A Really Serious Investigation into Why We Watch Cats Do Dumb Stuff

It seems like not a day goes by without a new Internet cat video.

Here, a compilation of kittens adorably mewing for some food.

There, yet another hefty cat trying desperately to squeeze into a tiny box.

Now, a new exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image sets out to determine what's behind our fascination with felines on the web. How Cats Took Over the Internet features a timeline of cats on the Internet, from their humble beginnings on chat boards to lolcats and celebrity cats, like Lil BUB and Grumpy Cat.

"This exhibit is responding directly to the attention that cats have and it's saying, 'Why? Why is this a thing?' And it's really a serious investigation into this phenomenon," said curator Jason Eppink.

Eppink said so far, they don't have the answers to those questions, so the museum is asking visitors to speculate on possible answers, because, as any cat owner can tell you, a lot of time is spent trying to understand cat behavior.

Cats actually have a long history with moving images. In fact, they're in one of the first motion videos called Boxing Cats made by Thomas Edison at the turn of the 19th century.

The exhibit also includes a large, looping video projection of 20 cat videos selected by the curator of the Internet Cat Video Festival, which just celebrated its fourth year.

The museum is also inviting visitors to share their own cat videos and images, to grow the digital collection. I'll be adding one of mine. It's a video of my cat, Amelia, punching the top of a plastic storage bin to get my attention at 6 a.m. It was definitely annoying to hear that so early in the morning. But I have to admit, it was also pretty funny.

How Cats Took Over the Internet runs through January.