Cat Person

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About

Cat Person is a short story published in The New Yorker by Kristen Roupenian about a young woman who meets an older man, goes on a date and has a bad experience. The story went viral after it was shared by women with whom the story deeply resonated.

History

On December 4th, 2017, The New Yorker published to their website the short story "Cat Person" by Kristen Roupenian.^[1] It involves the characters Margot, a 20-year old student, and Robert, a 34-year old man who meets her at her job as a concession stand girl at a movie theater. After a few days of flirtatious texting, the two meet for a date, and have a poor kiss and awkward sex. Margot elects not to see Robert anymore and the story ends with him sending her a series of depressed text messages after seeing her out with another man, eventually calling her a whore.

Online Reaction

In the days after the piece came out, it began seeing some spread online. TV Critic Emily Nussbaum tweeted the story, saying she loved it, on December 7th, gaining over 290 retweets (shown below, left).^[2] On December 9th, Twitter user @DanaSchwartzzzz^[3] wrote "I can’t remember the last time I read a short story so brutally and uncomfortably relatable.", gaining over 1,100 retweets and 3,900 likes (shown below, right).

The following day, the story began going viral. Twitter user @anyaJaremko^[4] tweeted "tons of women in my feed are sharing the new yorker “Cat Person” story but not many men; which is unfortunate bc it’s like a secret window into a private experience our majority has suffered thru & if anyone needs to read that shit it’s men.", gaining 880 retweets and over 4,200 likes (shown below, left). User @bad_brain_haver^[5] tweeted, "The “Cat Person” story in the New Yorker is a really good reminder to all men that our busted masculinity can lead us to treat women really poorly without necessarily meaning to or even realising it until years later", gaining over 250 retweets and 990 retweets (shown below, right).

Some Twitter users joked about the viral story's plot. User @tomveggies^[6] tweeted "The cat person new yorker story is what all great fiction is about: two huge dumbasses having bad sex one time," gaining over 200 retweets and 1,400 likes (shown below, left). @pattymo^[7] tweeted, "In “Schrodinger’s Cat Person” the sex, which takes place in a sealed box, must be considered simultaneously bad and good until the box is opened" (shown below, right).

The story was covered by many major news outlets, including The New York Times,^[8] BBC,^[9] and The Atlantic.^[10]

Identity of Margot Reveal

On July 8th, 2021, writer Alexis Nowicki published an article in Slate^[11] detailing how she believed she was the subject of "Cat Person" due to the similarities between the story and her own relationship with an older man she called "Charles." She later discovered that Charles had been in contact with Roupenian and that the story was indeed based on her life, though Roupenian had made the relationship sound much worse than it was in real life.

Film

On August 24th, 2023, the first trailer for the story's cinematic adaptation was released. The trailer received mixed responses, as several felt it didn't look interesting and was in poor taste, considering the real-life man "Robert" was based on died in 2020.