YouTube Funny Cat Videos Become High Art at the Internet Cat Video Film Festival

Internet cat videos have scratched and clawed their way to a new caliber of artistic respect. The most beloved and popular YouTube funny cat videos of all time were collected and entered into competition last month at the first-ever Internet Cat Video Film Festival. The prestigious Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN hosted a screening of the 80 best and most popular silly cat videos, with more than 10,000 cat video enthusiasts in attendance. Viewers voted for their favorite cat videos, bestowing People’s Choice awards to the very finest cinematic examples of silly cat videos. Links to all the winning Internet Cat Video Film Festival clips can be found below.

For an online replay of the Internet Cat Video Film Festival’s best cat videos, YouTube has a dedicated channel to showcase the winning kitty video entries. You can watch them on your own, or invite all the cool cats over and host your own Internet Cat Video Film Festival screening party. The winning videos are collected onto a YouTube playlist, so you can watch the videos individually or all in a row, with the seven People’s Choice award winners saved for last.

WATCH THE WINNING YOUTUBE FUNNY CAT VIDEOS

There are 80 cat videos on the YouTube Internet Cat Video Film Festival playlist, but watching them all only takes about two hours. Some of the videos are only five or ten seconds in length, and the longest one is just shy of seven minutes. If one of the cat videos bores you or rubs you the wrong way, just press the “Next Video” button on the DVR-style control panel at the bottom of the YouTube page. The player will skip to the next entry in this funny furball film festival. You can also use the controls to go back and watch a video again or shuffle the playback order.

All the old favorites like “Keyboard Cat” and “The OMG Cat” are included in this meow mix, plus dozens of new up-and-coming kitty video stars. The cat videos are separated into distinct categories: Comedy, Drama, Foreign, Animated, Musical, Documentary, and others. Most of the cat videos in the Documentary category, of course, are just whimsical fake documentaries.

If two hours worth of kitties leaping, playing pianos, or chasing their own shadows is still not enough for you, head over to the Internet Cat Video Film Festival’s Honorable Mention playlist of YouTube cat videos for another hour and fifteen minutes of feline frolic videos that didn’t make the final cut. Some of the videos have some high production value such as the one below entitled Real Housecats 2, Season 2.

DOWNLOAD THE BEST CAT VIDEOS

The People’s Choice winners were honored as the best cat videos on the web. If you want to download funny cat videos and watch your favorites again and again, just download the free RealDownloader app by clicking the orange button at the top right corner of this screen and you can start collecting and saving videos as you watch them with just one click. Then you can bust out classics like “Kittens Riding Vacuum” or “Surprised Kitty” whenever you’re feeling finicky, or just need a good laugh.

The winner of the Golden Kitty award for the best cat video on the Internet went to “Henri 2, Paw de Deux” – a clever parody of an existential French film narrated by a fussy kitty who grapples with the meaning of life. The fluffy Japanese cat named Maru, widely considered the most famous cat on the Internet, is featured in two of the videos — “I am Maru”, a greatest-hits compilation of Maru’s most epic battles with paper bags and bits of yarn, and a People’s Choice award winner wherein Maru engages in a furious attack against a cardboard box that is way too small to contain him. “Cat Show” is a real-life documentary that has some “Best in Show”-style fun with the culture of competitive cat shows. Other festival highlights come with self-explanatory titles like “Cat Taking Shower” or “Kitten Freaks Himself Out.”

MAKE YOUR OWN FUNNY CAT VIDEOS

No word on whether a follow-up Internet Cat Video Film Festival is being scheduled for 2013, but these kitty clips might be the “purr-fect” inspiration for you to make your own cat videos. With some tips for shooting mobile phone videos and a cat doing something funny you can easily make videos using your smartphone. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you can find free video editing software to implement slow motion tricks or add musical accompaniment. Then just add it to the growing number of YouTube funny cat videos — it may even become a viral sensation and get millions of views.

Are Internet cat videos really art? Did the People’s Choice award winners really deserve to win? Would you attend a cat video film festival? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.