The Cave #13

The Cave #13 marks a quarter of a year of us writing this, and hopefully of people reading it.

If someone had told us three months ago that we’d be writing about killing camels, the connection between a TikTok feud and David Attenborough, and adult toys, we’d not only believe them, we’d be delighted. 

Welcome, as ever, to our wide and weird wheelhouse.  

Comms

How to kill a camel

Australia has a camel problem. 

That’s not a set up to a joke, even if we wish it were. The country is home to the world’s largest feral camel population, with some estimating there are around one million humped houseguests roaming the outback.

Lots of people like camels. They enter them into beauty pageants and races, and there’s camel cameos in cultural staples like Aladdin and The Real Housewives of New York.  

But for the Australian outback, they’re highly destructive, destroying infrastructure, consuming plants needed by wildlife and First Nations communities, eroding sand dunes, and poisoning precious water supplies.

Managing the problem is another issue entirely. The Australian Feral Camel Management Project culled 27,000 camels using helicopters and sniper rifles. Tony Armstrong suggested eating them.

But despite some recent attention, the main challenge is a lack of public pressure to drive political will. The cities that delivered Labor’s landslide have no immediate reason to demand action. The horror of the hump is a world away.

What’s more, culling animals is never an easy sell. YouGov’s charity rankings found the RSPCA in top spot for the fourth consecutive year. We’re a nation of animal lovers, where for many, pest control is a can of Raid.

At its heart, this is a comms problem. People with little direct experience or immediate concern need to be made aware of the issue, and driven to take action. 

In much the same way the 2019-20 bushfires brought climate impacts to inner-cities, perhaps the scourge of invasive species needs to become a reality for more Australians.

From Paddington to Prahan, there’s only one thing for it. Release the camels.

Culture

The perils of parasocial relationships

The big news this week, among a certain group of very online people at least, has been the escalating feud between feminist advocates and media personalities, Abbie Chatfield and Clementine Ford.

If you need to know more, there’s no shortage of coverage from those practically hyperventilating with gratitude at the prospect of profitable clicks. 

Essentially, Chatfield alleges that Ford has developed a parasocial relationship with her and has been making judgements and comments based on this impression.

Parasocial relationships are nothing new. Public figures, celebrities, musicians, and even fictional characters have long been vessels for hopes, dreams, and expectations.

Many of us, for example, live in a quiet yet constant state of dread that we’ll awake to a push notification announcing the death of David Attenborough. 

The broadcaster marked his 99th birthday with an avalanche of tributes, and despite his public appearances now being largely restricted to a disembodied voice, he remains a source of inspiration and comfort to millions.

The age of content creators (not influencers, per Hannah Ferguson) has hypercharged this tendency. People who share more and more of their lives and perspectives online risk their audiences presuming they know the whole person, and making judgements as such.

Followers now not only believe they can see an entire life, but that they’re part of it. TikTok’s latest feature, allowing creators to activate DMs during live streams, blurs the boundaries further.

Failing to appreciate the difference between a public persona and the messy complexity of an actual person is a dangerous and ultimately disappointing path to tread, particularly as Gen Z tends to amplify different aspects of their personalities depending on the platform. 

It’s much safer to put your faith and trust in something that could never let you down. Like Bunnings.

Curiosities 

Adult toys

Get your mind out of the gutter. We’re talking about Labubus, obviously.

If you’ve managed to avoid this world-conquering craze, a Labubu is a small, bunny-like toy with a doll’s face. Yes, it is as creepy as it sounds.

But they’re also unbelievably popular among adults, have been worn by the likes of Rihanna and Dua Lipa, and go for eye-watering sums on resale sites.

A piece from Vogue Business dives into the trend, which also includes Jellycats (soft toys shaped like, among other things, swimming goggles) and Crybaby (toys that seek to answer the question ‘what if Chucky stubbed a toe?’).

We’re not here to judge, but honestly, it’s really weird.

It’s also unsurprising. The saying “we live in uncertain times” is both irrefutable and irrefutably dull. But it’s prescient here. 

When the tectonic plates of culture, geopolitics, and the human experience shift on a daily basis, reaching back to the innocent comfort of childhood is a natural reaction.

The challenge for brands is to reflect this desire without reverting to the tried, tested, and tedious. With the Cannes 2025 State of Creativity report showing only 13% of respondents view their brands as risk-friendly, it’s not looking good.

Engendering comfort while avoiding ‘comfort zone creativity’ is a fascinating dilemma, akin only to choosing between the Jellycats Boiled Egg Graduation Amuseable or the Crybaby Encounter Yourself iPhone Cable. Decisions, decisions.