There are some Facebook groups that transcend all languages, and Spottaði Kött is one of them. The name means “spotted a cat” (“spottaði” is not actually an Icelandic word, but a humourous Icelandification of the English word), and the concept is dead simple. If you see a cat, you take a photo of it and post it to the group, typically with some brief description of where the cat was spotted. That’s really it.
As such, the group is wildly popular, and it’s one of the few Icelandic Facebook groups that foreigners with little to no understanding of Icelandic can participate in. The group is especially fitting for Reykjavík, a city that even renowned cat lover Haruki Murakami noted was rife with cats.
The really fun part of this group is when particular cats end up becoming mini-celebrities due to frequently being posted. Some of these include the Himalayan who lives on Skólavörðustígur (who once actually got on the news for stealing harðfiskur from a local shop), the enormous Maine Coon who lives in Vesturbær, and the long haired tabby who lives on Grettisgata and bears an uncanny resemblance to a lion. This is an interesting bit of anthropomorphic projection: cats likely don’t have celebrities within their midsts, but we will certainly make celebrities out of a select few.
If you love cats, and want to see some cats in Iceland going about their daily lives in their natural environment, this is the ideal group for you.
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