Bilbo The Cat is a bold entrepreneur. Without any help other than whatever small assistance his human mother Ellen Murray provides, Bilbo has created a popular Twitter account and spread his delightful image from his Belfast home to feeds across the globe. Now, knowing that any good media empire must include a video or audio component, Bilbo has struck out into the world of podcasts and debuted what is, to our knowledge, the very first cat-led venture of its kind with The Bilbcast.
The first question on potential listeners’ minds is most likely what, exactly, a cat’s podcast would sound like. Do cats answer reader mail? Do they read advertisements for clothes and food delivery services, workplace recruitment companies, and Squarespace?
Perhaps this will be the case in the future but, for now at least, Bilbo’s pioneering catcast just consists of him purring gently into a microphone, offering a distinctly feline approach to ASMR-style internet audio.
The first episode, which launched late last week, makes good on a simple premise. “After the short theme music, this podcast is simply 30 minutes of Bilbo purring,” his assistant, Murray, explains in the introduction. “Bilbo will be purring while he sits on my lap as he gets gentle pets, occasional kisses, and held affectionately.”
“It’s the sound of a much-loved son, a high-quality man, a happy boy,” she adds.
A little song plays and then, as promised, Bilbo purrs regularly and to varying degrees of intensity for the remainder of the episode. Thanks to a bit of editing magic on Murray’s part, the sounds remain constant, even when Bilbo takes a break from recording to have a snack. It is, of course, very relaxing to listen to, and, for people who don’t have a cat but like the sounds they make (other than meowing for no apparent reason at 5 a.m.), a good way to enjoy their fully chilled-out vibes at any time. For others, such as the actual cat who listened to an excerpt of the episode while this was being written, the podcast seems to produce no discernible results, which either hints at a possible failure to engage a key demographic or, considering this is cats we’re talking about, means absolutely nothing at all.
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