Google Is Surreptitiously Making Amazing Movies From People’s Cat Photos

"Meow Movies" are our new favorite thing.
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If you use Google Photos, you’ve probably experienced the app’s “assistant” feature taking the liberty of creating suggested collages, stories or mini-movies out of your pictures.

If you’re like most people, you usually ignore these suggestions.

If you’re a cat lover, however, you may be getting a suggestion soon that you definitely won’t want to ignore. That’s because Google may be making you a “Meow Movie.”

“I got a notification on my phone last night,” writer Courtney Gillette told HuffPost in an email. “It was from my Google Photos app, and it said, ‘Your Meow Movie is ready.’” The notification included a happy cat face emoji, she said.

A “Meow Movie” is, well, what you might expect. And the soundtrack is pretty top-notch, so turn up the volume.

Gillette was psyched. “Who doesn’t like an excuse to look at a digital flipbook of photos of their cat?” she said.

The “star” of Gillette’s video is Sappho, who as a kitten was abandoned on the eve of Hurricane Sandy and rescued by a “saintly woman.” Gillette later adopted Sappho through Facebook. The two supporting feline cast members, Rufus and Domino, were abandoned in a flower bed and adopted by Gillette’s partner, Emily.

Gillette’s not the only person to receive a Meow Movie in the past day.

We’ve seen at least two different songs your video might feature.

The movies are part of a new Google initiative to highlight the importance of pets in people’s lives, a company spokesperson told HuffPost in an email.

“Beginning this week, if you take lots of photos of your dog or cat, you may get a movie celebrating your pet in all their paw-some-ness,” the spokesperson said.

Additionally, users will be able to use the app’s movie editor feature to choose from six different pet-themed songs.

This article has been updated to include comment from Google.

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Larry

Cats, Cats, Cats!

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