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"Ben Huh, CEO and founder of The Cheezburger Network, took the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit Monday to deliver a very important message unto the denizens of the web: Cats are key.\nWell, that was part of his message \u2014 we all know the Internet cache of a cuddly kitty. However, the overall theme of his talk, titled \"Internet Culture: What Does It Mean?!?!,\" centered on the growing power and influence of culture propagated on the web.\nHuh touches on the burgeoning ability of average citizens \u2014 those who previously were only able to consume what Hollywood fed them \u2014 to create their own spin on current events/pop culture. Thanks to tools like YouTube and Photoshop, Huh says, \"They have created a subculture on the Internet populated by viral content and Internet memes.\"\nDuring the course of his talk, Huh also made an important \u2014 oft-muddled \u2014 distinction between viral content and memes. Memes, he says, \"give life after its initial life to viral content.\" Therefore, that funny cat video that all your friends were passing around last week would be defined as viral content, while the auto-tuned remix of that same video would be deemed a meme.\nAccording to Huh, the creators of such memes are \"hacking meaning,\" using the media available to them to create multiple viewpoints around the same subject matter. And, in essence, they are the \"rock stars of tomorrow,\" Huh says. \"We are creating our own rock 'n' roll \u2014 our own generational metaphor for how we view this place,\" he adds.\nTell that to your boss that next time you get chewed out for \"wasting your time\" over on YouTube."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/11/17/ben-huh-cats-web-2-0/>