It's cold, it's dark, we could be sliding into a double-dip recession and I have just broken my bathroom sink. The reasons to be miserable multiply by the minute.
In times of recent bleakness, for many there was one guaranteed remedy – the web's millions of pictures of adorable cats; mother cats hugging their babies, kittens on slides, tiny, little, cute kittens falling asleep in teacups and so many LOLcats.
Somehow it seemed impossible to stay in a bad mood when there were pictures of kittens stuck in hamster balls out there. Yet somehow, with the riots, rising unemployment, strikes and protests, comedy kittens are wearing thin.
Enter baby owls. Online, people are increasingly posting cute pictures and footage of owls instead – being stroked, in little hoods, in glasses, looking quizzical, and even in santa hats. But why owls? Perhaps because owlet features are similar to those of kittens, only the birds are more vulnerable looking, inspiring a greater nurturing instinct in us. Or because their eyes are even bigger than kittens' - the worse life becomes, the bigger we need the eyes of our cute animals to be.
Japan's love for all things cute sprang up in the bleak postwar 40s and 50s. And Vanity Fair, writer Jim Windolf argues that our need for cuteness may be a reaction against the preceived aggression in our foreign policy after the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. In which case, I'm going to get some bush baby pictures in reserve.
• This article was amended on 4 February 2013. The original photo caption implied that the owl pictured is a live owl rather than a "soft sculpture". This has been corrected.
