Being that I am very much like every other average cat-enjoyer, I find myself joining many Facebook groups dedicated to cats. It would come at no surprise to those who know me, and I have even roped several of my friends into some of these groups as well. Although each group is fun in their own way, there’s one that I particularly love to see on my feed. That fantastic group is called “THIS CAT IS C H O N K Y.”
If you gave the page just a cursory glance over, you would be able to tell that this group is meant to be a light-hearted, humorous space, mostly just for entertainment purposes. But, of course, there are still rules in place for anyone who steps out of line. The big ones are: no criticizing or shaming any chonky cat or their owner, and no comments regarding medical pet advice.
With upwards of 912K members, around 2,000 of which joined this week alone, it’s sufficient to say that the group is a very active one. On average, members of “THIS CAT IS C H O N K Y” produce anywhere from 200 to 400 posts a day. The subject of all these posts are cats. Specifically, cats are that large, round, and chunky. Hence, the name. For those who may not know, the word ‘chonky’ is essentially a play on the word ‘chunky.’ It also represents the way something is very large and very cute, and I would argue that it’s more about the feeling the word embodies more than anything else. Then again, it is pretty subjective.
What is it about this group that makes it so self-sustainable? I believe it is simply the fact that this group is completely made up of cat lovers like myself. We love talking about our cats, sharing pictures of our cats, looking at pictures of other people’s cats, and so on. It’s an endless cycle of fondness for these small creatures that live in our homes. That’s why this group, and many others of the same nature, offers the perfect platform for cat lovers to do what they do best: post pictures of their cats for everyone to see and fawn over. However, in this case, these posts are limited to cats who are big and rotund. Regardless of what the cat looks like, other members will often leave kind comments and expressions of adoration for these cats, or tag their friends to share the experience, both of which often creates even more traffic and activity for the page.
Another contributing factor is that it is an open community. Although the group itself is private, anyone can find it on Facebook and request to join. There are no requirements that have to be met before joining, so as long as you follow the rules, you can stay and enjoy the cat content. That is what everyone is there for anyway. Since I’ve joined the group sometime last year, I haven’t seen any big issues arise within the group of people not following the rules.
In the end, I think that “THIS CAT IS C H O N K Y,” as a whole, likely doesn’t employ any special tactics to increase activity, it’s just something that makes people happy enough to want to post and comment without having to be incentivized to do so.
