Why The New Yorker’s “Cat Person” Went Viral

Write Right — notes from an MFA candidate

The New Yorker’s “Cat Person” went viral overnight signaling something everyone wanted to quantify. It was timely. The #Me Too movement took off shortly after the story went viral and jumped on the bandwagon. Maybe what hit a chord with readers was the author’s voice, which spoke to what many women don’t like to admit — the frequency with which they have sex when they don’t want to or are afraid to deal with an awkward situation they encouraged. “Cat Person” went on to get more than 4.5m hits and become the most-read piece of online fiction the New Yorker has published, indicating a desire for provocative pieces that explore uncomfortable situations and what it is to be human in our mistakes. I found the story’s brilliance to be about the sexual tension it created, between the tug and pull of engaging in sex and the aftermath of not saying no. Moreover, it exposed the psychological harm we are willing to carry out on others is something we can neither deny nor embrace. Again, tension.

Roupenian captures taut moments of attraction and repulsion vividly. Remarkably, she integrates texting banter in a way that captures the angst, buildup, and crashing dissolution of a romance unraveling. In reflecting on the conundrum texting presents, maybe, she thought, her texting “lol r u serious” had hurt him…