Marcel Winatschek

What Lil Bub Understood About December

Christmas again. The specific quality of December evenings when everything outside is either too cold or too social and the only sensible response is to stay in and not move. This is precisely the context in which someone had the presence of mind to film Lil Bub sitting in front of a fireplace for an uninterrupted hour.

Lil Bub—for anyone who missed the early internet’s greatest recurring character—was a cat born with a constellation of genetic conditions that gave her a permanently open mouth, a perpetually startled expression, and extra toes. She made a sound that was less meow than sustained tonal inquiry. She became famous because she was obviously unusual but also obviously content, which is a combination that short-circuits something in the human brain.

An hour of her in front of a fire, just existing, is exactly as therapeutic as it sounds. Not funny. Not dramatic. Just warm, in a way that December sometimes needs to be.