That little bundle of feline sitting and purring next to you might actually be a secret internet star.
A rash of funny feline photographs have flooded the worldwide web recently - and your seemingly innocent little kitty-cat might just be part of this latest online phenomenon.
It happens every now and then, when some seemingly harmless internet joke bursts right out into pop culture and spreads like wildfire among the masses. Remember Gary Brolma, the Numa Numa guy from YouTube, and Nora the Cat - or the guys who did those Coke and Mentos experiments?.
If you've been online in the past several months, you may have run across various web sites and blogs with pictures of cats (and other small animals) in various poses, with large-type grammatically-incorrect captions embedded in the images. Depending on your point of view, they are incredibly funny, completely irritating, or downright dripping with cuteness.
They're called LOLcats- derived from the "Laughing Out Loud" abbreviation often used by those who chat, text or instant-message online. LOLcats have now taken over social networking websites, message boards, blogs, and- chances are good that they have even made it into your inbox.
Where exactly did these LOLcats come from? Well, according to a theory on Linguistic Mystic.com, it all started on an image-hosting website : people would find pictures of cats with interesting expressions, caption them in humorous ways, and share them by posting these on Saturdays. Thus, the tradition of "Caturday" was born. Since then, LOLcats have spread like wildfire.
The most popular LOLcat website is probably I Can Has Cheezburger?, a blog which, according to news website news.com.au, is already one of the top 1000 websites in the US since it launched in January 2007. Run by two 20-something techies known only as "Cheezburger" and "Tofuburger", the site gets up to 500,000 page views and up to 500 LOLcat images sent in every day.
Despite the huge volume of submitted pictures, the vast majority simply don't make the LOLcat grade. Cheezburger told The Houston Chronicle: "For every 25 we get, maybe one is postable". Still, the sheer number of entries they get everyday is enough to make them consider getting a larger site, or turning the existing one into something like Digg where submitted images are voted on, and only the best ones move to the front page.
For more LOLcats, visit Flickr, or build your own LOLcat on sites like LOLCatBuildr or even I Can Has Cheezburger's very own LOLCat factory, where you can upload and caption your own photos.
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According to news.com.au, regular LOLcat jokes are written in some form of internet slang. The Houston Chronicle suggests mangled spelling associated with texting and gaming comes into play.
- "Hi" becomes "Hai", "Your" becomes "Ur" and "The" becomes "Teh".
- The most common form of kitty-speak takes the form of "I'm in ur X, Y-ing ur Z!"- supposedly based on a common line used by online strategy game players, where an opponent sneaks into his enemy's base to kill resource gatherers ("I'm in ur base, killin ur d00dz."). This format seems to be the catch-all structure for the majority of LOLcats, such as "I'm in ur bed, eatin ur waffelz"
- Another common format is the "Invisible X", like "Invisible Sandwich," where a picture of a cat is caught with his paws in mid-air and mouth wide open as if taking a large bite from a clubhouse.
- Last (but not least) comes "kitty pidgin", as coined by Anil Dash, where cats speak with the grammar and syntax of a 3-year old, such as "I Can Has Cheezburger?"
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I iz in petshed, readin ur storiez! hahaha -oops, rather- LOL!
hahahaha! this is so cute! i went to the website and had tears in my eyes from laughing! its outrageous! i should put my kitty cat's picture and see what happens!
LOL for LOLcats! I actually tried to take pics of my cats to make my own LOLcat photos- they're cute, I guess all they need are proper captions! Can I has funny caption? LOL!
awww- they're all so cute! have you seen this one with the small little cat propped on a pair of flip-flops with the caption: dis shoe 2 big u hav smaler size in bak? it's sooo cute!
I decided to check the blog you guys linked to your lolcats story- and i never expected to spend hours upon hours looking at the site! they're so cute and cuddly! petshed should have a lolcat section!
I think it's pretty juvenile. They're butchering the English language that way!
C'mon, Alan! where's your sense of humor? I think it's cute. Although sometimes, the captions are not too funny..but all the pictures make you smile.
well, you have to admit, Allan- it IS cute. Imagine a little 3-year-old come up to you and say those things!
Uhh.. whatever.
All cat lovers would love that site. Ohters would never find the humor and cuteness of the captions. But I do! LOL for LOLcats!!
lol! i can totally relate to the cat's facial expressions here coz my cat does the same thing! cute!!! i visit the site everyday to see the new pics. love it!
Lol! Thaz eeezz funny! And the cats are really cute too. I'm a cat person and i love anything that has cats in them.
now i know where my gf gets that weird language she's using on me while were chattin online. no offense meant cat lovers but this is weirdo. lol!
hahahaha! TOny, i talk to my guy that way too! he hates it when i email him or chat with him and use this language. he thinks that i'm such a freak! lol non-cat lovers won't just get this humor. but i love LOLcats!!
i checked out the website and the pictures i saw are so cute and hilariously funny. i might just post my kitty's pics and see what happens. lol
anyone and i mean anyone can become famous online by having a totally original idea and posting it on a site like this one. even our pets are joining the bandwagon which is really a good thing.i've checked this website out and it's really quite funny.
I love this site! Well, it's coz i love cats! Non cat-lovers would find this lame. My brother thought it was one of the stupidest things and can't believe why it got so many hits. If you love cats, anything that they do is just simply adorable.
They don't have no dog online sites with all cute photos with funny captions. Ain't for me, but women will dig that stuff. And i think there's a huge market for "lol dogs", mostly women who think that ALL dogs are cute.