Everyone has this picture in their house

I swear, every person between the ages of 18-35 who has their own apartment/house and is even remotely "hip" has this picture.  For those not as smart as me (I kid, I kid), the picture in question here is "Le Tournee du Chat Noir" (weird French accent things omitted because I don't feel like pressing 16 buttons). The picture is an iconic poster painted by Theophile Steinlen in the 1890's for some French cabaret club.

I will admit, the picture is pretty cool. Everyone knows I love cats, the font and lettering evokes images of a gritty nightlife scene, and the black cat juxtaposed against the yellow is a striking image. I might get this picture myself. Wait, no I won't.

This picture has become the French poster version of an early Beatles song: Every time you see it (or in the Beatle's case, hear it), it's great. However, you've seen/heard it 10,000 times already. The original meaning of the work has become nothing more than an automatic process in your brain whose relevancy is no longer meaningful. It's just not a powerful image anymore.

I see this picture in bathrooms. On refrigerators in magnet form. As the "avante-garde" finished basement poster. In dorm-rooms of people who went to France for five minutes (I've done the same, so I can't talk). As a purse. AS A SHOWER CURTAIN!

I've noticed that females tend to be the perpetrators putting these things up. Is it just me, or is every female obsessed with pictures of Paris and other French decorations? The other day I was at Ikea and observed two twenty-something females by a large picture of the Eiffel tower saying "Oh, this is cute!" Another popular picture is a photo of the Eiffel tower taken from a weird angle (underneath, out a hotel window, through an archway). My own wife is notorious for Francophile stuff in my apartment!- currently there is a map of Paris in bulletin board form and a poster in French about the Eiffel tower at the Universal Exposition in the 1800s. WHAT IS THE FASCINATION WITH PARIS, LADIES?! I've been there, and of course I loved it. It was one of the coolest places I've ever been to. But what's with girls who haven't been there being fascinated by it?

Don't worry, I'm not going to judge you an uninteresting bore if you have this picture. You probably thought "Hey, I'm in Paris and a street vendor is selling this. Why not get it and put it in my house?". Or you were at Pier One Imports or Bombay Company (does that store still exist?) and thought "Oooooh! This is international and sexy. I MUST HAVE IT!. I thought the same thing when I was in Paris, but upon realizing that the picture is sold at every street vendor, the memetic stomachache I described two paragraphs above set in. I couldn't have it- I was sick of it, and because everyone else had it I didn't want it.

Whenever I wear an article of clothing/display something in my home, I aim to get something that few or no people have. Perhaps this is the obnoxious hipster inside of me that I am trying to kill coming out, or perhaps I'm just an elitist jerk. I think I prefer the latter. Because of this, I will never display Chat Noir in my home. My wife actually tried to put up a miniature picture of it the other day, and I cried foul.

I have no idea what point I am trying to make in this blog. It was an idea that was spinning around in my head all day and I thought "Hey, this would make an ok blog post!" Feel free to share your love/disdain for the picture, or me, in the comments section