Scroll ahead for photos from the first Silicat Valley Cat Convention.

What surprised me most about the inaugural Silicat Valley Cat Convention was the dearth of actual cats. There were cat toys and cat treats, cat caricatures and cat-shaped mirrors, cat fan art and cat books. One woman was selling jewelry made with cat whiskers.

Most anything one could hope to purchase with a cat on it could be found at the convention, held last weekend at the Club Auto Sport Event Center in San Jose. But of the cats: I counted about 15 present, including those held by attendees, who could bring their cats to the convention by purchasing a $10 "feline admission" on top of a single-day ticket for $30 or a weekend pass for $35.

The first cat I encountered was stationed outside the venue, at the end of a long line of attendees, some of whom had waited more than 45 minutes in dry heat to enter the convention. This cat was of the unsettling variety: It was a human dressed in what can only be described as a cat Furry suit. It approached me for a hug and a photo.

After obliging the photo, I stepped into a crowded venue lined with booths selling row upon row of cat wares.

If Silicat Con is any indication, cats — or at least the idea of them — have gone the way of avocados, bacon and rosé. While these trendy items retain their intrinsic value, they've become commodified in the form of memes and merchandise. One cannot solely consume bacon with her morning eggs, she must also wear shirts with slogans like "Body by Bacon." An affinity for rosé, best enjoyed chilled, must be announced with wall art proclaiming the necessity to "Rosé All Day." At Silicat Con, I experienced a sort of inferiority complex. Just owning a cat was not enough. To be a cat person, I needed a Lil' Bub bobblehead, a poster of Superman Cat, a cat backpack.

"Silicat Valley 2019! Stay hydrated. It's a party," an emcee shouted from the stage, interrupting my philosophical musings.

If you looked beyond all the cat merch for sale, Silicat Con did indeed feel like a party. On the right-hand side of the space was a bar serving beer, wine and cocktails, served by bartenders in bowties. The opposite side of the room held a stage and a DJ booth, where a woman spun electronic music before a screen playing cat videos.

In front of the DJ was a special guest — a keynote kitty? — named Sunglass Cat.

It is not often that one gets to meet a social media influencer in real life, least of all an influencer who is also a cat. The gray-and-white fluffball has more Instagram followers than Alice Waters, the Warriors' Chris Webber and actor Daveed Diggs combined (858,000 followers at time of writing).

Sunglass Cat, though he arguably lacks the skills of the aforementioned celebrities, has something they do not: an incredible collection of more than 600 bedazzled sunglasses. His popular Instagram page is populated by photos of him doing cat things like sitting, standing and staring into space.

The six-year-old rescue from Los Angeles County has eyelid agenesis, a congenital condition that prevents the development of his upper eyelids. He cannot blink or clear debris from his eyes. That's where the sunglasses come in. The bling, which his owner Karen McGill bedazzles herself, is just for appearances.

His appearance at Silicat Con was meant to celebrate the physical differences that make cats and their human counterparts unique. "It's Okay To Look and Be Different," a recent caption on one of his Instagram posts says.

That phrase could serve as the mantra for Silicat Con, where people were free to be their cattiest selves. I haven't seen as many cat ears since Halloween parties in college.

"When people think cat shows, they think like old people with cats lounging around," an exhibitor who called herself Crazy Cat Lady told me. "This is a very different sort of thing. It's full of young hipsters!"

In the "Alley Cat Garage," a smaller space decorated with vintage cars and cutouts of racecar drivers, I attended a panel on cats and cannabis. The discussion of pet-friendly CBD tinctures was disrupted by the appearance of a real, live cat, corralled in a pen at the back of the room. He did not seem disturbed by the crowd. Like most cats, he simply carried on with his business of preening himself.

I skipped the next discussion, "Holistic Cats" with the "Two Crazy Cat Ladies," to get a good spot for Body Pawsitive, a cats-and-yoga class. This was held in the Kitten Lounge, a room where you could play with adoptable kittens.

Maybe it was the hipster-ness of it all that made me feel uncomfortable. As a millennial, the economic powers that-be dictate that if I like something for its intrinsic value, I must purchase an image of that thing to proclaim and validate our affinity for it. This is not a dictum unique to Silicat Con. It applies to most "fandom" conventions: You pay to get in so you can pay to buy merchandise and mingle with other people doing the same. These gatherings operate under a sort of "flaneur" logic: you see and are seen within the context of your fandom. Convention flaneur is validating, especially for people interested in hobbies or entertainment outside the mainstream.

In Northern California, this past weekend alone, there were conventions for cannabis beverages, for Filipino-American fellowship and for people who watch slime videos on Instagram (next month is the Cali4nia Goo Convention, which has a similar mission statement). In this context, the materialization of national cat "conventions" seems logical.

And yet, Silicat Con wanted to be too many things: a convention, a festival, an art show, a vendor pop-up, a dance party. At the end of my Saturday visit, I felt not unlike one of the kittens up for adoption that weekend: overstimulated.

Michelle Robertson is a freelance writer. You can reach her at michbrobertson@gmail.com and on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.