Created 2002 | ||
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"Every time you masturbate… God kills a kitten" is the caption of an image created by a member of the website Fark.com in 2002. The image features a kitten being chased by two Domos, and has the tagline "Please, think of the kittens".
Origin
The phrase originally appeared as the headline "Fact: Every Time You Masturbate, God Kills a Kitten. How Many More Have to Die?" with a kitten photo on the cover of The Gonzo, a satirical publication produced by students at Georgetown University, in 1996.
The phrase later appeared in the form it became viral from: as a caption of an image created by a member of the website Fark.com in 2002, which features a kitten being chased by two Domo mascots.
According to a New York Times Magazine article on Domo-kun, "Any major exhibition on the history of clowning around on the Internet would have to include [this image]". The article also described the meme itself as "resembling a public-service ad, with text that is sophomoric, funny and not worth printing here," adding "it has been referenced and forwarded so many times." An article from ICv2 stated, "This phony [Public service announcement] is quite out of character with Domo's image in Japan."