Comment by toss1

It is not pollution when it is the desirable outcome.

It isn't like the relevant environment — the set of Internet forums — somehow predates human influence; it is nothing but the sum of human influence.

Cat pictures at least add joy and mirth, and are driven by real people without outside motivation.

If anything is pollution in that environment / context, is is the rise of content driven by surveillance capitalism and political corruption.

At this point (at the risk of turning a measure into a target), might we be able to gauge the natural-ness of a forum by the number of cat pics?