A Very Old Joke
Cats posed as tiny humans — dressed up, smoking, gambling, reading the newspaper — is a comic tradition that predates the internet by well over a century. 19th-century illustrators and printmakers regularly anthropomorphized cats specifically because the gap between a cat's actual indifference and a human costume or habit is where the joke lives.
Why Cats, Specifically
Dogs in art tend to read as loyal, eager, expressive — cats read as unbothered. That deadpan quality is exactly what makes putting a cigarette or a monocle on a cat funny in a way it wouldn't be with a more obviously expressive animal: the cat clearly doesn't care that it's being funny, which is the whole gag.
A Genre With Real Staying Power
This is why 'cat with a human vice' has survived as a genre across postcards, matchbook art, mid-century illustration, and now metal prints and internet memes alike — it's a joke format sturdy enough to be redrawn every generation without wearing out.
