People who are only persuaded to come to the discussion section because of cat GIFs are people I would rather didn't come to the discussion section at all and just stuck to Off Topic and IRC, or even better, just went back to 9Gag where they could be happy and where we could easily ignore them. Not that I have anything against cat GIFs...
Just to be clear, the problem with your idea was the part where these apparently brain-dead cat GIF seeking zombies suddenly decided to settle in the discussion section (which apparently they had managed not to notice before) and start making valid opinions. Again, looking at cat GIFs doesn't necessarily mean you are stupid, but only noticing things which have cat GIFs all over them does. I understand you might have been exaggerating the idea to dumb down the section and work from there but if so then your presentation of such suggestions needs to improve, not everything has to be hyperbolic.