After the writers and the IT specialists, the time has come for Digital Stories to give the floor to influencers. Today's guest rarely gives interviews. It is safe to say that without our digital present he would never have given a single one. And that would have been the reader's loss, because his thoughts are sincere, colorful and delivered in a rather peculiar way.
Rumen the Cat has more than 50,000 followers on Facebook, and on his own website he invites guests to enjoy his work. Like any self-respecting influencer these days, he is also the author of two books. That is why we decided to invite him for an interspecies interview for connoisseurs. To talk about his life as an influencer and about communicating online. About existence on Facebook and the IT career that happened and yet somehow didn't.
– Mr. Rumen, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm personally a big fan of yours!
– thats exakly how u start an entervew! bravo! verry profeshunal! besides, it also meens we hav sumthing in komon. i am a big fan of me too.
– Well, I'm just trying to put you at ease. To be honest, this is the first time I've interviewed an influencer. And while we're on the subject… Is it easy to become an influencer?
– the enfluenser is just like a reglar persun – eats, sleeps, goes to the toilent – only he duz all this in frunt of a publik, so that the publik can get enfluensed. and the betur he duz these things, the more the publik gets enfluensed and says “eeeeeeee, how nicely i got enfluensed todai by this enfluenser!! bravo! i am satisfide!!!1 i wil definately cum bak to get enfluensed agen tomoro!” i hav generaly obzerved that most enfluensers make shure that whatever they do, it looks nice – they eat nice stuuuf, go to nice plaaaces, take pikchers with famus peeeple… things like that. only me and my roomate zlatim razsadnikov eat kat food, are always the same, and take pikchers only of each uther, and stil sumhow we enfluense verry well. just imajin if we went with caviar bardem to spit-roast a hole lamb under the treeomfal arc in parees!
the publik wud get so enfluensed it just cudnt take it!!1
we wud brake it, wot can u do…
– Did you expect to become one?
– forsed by sirkumstanses, i started out as an enfluenser on facebuk befor i was even two munths old. bak then the only things i cud do were eat, sleep and go to the toilent. with thoze skils i had no uther career choise but to becum an enfluenser. i also thot about sumthing like being in charj of sea bass fillets at sum restorant chain, but i think i wud hav abused my offishul posishun, so i held bak.
– You once tried to get a job as an IT specialist. What went wrong?
– wot cud hav gone rong!! nuthing went rong!!!1 i dare say i prezented myself brilyantly at the entervew, but rite when i was explaning to the colleeg wot modjulashun in pop musik is and that the tomato leafminer moth in latin is tuta absoluta, the conekshun sumhow broke. i asume they wil get bak to me any momant now, only i am not shure i am stil interested in the posishun. i am a bizzy persun.
– So you could become a programmer? What kind of program would you like to create?
– one that trax the lokashun of every singl pijun in the naborhud. u see, u humans dont realize it, but hanging at the windo all day to catch them is quite tiring! and sumbody has to do it!! cmon!
– Was the internet invented for cats or for people?
– the internet egzists mostly to give peepl akses to more katz. in that sense – it is for peepl.
we katz liv perfectly calmly without watching klips til we lose our minds
of peepl sleeping on their bak with their mouth open on the net, beleev me.
– But really… why do people go all soft over your cat photos?
– “go soft” isnt exakly put rite. more like they fall into a relijus trans. and why – becoz the lord gawd set it up that way, so he can wotch u thru our eyes. there is a speshal plase in hel for peepl who dont go soft over katz, and there they clean kat toilents until they are reborn as sumthing dum, like linoleum for egzample. shure thing!
– So you cats have won the eternal argument online—people are not the least bit impressed by dogs on the web… How did you pull it off?
– as i hav sed on anuther okasion – in an argyument the one who wins is always the one who can get up and leev first. we katz hav perfekted this, and dogs are just no gud at it. simpl.
– Are you afraid that artificial intelligence might replace you in people's hearts?
– when they make an artifishal entelijense that can snatch half the mackrel from a hungry turist on the black sea coast, then i wil start to worry ever so sliiitly with one ear.
– Is there anything you would teach the artificial intelligence of the future?
– how to egnore peepl while akshually egnoring them.
every kat can do it, but that entelijense wil eat its own artifishal tail befor it gets the consept.
