Here’s hoping admitting this doesn’t put me into a class of undesirable weirdos – and that someone else relates here – but I spend an inordinate amount of time watching cute animal videos.
In my defence, it’s not like I go hunting for them. I follow a bunch of animal-loving accounts on Twitter (The Dodo and Pup Videos, to name two) to help break up bouts of anxiety from reading the ever-worsening news. So I really need those animal feeds.
Posts of dogs eating watermelon, dogs being surprised when their humans disappear behind a blanket, posts of cats being jerks, or animals being rescued and finding homes.
Yeah, that last one especially gets to me every time. Gets to me like I’d be moved to tears... if I wasn’t watching on a bus and I didn’t want everyone staring at me, wondering why is that grown man crying.
And then I saw a video of a homeless man being helped by a do-gooder. As I watched, I thought, hmm, that’s nice. But it didn’t hit me in my emotional centre the same way a clip of a do-gooder helping a homeless animal would.
That is all kinds of messed up. But before you judge me as some anti-social monster who chooses animals over humans, I am not alone.
In a 2017 study by a medical research charity, they conducted an experiment by printing two advertisements with the caption: “Would you give $5 to save Harrison from a slow, painful death?”
The difference was one advert featured a little boy and the other ad featured a picture of a dog. I’m sure you know where this is going – more people donated to the dog. Which is just... wow!
I’d like to think I’d donate to both as I don’t want any life – human, dog, or even a cat – to die a “slow, painful death”. So, empathy for animals over people – even a child – is not necessarily uncommon.
It goes further. In another study, people were asked to save a human life or their pet dog, but not both. More than a third chose their pet and left the person to their grisly fate – in this case, being hit by a bus.
Of course, saving your pet is easier than saving an animal off the streets, but choosing your pet over the life of another human? You can bet that choice will get you some haters on your Instagram and Twitter.
What is clear is that people caring for animals over humans is not rare at all. But why do we feel this way? Are we just jerks? I think that's part of the explanation. People can be jerks. Animals? Not so much.
Think of all the times a human has wronged you, cut you off in traffic, given you the finger, cut in your line, called you a nasty name, or said something vindictive on your social media account.
Now think of all the times an animal has done that. Yep, the animals are at zero, right?
Even when an animal does something wrong, like biting or clawing us, we rarely attribute it to the bad nature of the creature. We say things like, “I pushed him too far”, or “She was scared”, and “It’s not their fault”. If only we took that stance as a default when dealing with people.
But animals aren’t vindictive. Humans are. That makes animals easier to love and people easier to hate. But the major reason we adore animals more than humans becomes even clearer in another study from North Eastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
College students were given four faked newspaper stories. In the reports, a victim was badly beaten with a baseball bat by an unknown assailant. Each one was identical except for the victims, namely an adult, an infant, an adult dog and a puppy.
The students were asked to measure the amount of empathy they had for each victim. You guessed it – the adult human lost out. Students felt more empathy for the infant, the puppy, even the adult dog, all of which got “roughly equivalent” scores.
This means that our feelings of empathy for animals over people is less about them being animals and humans being jerks than it is about us caring more about infants because they’re helpless.
We see animals, even grown up animals, as largely helpless fur babies. So, our love and care of animals is just our coding to care for infants misfiring. Or maybe it’s just that we know to care for babies and see animals as similarly in need of help.
One thing’s for certain, the world would be a better place if we looked at each other like that. Because in my experience, all of us – including grown up humans – are pretty helpless sometimes.
Jason Godfrey's biggest career advice from a photographer was "Big smile. No teeth." He works in fashion, television, and his latest book "Catwalk Fail" is out now. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Get 20% OFF The Star Digital Access
Cancel anytime. Ad-free. Unlimited access with perks.
