It's no secret that selfie culture is pretty unhealthy. Some people are so obsessed with staging the perfect Instagram photograph that they neglect the real world around them. That's all bad enough, but this obsession with posing, pouting and posting is now proving to have implications for our pets too.
A rescue shelter in Bishopston, Bristol, has 40 cats under its care and each and every one of them is black. Why? Apparently because they don't make for very good selfies.
The Moggery centre founder, Christine Bayka, says that people are reluctant to rehome the black cats - not because they're associated with superstition, bad luck or witchcraft, but because they don't look good in peoples snaps for social media.
Christine set up her cat rehoming centre 21 years ago, and says the situation is worse now than it has ever been before.
"It's worse now because black cats don't show up in selfies," she told the Daily Mail. "Now everybody wants to take selfies and put them on Facebook. It's a very narcissistic use of social media.
"It happens all the time, I will go through all the questions and say, 'Are you flexible about colour?' Then they will say, 'Yes, as long as it's not black.' It's an increasing problem, it wasn't like this 20 years ago.
"Over 20 years of having difficulty rehoming black cats. It's definitely got harder because of selfies."
But it's not just Christine's shelter that's seeing the knock-on effect selfie culture is having.
Amy Buckle, branch manager at the Last Chance Animal Rescue Centre in New Romney, Kent, said she has difficulty getting rid of her black cats, too.
She told the paper: "We always have the most difficulty rehoming black cats. Even when we have a litter of all black kittens, as soon as you have a fluffy ginger kitten, that's it - people don't want to know about the black cats.
"I don't know if it's because people don't think they look as pretty in photos - it could well be. It's a real shame.
"People do these days seem caught up in taking photos and putting them on Facebook and Instagram, and they want almost a model animal that they can put across social media.
"It does leave the black cats ignored for some reason. It seems people find them boring. When people come in to meet the cats, quite often they will just bypass and walk straight past the black cats to a fluffy, ginger cat. It's really, really sad."
Now the Moggery is encouraging people to have their black cats neutered in anticipation of 'kitten season' between April and September. Christine hopes this will stop even more black kittens from going without homes.
Christine added: "We are trying to get people to neuter their black cats in February. It's important young black cats are neutered before they get any big ideas."
Featured Image Credit: SWNSTopics: UK News, Animals, Cats