Good morning felinity assembled, Elvira Mistress of Felinity here.
In the Winter of 2003/2004, cat blogging was barely in its infancy, but it's early stirrings were gaining some attention that even Nikita & Daddy Kiril didn't know about when they discovered the Carnival of the Cats...
The immortal Laurence Simon (& his cat Nardo, among others) became known as "King of the Cat Bloggers" for starting, in Spring 2004, the Carnival of the Cats, the oldest and longest running, weekly pet and animal blogger sharefest on the internet.
Check out #500, from last year!
His idea was for a weekly confab of the best of the week’s cat blogging posts about cats from bloggers all around the world.
Humans who normally blog about anything and everything, as well as the emerging Community of Cat Bloggers (both cats who blog and the humans who do the blogging for, or about, them), enter their week’s best one or two cat related blog posts into the carnival.
For those who rarely share such stories, it’s a vacation from blogging about such things as politics, war...and knitting.
I like how Laurence explained it: “The Carnival of the Cats is a weekly roundup of cat-related posts on weblogs. Its purpose is to provide a non-political respite from the vehement echo chamber that the Blogosphere spins itself into during the week, demonstrating that even the mightiest and meekest of pundits have a love of cats in common.”
For us Cat Bloggers the Carnival is a chance to discover blogs we might never have heard of, on subjects of all kinds.
When the NY Times takes notice of you (10/2004), and of the growing community (also featured was Kevin Drum, the inventor of what was known as "Friday" Cat Blogging" & who still does it for Mother Jones) you are a part of, as they did Laurence and his Carnival, then you know your effort, and the world you are helping spread the word about, are making an important impact in the lives of people, and Cats, everywhere.
In 2007 the King relinquished his responsibilities for running this show to the original Cat Blogosphere crew (He no longer is even a cat blogger).
In November 2008 Susan Strong, of Mind of Mog, who has cat blogs of her own (Meowza RIP and Ritzi's Place), took over the responsibility of running the Carnival home page and rounding up hosts.
Mr. Nikita began submitting in 2005, and began being a host, in 2008, beginnning on Daddy Kiril's own blogs and, since 2010, this blog, and became one of the most active hosts. When he went to Rainbow Bridge, last year, I was determined to keep up the tradition, with the help of Sneakers the Texian Tuxedo.
(Ritzi, the Original Pretty Hissy Kitty!)
Earlier this year Daddy Kiril was asked by our friend Susan to join her in running the home site and even trying to, slowly but surely, update it.
Pet bloggers come and go, and the number of weekly submissions to the carnival have dwindled significantly, from 30, 40 and more to 15 or less, but...the Carnival survives and hopes for a revival of interest and participation.
Submit your current cat blogging post or a couple of posts from the current week, to carnivalofthecats (at) gmail.com.
Interested in hosting for 2015? The calendar of open dates can be seen on the COTC website.
Contacts:
Susan Strong = mog(at)carnival(dot)mindofmog.net
Kiril Kundurazieff = opinionated(dot)feline(at)gmail.com
Excellent post IMHO. Now if only we get more hosts.
Posted by: Mog | November 03, 2014 at 01:27 PM
Hi Kiril & Susan! Please add me to the list for this years Carnival of The Cats! Just put me in whenever you need me! Or I can go in and find some spots to fill! Let me know what ever works best!
Hugs,
Samantha & Mom
Posted by: Samantha & Mom | December 30, 2014 at 11:53 AM