Internet Cat Video Festival 2013 due to take place in Minneapolis in August

A second edition of the Internet Cat Video Festival, dedicated to celebrating internet videos of cats, is due to take place in Minnesota in August 2013.

Some 10,000 people gathered at the inaugural event last summer, hosted by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

This year’s attendees are once again invited to nominate their favorite feline-themed viral videos to be played on a big screen at the event.

The festival will also now come to Brooklyn, New York, later in the year.

The video judged the best at last year’s festival featured a cat called Henri, described on his own website as “the world’s first and foremost feline philosopher”.

Director Will Bradon described the award as “a great honor” and is planning to unveil new material at the 2013 event.

Short videos of “cute” animal behavior are often popular on video websites such as YouTube and Vimeo, but cats seem to be a perennial favorite.

A one minute film of a cat “hugging” its kitten uploaded in May 2011 has been seen more than 50 million times on YouTube since it went viral after being posted on social news website Reddit.

“I think [cats] are easier to anthropomorphize and harder to herd,” said Plymouth University Prof. Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, in an interview with website knowyourmeme.com on the reason why cats are such an internet hit.

“There’s something secretive about them. When I was a child I used to imagine that all our local cats met up every night after dark to plot schemes against the grown-ups… One would never imagine this of dogs.”

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