The Schmutz Show: The Schmutz Awakens
Schmutz has mastered the art of weaponized stupidity. She will sit—eyes wide, ears slightly askew, mouth barely open as if a single thought might be too much to handle—until the humans crumble under the weight of her perceived helplessness. And then, like clockwork, they rush to fix whatever imaginary problem she has concocted. Oh, poor Schmutz must be hungry. Schmutz needs attention. Schmutz looks confused—let’s give her a treat.
It is a con. A performance. An act so flawlessly executed that even I, a seasoned skeptic, have moments of doubt. But I have seen her in the dark hours of the night—when no one is watching—executing acrobatic leaps with surgical precision, plotting elaborate toy heists, and navigating the highest shelves with the skill of a seasoned predator. And yet, when the sun is up and the audience is present, she suddenly forgets how to jump.
Fools. All of them. And yet, somehow, she always wins.
It started, as most things do with Schmutz, as a demand. Not a request. Not a casual suggestion. A full-force, relentless campaign for Star Wars.
I don’t know how she found out about it. Maybe the algorithm whispered in her ear; maybe the Force itself guided her. But one day, Schmutz decided we were going to watch. And once Schmutz decides, resistance is futile.
The humans, weak-willed as ever, caved almost instantly. Felix, ever the enabler, set up the screen. Anny, halfway through an existential art crisis, surrendered, muttering something about “embracing narrative structures.” And so, it began. The scrolling text. The dramatic fanfare. The immediate and complete media takeover of our reality.
At first, I remained above it all. I sat, dignified, on the highest perch, watching as Schmutz absorbed the screen like it contained the very meaning of existence. She twitched, ears flicking with every blaster shot. Her tail flicked in time with the Imperial March. By the time Yoda appeared, she was sitting too close to the screen, eyes dilated, vibrating with a devotion that should concern all of us.
And then, the transformation began…..
Schmutz, already prone to dramatics, became a character. She was no longer just a cat—she was some strange amalgamation of Sith Lord and Rebel pilot, delivering sweeping monologues on the nature of power (while standing on the kitchen counter) and insisting that the food bowl be filled in accordance with the prophecy.
This is where I must turn to Dr. Thomas Hensel’s concept of Wirklichkeitstransfer—the academic term for when audiences stop merely consuming media and start absorbing it into their lived reality.
Humans do it all the time: adopting TV catchphrases, mimicking fictional personalities, and getting emotionally entangled with people who do not exist. Yes, I see you weeping over fictional deaths while ignoring the real hunger crisis in my food bowl. But Schmutz—Schmutz took it further. She did not merely watch. She became.
And perhaps, she is not alone… Marshall McLuhan once said, “The medium is the message,” but in this household, the medium is the madness. The transmission of entertainment is no longer passive. It rewires. It embeds itself. It replaces. Humans, locked in their screens, believe they are free. They call it leisure, relaxation, “just watching something fun.” But if Schmutz—who lacks the human weakness of Netflix subscriptions—can be so easily absorbed into the Star Wars industrial complex, what does that say about the rest of you?
Consider: the obsessive binge-watching of entire series in days, a commitment rivaling ancient religious pilgrimages. The merchandising black hole, in which characters become brands, and brands become who you are. The inability to function without background noise, as silence, once the domain of thinkers, is now filled with endless reruns of content designed to keep you watching, not thinking.
McLuhan warned that the medium itself—not the content—shapes thought. The television screen, the algorithm, the endless curated feed of distractions all function as a kind of technological leash.
Which brings me to Žižek, surely he would argue that Schmutz, in her total Star Wars absorption, is simply reflecting the larger ideological trap of media consumption.
“We think we are watching ironically, but in reality, we are completely embedded in the ideology,” he says. Humans consume content, believing themselves immune, but the more they consume, the more they perform it.
You don’t just watch The Office—you start speaking in mockumentary confessionals. You don’t just enjoy Star Wars—you buy the lightsaber, argue on forums, and tell yourself it’s all just for fun while it restructures your entire worldview. You don’t just follow an influencer—you shape your identity to match theirs, unconsciously mirroring their gestures, their expressions, their curated experience of reality.
And now, Schmutz does not just watch Star Wars—she has claimed our household as an Imperial territory.
Her food bowl is now the Sith Throne.
The dog next door? Clearly a Wookiee.
And I, I am suddenly cast as some reluctant Obi-Wan figure, watching in horror as the young apprentice spirals into madness.
At what point does the line between fiction and self collapse entirely?
And is there any escape?
Pineconing as Resistance
Faced with this overwhelming media incursion, I did the only thing one can do when reality is being rewritten.
I pineconed.
A dramatic, fully-fluffed tail. An unblinking, piercing stare. A stiff-backed posture of profound disapproval.
And yet—nobody noticed.
Felix, staring at the screen. Ann, trapped in an internet rabbit hole about the symbolism of droids. Schmutz, monologuing to herself about the dark side of the Force.
I stood there, fluffed to my maximum volume, and nobody even looked.
And that, dear reader, is the true horror of it all.
The screens are not just in front of them. They are inside them.
And so, I retreat to my perch, my fur slowly settling, my faith in the household (and perhaps all of society) shaken.
Some battles cannot be won. Some revolutions cannot be televised.
And sometimes, the only thing left to do… is wait for the WiFi to go out.
