Lifestyle content is all about aspiration, which is code for making people envy you and shop accordingly. In our series I Like This Bitch’s Life, the Cut bitterly admits that it’s working.
I have an elaborate fantasy in which — after the media apocalypse happens and I’m left to contend with the fact that the only marketable skill I have is writing jokes on the internet — I’ll lean into my bleeding heart love for animals and open a sanctuary for rescue cats and dogs. I’ll be like Francis of Assisi, but based in a massive Brooklyn brownstone (I did say this was a fantasy) and not at all religious.
While that fantasy is nice, it’s currently unattainable. And so for now, along with a predictable bevy of food and fashion bloggers, I also obsessively follow rescue organizations, and the brave souls who run them, on Instagram.
I initially started following Kitten Lady after reading a Broadly interview with her, and I can say with utmost certainty that she has the most adorable feed on Instagram — and please keep in mind that I follow that domesticated raccoon and two different micro pigs. True to her name, it’s a constant onslaught of kittens (and one lady). And it’s working for her, because I have something to admit.
Friends, kittens, countrycats: I like this bitch’s life.
In an internet dominated by cat photos, each one cuter than the last, Shaw manages to consistently deliver the cutest cats. And like many other Instagrammers I follow for aspirational purposes, Shaw is beautiful and always looks impeccable — but there’s also a strong element of honesty to what she shares. Rearing helpless kittens is hard, dirty work, and it’s not always pretty. (It is always cute, though.)
Sometimes Shaw has to witness kittens getting risky surgeries to fix congenital defects. She gives them special baths to cure ringworm. She even deals with Fading Kitten Syndrome — something I didn’t even know existed until very recently, but will now wake me up at 4 a.m. to lie silently in bed worrying about, for the rest of my goddamn life.
And Shaw’s work is a 24/7 job — one that doesn’t stop, ever.
More often than not, Shaw will post photos of success stories — her kittens snuggled up together or cuddling with her — and her work does look truly rewarding.
Will I ever have the patience and the grit to do what she does? Maybe, maybe not. Until then, I’m content to make jokes on the internet and double-tap her photos.
