Thirty years from now when we're all speaking Chinese, anthropologists will look back to find the turning point when it all went wrong. I humbly suggest Thursday, August 30, the date of the very first Internet Cat Video Festival.

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, played host to the festival, attended by hipsters, cat cosplayers and presumably some normal people as well. Curator Katie Hill watched 10,000 submissions and narrowed them down to 76 finalists, including Internet celebrity Maru, Henri the existential French cat, kittens riding a vacuum, and kittens with lightsabers.

But could even 76 cat videos really be so different? Curator Hill assured Slate.com, "If you watch enough shaky camera phone videos of cats, you start to see the distinctions." Not surprisingly the lifetime achievement award went to "Keyboard Cat." Sorry, but MARU WUZ ROBBED.

Those of us who weren't able to be there in person to watch 65 minutes straight of cat videos can relive the experience on YouTube here.

Or, you know, go read a book.

Contact the author of this post at Jessica.Wakeman@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter and Tumblr.