Fox News, as is their wont, found the latest inoffensive thing to be inexplicably angry about on Tuesday: A study showing cats on college campuses may provide a benefit to students.
The recent academic study in question found that petting cats could help relieve stress in students in similar ways that interacting with dogs can also be relaxing for some. Finding that most on-campus programs that provide students with stress-relieving animals just feature dogs, the study also revealed that “highly emotional” people and cat owners had positive associations with cats on campus.
During Tuesday’s broadcast of midday panel show Outnumbered—a frequent trafficker of Fox News’ latest outrage du jour—co-host Emily Compagno kicked off the show’s discussion about the study by first grousing about student debt forgiveness and campus protests, of course.
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“College students have it so rough these days, from climate anxiety to just the idea of a conservative speaker on campus. It is all so stressful!” Compagno snarked. “Well now, thankfully, a new study finds intervention with cats on campuses may help stressed out students. I guess taxpayers picking up the student loan tab wasn’t enough.”
Fox News anchor Julie Banderas then took the proverbial grievance ball and ran with it, wondering why students would need cats when they “have the anxiety level of a protester where you’re out protesting about everything on campus.” She further grumbled that “this is another example of how we are raising snowflakes” before calling on these students to drop out of school.
Compagno then asserted that physical punishment is what is actually necessary. “I don't think these kids need cats, I think they need discipline,” she exclaimed. “I think they need a slap in the face!”
Her outrage building, an animated Compagno continued: “These are the same kids that get a professor fired for being too hard on their way to medical school! These are kids that can’t even listen to a conservative viewpoint—they shout out speakers, they chase them off campus. But a cat will make everything better. That doesn’t work in the real world!”
The over-the-top indignation and lecturing “it’s the children who are wrong” tone about cats on campuses only increased as the segment continued. And it also got a lot weirder as the hosts further morphed the topic to fit within standard right-wing talking points.
“It's also part of the indoctrination,” Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce huffed. “They’re being trained… and told effectively by the university, ‘No, you need a puppy. This is what you need!’”
Fox News contributor David Webb then seriously claimed that students petting cats would somehow destroy the entrepreneurial spirit.
“These kids are the problem,” he proclaimed. “All joking aside, they’re the problem. If you need a cat or you need a puppy, you don’t belong in college.”
Webb added: “This is the idea of building a society of betas. We achieve because we are a society of people that look forward to our entrepreneurs that go out and find something. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, all of the innovators, Bill Gates, they founded something in a garage instead of petting a cat!”
