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Keyboard Cat: Web's Swine Flu

By Will McCahill, Newser Staff

Posted May 5, 2009 3:54 PM CDT

(Newser) – While swine flu sweeps the world, a YouTube meme is sweeping the Web with nearly equal virulence, Butter Team blogger Z reports: Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat. Amateur video artists splice fail-type situations—guy falling down escalator, Miss South Carolina—with a clip of a keyboard-playing cat, and the kitty music and visuals fade in over the embarrassing scene, as if playing it off stage.

“Keyboard Cat is now mutating by wrapping itself around the DNA of more popular memes,” Z writes, “deftly eluding the protective antibodies that render cat videos unfunny to most of the adult male population.” Adds Keyboard Cat’s anonymous creator: “Who says it was supposed to be funny? Keyboard Cat is a form of modern art comparable to dadaism. Most people aren’t able to grasp the complexities and attention to detail that a ‘play him off, keyboard cat’ encompasses.”

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Miss South Carolina, unsurprisingly susceptible to being played off by keyboard cat. (YouTube)

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