Asking non-jokingly, how do we explain “cat ladies”? Women who hoard cats and seem to be crazy.
They’re not typically “hamster ladies” or “dog men”.
Sure with billions of people you’ll find examples of anything.
But “cat ladies” seems to be an obvious symptom of something.
There are also definitely "rat people", but not Splinter IYKWIM.
I’m not sure how that makes me generally different though? I’m not trying to be argumentative, I’m genuinely curious.
I am and have always been an introvert, but I’m friends with introverted dog people too. Other than that, I’m not sure what (for lack of a better term) stereotypical traits I would have that correlate with being a cat person?
Genuinely interested in observations.
It's a book/holywood cliché
There are other such media hypes which you can explain like that without involving a neurologically active parasite. For example the belief that whites are being systematically replaced by blacks/hispanics/muslims/jews/... Or the belief that there is a single supreme being in the sky, watching everything we do, having killed his son for humanities sins. There are no rational reasons to believe any of this, still, many people do, with lots of media helping them reinforce those thoughts in quite effective bubbles.
Along the lines of Cat lady has 1000 cats arrive at her place over a period of years.
990 of those cats are like "Hell No!" and GTFO. But 10 are a matching kind of crazy and stick around.