LOL Cats Ask: "I Can Has Blawgher?"

You've seen them. I know you have. They're inquisitive cats with their own special language, and they live here.

The Lolcats craze began with this image, posted in January on the I Can Has Cheezburger Website.

[img_assist|fid=4089|thumb=0|alt=icanhaschzburger]

The meme's popularity hasn't waned yet. Many of your favorite bloggers and mine have posted lolcat photos or links. Djkatscan, aka Kat Sederquist, has a flickrstream with hundreds of lolcat-style shots.

There is also a lolcats group on Flickr, and an "official, invite-only", Flickr Can Has Cheezburger group that was pending as of May 21st.

Slate.com posted an article called "Cat Power: You Cannot Resist LOLCats" and a slideshow this week with lots of pictures and insight into this kitty-loving meme that will not die. Six Apart blog guru Anil Dash wrote a great description of the phenomenon here, describing the concept of image macro (known in plain English as putting funny captions on pictures), combined with the construct based on the old phrase "I'm in UR X Ying your Z," and a further description of lolcat-speak as a pidgin language.

He wrote a follow-up post with links to some resources he found in response to the original article.

And of course, as in the case of any popular idea, there are imitators. There are LOL bees on livejournal.com, and Fark.com has a growing "lolpresidents" thread. There are only twelve photos tagged "loldogs" on Flickr so far, though.

Do you have a favorite? Have you posted one of these photos or made up a caption? Let us know.

Laurie White is a dog person, who gets a major kick out of lolcats all the same.

Submitted by lauriewrites (view blog

) on Fri, 05/25/2007 - 14:27

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OMG! I am DYING laughing at the Presidents!

I will admit that I don't totally understand the insane popularity of the lolcats, but the Presidents one is just such a hilarious combination of pop culture and historical reference it's absurd. And kind of really awesome.

Thanks!
---
Kristy Sammis
BlogHer's Conference & Event Planner
e. kristy@blogher.org

Submitted by Kristy Sammis on Fri, 05/25/2007 - 14:30

Lolpresidents is awesome

Lolpresidents is awesome indeed.

Submitted by lauriewrites on Sat, 05/26/2007 - 10:11

LOLPresidents

You can find all of fark lolpresidents and more at www.lolpresidents.com.

http://www.lolpresidents.com/photo.pl?id=621 is my favorite.

Submitted by ghoastie on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 08:51

LOL Cat Builder

I can tell you this phenomenon has been berry berry good to me, as I have been getting tons of google traffic because I posted your very own LOL Cat Builder link on my personal blog here. That is also a link to the LOL Cat I created my very own self :)

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

Submitted by Elisa Camahort on Fri, 05/25/2007 - 16:30

Tx! LOL!

Thanks for this, Laurie. This phenomenon has been below my radar. After perusing some of these, I had tears of laughter running down my face.

A Drivel Runs Through It

Submitted by cowgrrrl on Fri, 05/25/2007 - 22:26

My interwebs got borked

My interwebs got borked around Christmas for a whole week, and what I missed the most was making macros.

Please allow an academic to drop some lolcatz science on you:
http://whatladder.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/we-are-all-luvz-cat-macros/

Also, I have to plug the lolbrarians. I has posted there:
http://community.livejournal.com/lolbrarians

Submitted by iasshole on Sat, 05/26/2007 - 00:01

Both links are

Both links are great...clearly a new dissertation topic is born any minute.

lolbloggers, anyone?

lauriewrites is on the interwebs, spilin her gutz.

Submitted by lauriewrites on Sat, 05/26/2007 - 10:06

heart lolcats

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on I Can Has Cheezburger the past month or so. I noticed it first on WP's site where it routinely makes the most visited list.

Five Dollar Camera

Hypnotizing Chickens

Submitted by kperfetto on Sat, 05/26/2007 - 08:37