Please do rot my teeth with the cute?

July 1, 2010 2:00 PM

My father, who lurks around these parts, has started a cuteness war. I'm in search of the cutest photos possible.

He calls his emailed photo the "undisputed" cutest photo ever. It features an admittedly very cute little blond girl in a pink shirt holding a gray kitten. It is not, however, the cutest photo in the world. I have responded with a photo of a kitten sleeping with his paw over a tiny stuffed animal and another of a baby polar bear riding on his mother's back. I know there are cuter, and I'm now requesting your help.

My brother and sister-in-law are involved in the judging, and I should mention that neither are much persuaded by babies.

Can you help me find the cutest picture?

posted by lauranesson to media & arts (49 answers total)

You know about Cute Overload, I suspect.
posted by procrastination at 2:01 PM on July 1, 2010

xkcd made this.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:04 PM on July 1, 2010 [25 favorites]

I'm pretty sure we'll need to see the competition in order to carry out this request....

(Here's one of my favorites.)
posted by good day merlock at 2:05 PM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you're a cute purist, this is what you're looking for: Daily Puppy.
posted by honeybee413 at 2:14 PM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Throw this at him.
posted by 4ster at 2:16 PM on July 1, 2010

good day merlock, I bet this is the photo in question.
posted by cjorgensen at 2:17 PM on July 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

I feel confident in saying that your answer is somewhere on the itty bitty kitty committee website.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:19 PM on July 1, 2010

You can not top the baby otter picture in good news' link for cuteness. You just can't.
posted by Evangeline at 2:21 PM on July 1, 2010

Although you could try zooborns.
posted by Evangeline at 2:23 PM on July 1, 2010

My vote goes to bunnies in cups.
posted by foodgeek at 2:23 PM on July 1, 2010

This is a baby pygmy hippo.

I'm sorry, what was that again?

A BABY PYGMY HIPPO.

Suck it, every other baby animal in the world.
posted by Evangeline at 2:25 PM on July 1, 2010 [4 favorites]

Some doggy cuteness
posted by vespabelle at 2:26 PM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm partial to this one.
posted by magicbus at 2:29 PM on July 1, 2010

Daily Squee
Cute Overload
ZooBorns
posted by TooFewShoes at 2:29 PM on July 1, 2010

Do videos count? The sneezing panda is cuteissimo.
posted by uauage at 2:30 PM on July 1, 2010

Also, the Japanese Flying Squirrel looks like something out of an anime film and could not be cuter.
posted by magicbus at 2:35 PM on July 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah, if videos count, then Otters Holding Hands is a pretty good bet for cuteness.
posted by mysterpigg at 2:36 PM on July 1, 2010 [4 favorites]

surprised kitty
posted by stuart_s at 2:38 PM on July 1, 2010 [7 favorites]

Gautam Singh's AP photo of a loris reaching its hand out to a human's is PURE SQUEEE.

(& bonus, the loris is poisonous. Cute and badass.)
posted by Westringia F. at 2:38 PM on July 1, 2010

The SF Chronicle runs a column online called Day in Pictures; it's usually good for a cute small animal or two.
posted by tellumo at 2:39 PM on July 1, 2010

If videos are being accepted, I submit this.
posted by moira at 2:49 PM on July 1, 2010

I'm going a different route: a poisonous aggressive predatory fish.

That smiles and has sparkly eyes.
posted by quin at 2:58 PM on July 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Tickled Loris
posted by dobbs at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2010

God, I can't believe I'm actually linking to this, but the local news site has a section dedicated to cutestuff.
posted by Paragon at 3:08 PM on July 1, 2010

Can't beat the orangutan mother kissing her child's finger after it got hurt, or if videos count, sneezing baby panda.
posted by jwells at 3:20 PM on July 1, 2010

This is, in my opinion, the cutest animal picture EVAH!!!!11!!!
posted by Windigo at 4:02 PM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Monkey-pigeon interspecies love!
posted by superquail at 4:16 PM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

red pandas playing. The zookeeper's interruptions dilute it a little, but the cute is still quite high.
posted by stuart_s at 5:43 PM on July 1, 2010

