Sophie Cunningham Casually Admits to Pranking Her Cat for 'Content,' and the Internet Has Decided She's Public Enemy Number One
Phoenix Mercury star Sophie Cunningham has officially joined the ranks of “People the Internet Hates This Week,” and honestly? The discourse is so unserious that it’s almost impressive. The WNBA player, who usually gets clout for her three-point shooting and chaotic energy on the court, is now catching strays for something she did off the hardwood: allegedly pranking her cat, Mr. Whiskers, for “content.”
Yes, you read that right. We’re at the point in society where a professional athlete’s moral compass is being judged by how she treats a furball that probably knocks glasses off tables for fun.
Here’s the tea, or rather, the catnip: In a since-deleted (but of course, screenshotted) TikTok, Cunningham showed her cat getting mildly spooked by a cucumber she placed behind him while he was eating. For the uninitiated, this is the internet’s favorite feline fear tactic—a trend so old it was already tired when your aunt shared it on Facebook in 2016. But Sophie, bless her heart, thought it would be a banger for the algorithm.
It was not.
Within hours, the comments section turned into a war crimes tribunal. “You’re literally stressing out your cat for likes,” one user wrote, probably while their own cat sat on their keyboard ignoring them. Another chimed in with, “This is animal abuse. Imagine if someone put a giant snake behind YOU while you were eating.” First of all, bold of you to assume I’d notice, I’m usually scrolling Twitter while eating. But sure, go off.
Cunningham, to her credit (or lack thereof, depending on your stance on cat psychology), responded in a follow-up video with a shrug emoji and said, “Y’all need to chill. Mr. Whiskers is fine. He’s literally sleeping on my head right now. He forgives me. He’s not on Reddit.”
And that, my friends, is when the internet lost its collective mind.
Because nothing makes a mob angrier than someone not taking their outrage seriously. The cat moms of TikTok mobilized like they were defending Gotham. We’re talking threads upon threads of animal behavior experts (self-proclaimed, of course) explaining how this “prank” causes “chronic stress” and “erodes trust” between pet and owner. One user even compared it to “gaslighting your cat,” which is a sentence that should automatically revoke your internet privileges.
But let’s pump the brakes for a second. Is this really the hill we want to die on? A cucumber? Behind a cat? While the world is literally on fire? I’m not saying it’s a great thing to do—it’s dumb, it’s lazy content, and it’s probably not great for the cat’s blood pressure. But calling it “animal abuse” is like calling someone who eats the last slice of pizza a “war criminal.” It’s hyperbolic, it’s exhausting, and it makes you look terminally online.
Look, I get it. We live in a world where people are desperate for any scrap of moral superiority. It’s easier to dunk on a WNBA player for a mildly annoying pet prank than to, say, actually do something about the housing crisis or climate change. But here we are. Sophie Cunningham, who has done actual charity work and been a vocal advocate for social justice, is now being dragged because her cat experienced two seconds of mild confusion.
The real villain here? The algorithm. Cunningham was just playing the game. If you’re an athlete trying to stay relevant in the off-season, you post dumb shit. That’s the rules. You think LeBron James hasn’t done something cringe for engagement? He literally called himself “The King” in third person. That’s worse than any cucumber.
But no, we have to make everything a capital-I Issue. The discourse has now evolved to “Does Sophie Cunningham even deserve to be a role model?” and “Should the Mercury do something about this?” My brother in Christ, the Mercury have bigger problems—like their defense last season. Let’s focus.
And can we talk about the hypocrisy for a second? The same people clutching their pearls over Mr. Whiskers’ psychological well-being are probably the ones who own cats that they let outside to murder local bird populations. Or they feed their cats kibble that’s basically the nutritional equivalent of a gas station hot dog. But sure, the cucumber is the line.
The internet has this bizarre need to assign villain status to anyone who does something slightly annoying. Remember when a woman got death threats for putting pineapples on pizza? Or when that one influencer was canceled for folding her toilet paper “wrong”? We’ve turned outrage into a spectator sport, and Sophie Cunningham is just this week’s sacrifice to the algorithm gods.
To be fair, she could have handled it better. Instead of doubling down with a shrug, she could have just said, “You know what, you’re right, that was dumb, I won’t do it again.” But that would require admitting fault, and we don’t do that in 2025. We die on our hills, even if the hill is “my cat can handle a cucumber.”
So what’s the verdict, AITA style? Honestly? ESH. Everyone sucks here. Sophie sucks for reviving a dead trend for clout. The internet sucks for acting like she waterboarded the cat. And Mr. Whiskers? He’s the only innocent party, and he’s probably plotting his revenge by vomiting on her sneakers as we speak.
In the grand scheme of things, this will blow over by next Tuesday when someone else does something mildly annoying. But for now, Sophie Cunningham is the face of “internet villain of the week,” and we should all take a moment to appreciate how unserious this timeline is. We’ve got wars, economic collapse, and a housing market that makes no sense, but by God, we will not stand for cat pranks.
Priorities, people
Final Thoughts
It’s hard not to feel a pang of weary recognition reading about Sophie Cunningham’s latest literary excavation: another Australian woman with a formidable, under-sung legacy, whose life reveals more about the country’s cultural amnesia than it does about her own failures. Cunningham’s work consistently proves that the most potent journalism isn’t about declaring a verdict, but about holding a complex, flawed life up to the light and asking us to re-examine the shadows we’ve collectively cast. Ultimately, her dogged pursuit of forgotten stories isn’t just an act of historical retrieval; it’s a quiet but fierce indictment of a nation that still struggles to see its own deep, uncomfortable truths.