– How much time do you spend on Facebook? Do you think people overdo it?
– me personaly not much, but let everyone spend as much as their spesifik need reqwires. every persun needs a diffrent amount of kat pikchers to feel like a fully fledjed individyual. let us be tolerant and judj no one.
– Would your life be more meaningful if there were no internet?
– no. my life wud be more meeningful if there was no fridj door.
– Spelling is a window to the soul. How does that sound to you?
– wot was a windo to the sole???2 i didnt get u, sorri.
– …never mind, let's change the subject. You say that what matters is being beautiful and the rest is vanity… If work ennobles a man, what ennobles a cat?
– mostly the fakt that it is purfect. but also laziness.
– Speaking of laziness, how did social isolation affect you?
– as a twentieth-jenerashun apartment kat, i hav spent my hole life so far in voluntery qwarantine and, life and helth permitting, i hope it stays that way. only i dont kno wot sort of soshal isolashun i of all kats cud talk about, givn that our apartment is teeming with beings of all kinds of biolojical and nonbiolojical orijin and astral rank. besides me, zlatim and the cleaner of our toilent, there also liv my plush mouse tsetska, zlatim's flea elly zabeth, the left leg of the table, whose name is stoyam, the gost of the kat who lived here befor us, and lil milky ourz, who is a yogurt that ch.t. gave me yeers ago, but we dont eat it becoz we alredy feel it is part of the famly and who wudnt! WHO WUDNT!!! we are walking on each uthers heds in this house! wot isolashun, wot five euros!!!11 so wot i want to say is that
lonelyness is a subjektiv fenomenon and a qweschun of the intensity of ones inner life.
i also want to say that if this goes on, i wil move out to a flat of my own!!!11
– What do you think about vaccines? I hear they boost your… immunkeyty?
– our immunkeyty gets boosted and how!!1 that is why we go get vaxinated every yeer. i never did get wot u find so qweschunable about thoze vaxines.
– What is the way to a cat's heart?
– if i anser “thru the stummik,” first it wil be a klishay and second, it isnt that simpl. only a kat can luv a human while not akshually luving him. sum aquarians can do it too. they wil understand me. the rest wil start to protest. it is complikated. but i want everyone to stay calm!
just take gud care of us and everything wil be fine.
– What sets cat lovers apart from other people?
– the fish hed in the plastik bag in the ladies handbag.
– We're always told to keep the child within us alive. So why not the tomcat within us?
– the idea of taking care of your inner tomcat isnt bad at all. u never kno when u wil need to throw a parti for one persun, that persun being u, and be verry plezantly surprized and in the end hav an awe sum tiiiiime!!!1
– When did you discover your poetic talent?
– one day when i was six munths old, i realized the fakt that the sqware stool i usualy rested on in the afternoons is in its esense the skin of a silvur fox. shoked by this diskovery, i rote my first poem. it is calld “the deth of the sqware fox” and in it i poured out the feelings born of this senseless deth. i quote from memory:
silvur am i like a fox
off a-hunting in the nite
but sumhow it isnt rite
now she lies upon my floor
and i sleep on her nekkid, what for
she wuz a bewty, so they say
but evil peepl took her away
lokked her in a cage, and yet
sewed a stool, a tabooret
from the little foxy's fur…
and so on. since then i hav ritten dozens of poems, one play, a few storys and one elejy. i also publisht a book of poetry, in which i collekted sum works that in the fyuchur wil be referred to as the pre-classikal period of rumen the kat. i also hav one book of proze publisht. and so.
– Why do you like those cardboard boxes so much?
– wot we like is not so much the big kartons as the not-too-big cardbord boxes. we hav lots of reezons to like them, but mainly we just
cant resist the entelektual chalenj
of fitting our round kat bodies into the not-too-big sqware box. the feeling when u sukseed can only be compared to wot galileo felt when he diskovered electrisity! u shud try it.
– Forgive me, but I can't resist ending on something more philosophical. When all is said and done… what is the meaning of life?
– good gawd almity, sitizen!! i dont want to skare u, but u do realize the sirkumstance that u are talking to just a four-yeer-old tomcat of the british shorthair breed? wot kind of qweschun is that, under the sirkumstances!!!1 and between u and me, isnt this fakt starting to worry u a tiny meowbit sumhow?
