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The time period “cat girl” has lengthy carried a detrimental connotation.
“After I began, everybody had a set concept of what a cat particular person regarded like,” says CatCon founder Susan Michaels. “Very Eleanor Abernathy from The Simpsons — a hoarder, a spinster, 60-plus.”
That stereotype is only one instance in an extended historical past of cat-centric mockery aimed toward ladies, from early Twentieth-century anti-suffrage campaigns that includes hissing cats to the rhetoric seen in current presidential elections.
With CatCon, the world’s greatest cat-focused popular culture occasion, Michaels is flipping that script. By means of a three-pronged strategy — data, schooling, and leisure — she’s remodeling a drained trope into an empowering narrative…and a profitable enterprise alternative.
9 lives (and careers)
Earlier than she grew to become the full-time connoisseur of content material creator cats, Susan Michaels constructed a powerful profession in media. Because the saying goes, everybody in L.A. has 5 completely different jobs — and Michaels was no exception.
She hung out as a line producer and casting director. She labored as a journalist for main shops Vainness Honest and The Wall Avenue Journal. She even spent 12 years at E! Leisure, contributing to exhibits like Preserving Up with the Kardashians and Stay From the Purple Carpet, the place she helped bridge cultural variations for international audiences.
“I would shoot promos with the Kardashians, write scripts, direct, and work with editors to form the ultimate product,” Michaels remembers.
She later joined a French manufacturing firm, utilizing her connections to usher in expertise like Dustin Hoffman and Paula Wagner for numerous movie tasks. Two of the movies she labored on even premiered at Cannes, although, sadly, each screenings coincided with the primary and second years of CatCon, which all the time takes priority for Michaels.
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Meow or by no means
In 2014, feline fanatic Susan Michaels based the Cat Artwork Present to merge her lifelong love of cats along with her deep background in popular culture. Headlined by artist and OBEY founder Shepard Fairey, the present drew over 4,000 attendees, principally youthful, trend-conscious followers.
“They did not match into how individuals consider ‘cat girls,'” Michaels says. “There was this confluence of cat and popular culture. It was kind of the arrival of the cat meme at the moment.”
Realizing she had tapped into one thing greater, Michaels began Ticket Out!, the father or mother firm behind what would quickly change into CatCon.
“I knew I used to be onto one thing with the Cat Artwork Present,” Michaels says. “However it wasn’t sustainable sufficient to give up a salaried, benefit-filled 12-year job at E!, the place I beloved working.”
At first, she cut up time between the 2, dealing with cat con enterprise on weekends.
Drawing on the popular culture savvy she honed at E!, she launched the primary official CatCon in 2015, hosted by Ben Huh of the Cheezburger Community — the location behind a number of the most iconic cat memes of the 2010s.
“He gave an important lecture on the variations between cats and canine,” remembers Michaels, a self-described “bipetual.”
The inaugural occasion was a rousing success — Michaels shares that they really ran out of kittens within the adoption part and needed to exit and discover extra from native shelters. Sadly, this victory got here with an ultimatum.
“My inventive director sat me down and mentioned, ‘Susan, it’s a must to select — CatCon or E!,'” Michaels shares. “I used to be about to show 50, and the thought of shedding my medical insurance and taking that leap was daunting.”
Nonetheless, Michael overcame her fears and turned her full consideration in the direction of cat con, in a choice that might endlessly alter the way forward for felines in all places.
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Purrrrsuasive advertising
A decade later, CatCon has change into an establishment within the “catmmunity,” amassing over 850,000 followers throughout platforms. Whereas many copycats have popped up through the years (pun meant), founder Susan Michaels believes CatCon stays the gold normal. “We have seen different conventions come and go over the previous 10 years,” Michaels says. “However no person has completed what we have completed at this scale.”
Based on Michaels, what makes CatCon so profitable is constant engagement with the viewers.
“Individuals all the time ask, ‘What do you do the remainder of the 12 months?'” Michaels says.
Along with CatCon, she runs the biennial Cat Artwork Present below the CatCon Presents umbrella and has just lately launched Meow Issue — a TED Speak-style lecture sequence for cat lovers. She additionally spends time attending different conventions within the ‘animal sector,’ preserving tabs on what’s working and what’s not. However what actually units CatCon aside is its sponsor consultancy.
“We do not simply hand sponsors a sales space,” she explains. “We offer a full CatCon consultancy—guiding them on how one can join with our viewers, sharing information from surveys, and persevering with the connection earlier than, throughout, and after the occasion.”
Michaels likens CatCon to a “startup incubator and expertise useful resource,” serving to well-known felines — and their people — attain their full potential.
“Small companies are extraordinarily necessary to me, and I additionally actually love working carefully with the sponsors to assist them faucet into our viewers to get that most roi,” she says. “What numerous cons are lacking is the cultivating of a relationship. And that is the place I feel we’re a standout. Does it value cash? Positive. Does it repay? Completely.”
Certainly one of her key providers is matching movie star cats with manufacturers to drive sales space visitors and engagement. Over time, CatCon has partnered with firms like Mars Petcare, Purina, 3M, Kendo and NBCUniversal.
“They will use the movie star cats for promo reels main as much as CatCon,” she explains. “Say you have obtained a sales space and need to work with Nathan the Cat Woman — he’ll come to me, and I am going to dealer the deal.”
It is not simply pet meals and cat litter both. CatCon options the whole lot from sensible vacuums to dwelling safety to automobile firms like Chevy.
“It is in regards to the full expertise of recent pet possession,” Michaels explains.
By means of this hands-on strategy, Michaels has maintained management of CatCon’s narrative, protected creators from malicious actors, and ensured sponsors obtain real worth.
“I am a conduit. A supervisor. An agent,” she says.
She could have left the purple carpet behind, however true to the L.A. stereotype, Michaels nonetheless wears 5 hats directly.
