Rewind a few years and it may not have seemed possible that people’s strange love for cats coupled with comments with bad spelling would result in an Internet meme that has the ability to clog up your inbox on a daily basis.
But Lolcats are here to stay and what’s more, thousands of videos of cats being silly are uploaded to Youtube daily and a visit to Buzzfeed will see hours of productivity lost laughing at cats being daft.
Celebrating feline faux-pas
You needn’t kick yourself for not thinking of this idea first, but you still have time to capitalise on the concept. While the Internet doesn’t need another funny cats website, you can turn the craze into a festival. That’s what’s happened in the US.
That’s right, a Cat Video Festival dedicated to bringing together and celebrating Internet videos of cats. Some 10 000 people visited the first Cat Video Festival in 2012, hosted by the Walker Art Center, and this year a second festival has been scheduled to take place in Minnesota in August and later in New York.
Attendees are invited to nominate their favourite cat videos to be played on the big screen at the event. Think it’s ridiculous? Short videos of animals being cute are extremely popular online, this one of a cat hugging its kittens has received almost 51 million hits on Youtube alone.
Capitalising on cats
According to Plymouth University professor, Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, the reason cats are such a hit on the Internet is that “Cats are easier to anthropomorphise and harder to herd,” (That means it’s easier for us to give them human qualities). So if you’re looking for an idea on how to capitalise, the answer is host a festival.