Hasta La Gadget!

Jul 13

Meme lovers, #kittencamp, and the battle for lolz

#kittencamp attendees show their love for lolz at a meme battle in San Francisco.

(Credit: Viral Ad Network)

It was a quiet night for an epic battle in San Francisco. Beneath the twinkling Christmas lights of the trailer-trash-themed bar Butter, the competitors donned their furry, glossy armor; a Sylvester the Cat costume for veteran Chris Quigley and a Scooby Doo suit for newcomer Shaan Puri. This was the #kittencamp meme battle.

At stake was the Standing Cat Cup, a 13KB JPEG of a cat standing on its hind legs, and glory — sweet, cat-video-laden lolz glory.

The two men were about to go head-to-head in an Internet meme competition. The event, meant to celebrate Internet culture and viral humor, is one of a series that occurs each month in different cities in the U.S. and overseas.

To compete, Quigley, the co-founder of the Viral Ad Network (VAN), and Puri, the CEO of tech incubator Monkey Inferno, individually submitted their best viral videos for each category, including kittens (duh), EPIC, and musical. The videos were pitted against each other, round after round, and played for the audience as they guzzled free beer. After each round of viewing, the audience held up “LOL!” cards to cast their votes.

(“Pinky the cat,” a classic YouTube video, was the winning entry for… [Read more]