        Lol …a Gareth Morgan cat would have alley cat eyes …jug ears and look wiley as hell…it would be doing maths estimates on mice , birds and figuring out how to outsmart the local rat

  6. Craig 6
    7 February 2014 at 4:25 pm

    Why not wait, so Malcolm Turnbull replaces Tony Abbott, given the collapse of the LibNat Coalition’s opinion poll ratings across the Ditch? And Grumpy Cat is far cuter than Abbott-and she has a long-term future as a media icon…unlike Abbott as Aussie PM…

  7. appleboy 7
    7 February 2014 at 4:42 pm

    John Key’s replacement should be an arsehole leaning to the right so far it’s about to topple

  8. mickysavage 8
    7 February 2014 at 5:12 pm

    Interestingly I have installed it for Chrome and it replaced the Qcode for the article with a picture of a cat …

  9. Johnny 9
    8 February 2014 at 7:06 am

    Can someone make a plugin that replaces John key with pictures of a donkey?

  10. Sam 10
    8 February 2014 at 3:28 pm

    For all those clamouring for a John Key version, this will at least get him off your FB and Twitter feeds:

    http://www.getrather.com/

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