A lolcat is an image macro of one or more cats. The image's text is often
idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect. Its use in this way is known
as "lolspeak" or "kitty pidgin". "Lolcat" is a compound word of the
acronymic abbreviation for "laugh out loud" and the word "cat". A synonym for
"lolcat" is cat macro, since the images are a type of image macro. Lolcats are
commonly designed for photo sharing imageboards and other Internet forums.
History British portrait photographer Harry
Pointer created a carte de visite series featuring cats posed in various
situations in the early 1870s. To these he usually added amusing text intended
to further enhance their appeal. Other notable early figures include Harry
Whittier Frees and Walter Potter. The first recorded use of the term
"lolcat" is from the anonymous imageboard 4chan. The word "Lolcat" was
in use as early as June 2006, and the domain name "LOLcats.com" was registered
on June 14, 2006. Their popularity was spread through usage on forums such as
Something Awful. The News Journal states that "some trace the lolcats back to the
site 4chan, which features bizarre cat pictures on Saturdays, or 'Caturdays'."
Ikenburg adds that the images have been "slinking around the Internet for years
under various labels, but they did not become a sensation until early 2007 with
the advent of I Can Has Cheezburger?" The first image on "I CAN HAZ
CHEEZBURGER?" was posted on January 11, 2007, and was allegedly from the
Something Awful website." Lev Grossman of Time wrote that the oldest known
example "probably dates to 2006," but later corrected himself in a blog post
where he recapitulated the anecdotal evidence readers had sent him, placing
the origin of "Caturday" and many of the images now known by a few as "lolcats"
in early 2005. The domain name "caturday.com" was registered on April
30, 2005. The term lolcat gained national media
attention in the United States when it was covered by Time, which wrote that
non-commercialized phenomena of the sort are increasingly rare, stating that
lolcats have "a distinctly old-school, early 1990s, Usenet feel to [them]".
Entertainment Weekly put them on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list,
saying, "Da cutest distractshun of da decaid? Y, lolcats of corse! We can
neber haz enuf of deez capshioned pics of cuddlie kittehs." "Lolcat" was also a
runner-up under the "Most Creative" category under the American Dialect
Society Word of the Year Awards, losing out to "Googlegänger".
Format Lolcat is a composite of two words,
"lol" and "cat". "Lol" stands for "Laugh out Loud" or "Laughing out Loud"; hence,
lolcats are intended to be funny and to include jokes. Lolcats images comprise a
photo of a cat with a large caption characteristically set in a sans serif
font such as Impact or Arial Black. The image is, on occasion, digitally edited
for effect. The caption generally acts as a speech
balloon encompassing a comment from the cat, or as a description of the depicted
scene. The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard
English spelling and grammar, featuring "strangely-conjugated verbs, but a
tendency to converge to a new set of rules in spelling and grammar". The text
parodies the grammar-poor patois stereotypically attributed to Internet
slang. Frequently, lolcat captions take the form of phrasal templates. Some
phrases have a known source, usually a well-known Internet meme, such as All
your base are belong to us or Do not want, while others don't. The language
of lolcats has also been likened to baby talk.
Common themes include jokes of the form "Im in ur [noun], [verb]-ing ur [related
noun]." Many lolcat images capture cats performing characteristically human
actions or appearing to use modern technology, such as computers.
There are several well-known lolcat images and single-word captions that
have spawned many variations and imitations, including "Ceiling Cat".
Others include Fail and "I Can Has Cheezburger".
Recurring characters "Ceiling Cat" is a character spawned by
the meme. The original image was an image macro with a picture of a cat
looking out of a hole in a ceiling, captioned "Ceiling Cat is watching you
masturbate." There followed numerous image macros with the format "Ceiling
Cat is watching you [verb ending in/rhyming with -ate]" with Ceiling Cat
superimposed in the upper left hand corner of an image macro depicting the
appropriate action. The underlying theme is that the cat is looking down on you,
almost in a form of judgement. The character is also featured in a project
to translate the Bible to lolspeak. "Ceiling Cat" and the corresponding
"Basement Cat" represent good and evil in the lolcat universe.
Offshoots and parodies Variations on the lolcat concept include
captioning photos of other animals in a similar style.
The syntax of lolcat captions was used as the basis for LOLCODE, an esoteric
programming language with interpreters and compilers available in .NET
Framework, Perl, etc. See also
List of Internet phenomena Laugh-Out-Loud Cats – a comic inspired
by lolspeak and other Internet humor LOLCODE – an esoteric programming
language inspired by lolspeak LOLCat Bible Translation Project – bible
translation project to lolspeak I Can Has Cheezburger? – a weblog
featuring lolcats Cats That Look Like Hitler – a type of
LOLcat specifically made to look like Adolf Hitler
Cute cat theory of digital activism – using low-brow but popular online
subjects for activism Catvertising – cats in advertising,
especially the parody of commercialization of cat viral videos by
st. john Grumpy Cat – an Internet celebrity cat
and known for her grumpy facial expression
Doge – an Internet meme featuring a shiba inu, with slang similar in format
to lolspeak O RLY? – a related meme featuring image
macros, usually of a snowy owl Oolong – a bunny trained to balance
objects on its head. Famous for balancing pancakes and waffles, it has
become a meme similar to lolcats. Padonki – a Russian Internet subculture,
with slang similar in format to lolspeak Notes
References With 'LOLcats' Internet Fad, Anyone Can
Get In on the Joke, Wall Street Journal, 25 August 2007
If you give a cat a keyboard, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 26 July 2007
Bloggers Bring in the Big Bucks, BusinessWeek, 13 July 2007
Green, Joshua. "Oh Hai! Cats, the internet, and tactical communities".
receiver magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-07-09.
Agger, Michael. "Cat power: You cannot resist lolcats". Slate Magazine.
Retrieved 2007-05-21.