According to researchers at Concordia University, sharing such photos and videos creates what they call “digital affective encounters” – moments when your heart melts in front of your screen. More surprisingly, these seemingly innocuous gestures function as markers of affection in our social relationships.

It’s a bit like penguins offering pebbles as small tokens of affection to potential mates – except in this case, the pebble is a GIF of a kitten falling into a box.

The scale of this digital trend is surprising. “The creation, consumption and circulation of animal photos has become a social phenomenon,” said study co-author Zeynep Arsel, a professor at the John Molson School of Business. “It has gone well beyond animals advertising animal products.”

In other words, gone are the days when Fido was only good for selling dog food. Today, a cute animal can generate likes, shares, and “awws” – an emotional currency far more valuable than money.

To understand this mechanism, the researchers analysed user behaviour on Instagram in detail, interviewing content creators, and managers of animal pages and their followers, while drawing on their own digital behaviour towards their four-legged friends. This survey reveals a three-step process that transforms an animal into a social media star.

The first step is “indexicalisation”, which involves transforming your pet into personal content. A cute hashtag, a little costume, or an affectionate caption is enough to imbue the image with emotion.

This personalisation breathes life into the owner-pet relationship in its digital representation. Sharing this content with loved ones is effectively a form of “pebbling“.

Step two is “re-indexicalisation”: as the content circulates on social media, it takes on new meanings. Friends add their own references, creating a common language that only the group understands.

This step forges a parasocial relationship between the viewer and the animal. For example, you might become genuinely attached to your neighbour’s cat without ever having seen it in real life.

The final step is “decontextualisation”. Content curators remove personal references to reach a wider audience, replacing personal references with universal cultural references, transforming a private photo into a viral meme that speaks to everyone.

This mechanism goes far beyond the animal world, Arsel noted – whether with mouthwatering photos of food or cute pictures of children, the principle is the same. “Our paper has societal implications in that it explains something we do very often and usually without question,” the researcher said.

In other words, our little daily exchanges hide a social mechanism that is more complex than it appears: every viral cat video reveals our fundamental need to connect and express our emotions. It proves that even when we are immersed in the digital world, we remain deeply social beings – who happen to use corgi memes to communicate.