Alone in a chilly, ultra-sterile Santa Monica hotel room last week, the ocean to one side of me and a vast network of Chipotles to the other, I turned to my laptop for a hit of human connection. On Steam's top-sellers list, I found a game that seemed suitable for hotel-grade wi-fi: the $5It's a fishing game, but really it's a cozycore hangout game with little lake and seaside environments, emotes, props, and text chat.
I now had a far better way to communicate than text chat, with all the complex grammar and potential for misunderstanding that comes with: spamming meows.back. Except the dog, who barked. Later I wandered around meowing in the faces of players who were minding their own business—fishing by the lake, listening to tunes on a boombox—and I understand better now why cats and certain puckish children like to do that. It says:"I exist. No questions, please.