"Every time you masturbate… God kills a kitten" is the caption of an image created by a member of the website Fark.com in 2002.[1] The image features a kitten (subsequently referred to as "Cliché Kitty") being chased by two Domos, and has the tagline "Please, think of the kittens".
According to a New York Times Magazine article on Domo-kun, "Any major exhibition on the history of clowning around on the Internet would have to include [this image]".[2] An article from ICv2 stated, "This phony PSA is quite out of character with Domo's image in Japan."[3]
The phrase originally appeared as the headline "Fact: Every Time You Masturbate, God Kills a Kitten. How Many More Have to Die?" with a kitten photo on the cover of The Gonzo, a satirical publication produced by students at Georgetown University, in 1996.[4]
In 2003, actor Dudley Sutton found inspiration from the Internet, "where apparently people say that every time you masturbate God kills a kitten".[5]
The XXXchurch used the retouched kitten image in an e-mail campaign.[6] Jay Porter was quoted as stating that "'God kills a kitten every time you masturbate' is not an advisable message to direct at children", after the Michigan church used the slogan during an anti-pornography campaign in 2005.[7] The phrase also inspired the name of a sex club called Killing Kittens.[8]
The phrase is sometimes varied. For example, in 2003, Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee maintained a screensaver that showed kittens chased by vengeful ninjas, and the cut line, "Every time you masturbate, a ninja chops the head off a kitten."[9]