Growing crowd shoots for video stardom online

Maybe it's a case of Grumpy Cat envy.

Posting videos online is increasingly popular, and many everyman videographers are hoping their creations go viral.

Eleven percent of adult Internet users in the United States have posted an online video in hopes that it will be widely viewed, according to the Pew Research Center.

Posting online makes sense if you're looking for an audience: 78 percent of Internet-using American adults download or watch online videos.

Of course, it's harder to get noticed in an ever more crowded field. Thirty-one percent of adult Internet users post video today, compared with 14 percent in 2009.

Most videos are amateur, unscripted snippets of daily life shared on social media.

"As the online video culture grows — fueled by video-sharing sites, mobile phones and online social networking — posting videos online is becoming a mainstream online behavior," said Kristen Purcell of the Pew Internet Project.

Indeed, video has been one of the most buzzed-about features on social media this year.

Twitter launched its video-sharing network Vine in January, letting users post looping, six-second clips. Six months later, Instagram (owned by Facebook) added video.

Then there's YouTube, the behemoth of online video, where users around the world upload 100 hours of video each minute and watch more than 6 billion hours of video each month.

So, if you want to post a stand-out clip, what are people interested in?

Pew found that people like how-to and educational videos, but really what they want is a laugh.

Take note of what the famous cats of the Internet already know: Comedy comes out on top. □