Bonsai Kitten - Definition

Bonsai Kitten (bonsaikitten.com) is a website created by a graduate student at MIT in 2000, which claims that kittens can be sealed into small containers and kept as elaborate ornaments rather than pets. It is a hoax, an elaborate dead baby joke. The site is in part a parody of the Japanese art of bonsai, but also resembles the historically factual practice of comprachicos (in which the subjects are human).

The site appears to have fooled a number of people, who fell for the hoax and believed that the website was both advocating and engaging in animal cruelty. Some went as far as to complain to animal welfare organisations about the site and to set up online petitions to have the site banned. Others, while aware that the site is a hoax, believe that the site will induce children and mentally unbalanced adults to attempt to create a bonsai kitten, and thus should still be banned.

External links

• The Bonsai Kitten homepage (http://www.bonsaikitten.com/)
• Yahoo Directory Urban Legends > Bonsai Kitten (http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Mythology_and_Folklore/Folklore/Urban_Legends/Bonsai_Kitten/)
• Petitions to ban Bonsai Kittens (http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.petitiononline.com+bonsai)