A real cute war requires weapons and training!!
posted by Iron Rat at 5:50 PM on July 1, 2010

what about cute puppy whistle?
posted by ghostbikes at 6:11 PM on July 1, 2010

FU Penguin presents a fawn and a pit bull.
posted by (Over) Thinking at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2010

Charlie the Coyote as a pup.
posted by runningwithscissors at 8:33 PM on July 1, 2010

Puppywar Top Dogs
Kittenwar Winningest Kittens
posted by fings at 8:36 PM on July 1, 2010

hey, guys, give a brother a hand here?
posted by juv3nal at 9:02 PM on July 1, 2010

Our sleepy puppy is unbeatably cute.
posted by joshu at 9:20 PM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

bird
this particular zooborn
posted by freshwater at 9:35 PM on July 1, 2010

Deb has some pretty adorable photos. Here are a few of my favorites: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
posted by junques at 10:09 PM on July 1, 2010

Baby hedgehog. Seriously.
posted by kjs4 at 10:59 PM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I assume you've seen the husky dog playing with the adult polar bear?
posted by grobstein at 11:14 PM on July 1, 2010

Little girl feeding black cat with a spoon
black cat laying on dog
Baby raccoons in a hammock
Baby raccoon eating caramel
posted by desjardins at 6:44 AM on July 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Get yer molesting fingers away. I'm trying to sleep.
posted by juv3nal at 1:41 PM on July 2, 2010

Dormouse?
posted by exceptinsects at 3:19 PM on July 2, 2010

Cute Things Falling Asleep
posted by knile at 3:55 PM on July 2, 2010

From Evangeline's earlier link: This baby tiger is the most adorable thing I've seen in a long time. Lookit that face! He's all like, "Oh no you didn't!"
posted by lilac girl at 4:45 PM on July 2, 2010

I recently took this photo of a yellow lab puppy, a service dog in training, that's really quite unreasonable in its cuteness. He's even cuter in his tiny little service dog vest, but I don't have any pictures of that.
posted by waldo at 8:32 PM on July 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

So, I went to Reddit's 'awww' subreddit, went to the 'top' tab, and picked 'all time' from the 'links from:' pull-down menu.

The first link was, to me, not awww, but gross. The second link was text.

The third? Jackpot.

And off that same list, here's the fourth, fifth (from brundlefly?), sixth (a video), seventh (meh), eighth (awwwwww!), ninth, and tenth (a video).

Also, I find this video amazingly adorable, I suppose because I know the little tiny kitty was okay afterward and you get to hear what a little supertiny baby kitty "hisss!" sounds like.
posted by WCityMike at 8:47 AM on July 3, 2010

How had I never seen surprised kitty? That one broke me right in half.

The end result: I was shut out. The brother and sister-in-law both pulled out photos of the other sleeping next to one of their cats. Then they declared themselves both the winners. Sadly, in accordance with another part of SARBSS, when a sibling and spouse gang up together they have an additional 50% pull on the adjudicating parent. My father was then unable to resist a joke about my brother and the cat being "furry creatures" sleeping together, and I had to gracefully extend my hand.

For my part, I am partial to kitties. But the hedgehog and the flying squirrel pulled ahead nonetheless. In the end, the monkey and pigeon killed me, because the pigeon is completely indifferent while the tiny monkey says, "I will love you even though you love the camera more."
posted by lauranesson at 8:54 AM on July 5, 2010

WCityMike: "And off that same list, here's the fourth, fifth (from brundlefly?)"

Ha! Nope, that ain't me. My cats are just as adorable. Fatter, though.
posted by brundlefly at 9:46 AM on July 19, 2010

brundlefly: Ha! Nope, that ain't me. My cats are just as adorable. Fatter, though.

Well, reason I asked was that it was posted by "brundleflied" on Reddit! :)
posted by WCityMike at 3:36 PM on September 12, 2010