Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

I’M IN UR NEWSPAPER WRITIN MAH COLUM
Houston Chronicle ^ | 6/6/07 | DWIGHT SILVERMAN

Posted on 06/21/2007 10:23:05 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows

Computer geeks have their own niche in pop culture. Sometimes, something crazed from that niche escapes and runs rampant among the masses.

It's happened before, with the "I Kiss You" guy, Mahir Cagri (www.ikissyou.org); the "All Your Base" fad (www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com); and, more recently, the Diet Coke-and-Mentos experiments (www.eepybird.com).

Now working its way into the popular consciousness is something far more bizarre and — depending on your point of view and sense of humor — either very funny or irritatingly cutesy.

For the last few months, online regulars have been seeing on various Web sites and blogs pictures of cats and other animals in strange poses, with large type captions embedded in the photos. The grammar and syntax in the captions are atrocious by design. The pictures are called LOLcats, named after the abbreviation for "laughing out loud" used by fans of text and instant messaging.

The origin of LOLcats is murky at best. From what I can tell based on various blog posts — the most authoritative at LinguisticMystic.com, written by a Colorado linguistics student — they may have evolved from a practice called Caturday, in which cat lovers posted photos of their felines with funny captions on Saturdays.

The cat-photo fad then merged with some other geek jokes. The mangled spelling associated with texting and gaming known as leetspeak — teh for the, ur for your, hai for hi, 1337 for "leet" or elite, and so on — became part of the gag.

A line used in online strategy games such as Starcraft became a common meme. While one player is off building and acquiring supplies and weapons for a battle, his opponent sneaks into his headquarters and starts killing his virtual minions. The perpetrator gleefully declares, "I'm in ur base, killin ur d00dz."

Now there are dozens of pictures of cats on the Web with captions that take the form, "Im in ur X, Y-ing ur Z." So, a picture of a cat lying on its back in front of a window has the caption, "I'm in ur windoze, flashing ur nayberz." A menacing-looking group of cats approaching the camera has a caption that reads, "In ur yardz, starten a gang."

The best collection of LOLcats can be found at a site called I Can Has Cheezburger? (www.icanhascheezburger.com). The title comes from one of the earliest, most popular LOLcat pictures, which features a dark-gray cat that seems to grin expectantly. You can see the original by going to the site and clicking on the "First Post — #1" link on the right.

Time to kill The site has hundreds of images, almost all submitted by site visitors. Some are funnier than others, as you'd expect. But don't visit it unless you have plenty of time to kill. It's a serious threat to your productivity.

It's run by two 20-something tech-industry workers who don't want their names or even their locations used. Instead, they go by handles found on the site — he's Cheezburger, she's Tofuburger.

"This could all go away tomorrow, and we both want to do other things in the future," he said. In other words, they don't want to be known just for a Web site that aggregates funny pictures of cats.

The site has exploded in popularity since they posted that first image in January. Originally, Cheezburger told me, it was to be "one of these sites that just has one picture on it." But Tofuburger convinced him to turn it into a blog.

Now, the site gets between 350,000 and 500,000 page views a day. Site visitors submit 300-500 LOLcat images a day, the vast majority of which aren't worth posting.

"For every 25 we get, maybe one is postable," Cheezburger said.

The flow has become unmanageable for the two of them, so they're planning on turning it into a site similar to Digg, in which submitted images are voted on, and the best move to the front page.

Not the only one The popularity of the site has spawned others. There's LolCatBuildr at http://kscakes.com/LolCats/Default.aspx, (when last checked, site was down) which lets you upload and caption your own photos.

If you do, however, make sure you follow the informal grammatical rules. Yes, even though LOLcats' language is decidedly fractured, conventions have evolved into what legendary blogger Anil Dash has called "kitty pidgin."

Then there's LOLCODE, at www.lolcode.com, which is an attempt by software developer Adam Lindsay to create a programming language built around kitty pidgin. He's even got a few programs already on the page, including this one, which anyone who has taken a beginning course in computer science will recognize:

HAI

CAN HAS STDIO?

VISIBLE 'HAI WORLD!''

KTHXBYE

What makes the LOLcats phenomenon so intriguing is how fast it has evolved, and how it has grown into its own subculture, complete with conventions and subgenres. It won't be long before it's so ubiquitous that even your gramma will get the joke.

Its in ur culture, makin u LOL!!!1!

dwight.silverman@chron.com / http://blogs.chron.com/techblog


TOPICS: Humor; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: cats; fads; kitty
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-48 next last
What, no mention of The Lolrus??
1 posted on 06/21/2007 10:23:07 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows; Glenn; republicangel; Bahbah; Beaker; BADROTOFINGER; etabeta; asgardshill; ...
I CAN HAS PING PLZ? KTHXBYE!


2 posted on 06/21/2007 10:26:58 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows (Gaza: Your one-stop schadenfreude entertainment center.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows

3 posted on 06/21/2007 10:28:17 PM PDT by JRios1968 (Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will. - Ben Stein)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: al baby; Allegra; Auntbee; BJClinton; Dashing Dasher; dfwddr; exile; feinswinesuksass; ...

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket TaЯd ping!

Weres mah buckit?


4 posted on 06/21/2007 10:30:20 PM PDT by JRios1968 (Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will. - Ben Stein)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: JRios1968

5 posted on 06/21/2007 10:32:51 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows (Gaza: Your one-stop schadenfreude entertainment center.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows

6 posted on 06/21/2007 11:34:23 PM PDT by Allegra (Socks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows

7 posted on 06/21/2007 11:53:43 PM PDT by Allegra (Socks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Allegra

8 posted on 06/22/2007 12:01:04 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows (Gaza: Your one-stop schadenfreude entertainment center.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows
LOL!

Im stealing that, PLZ. K'THX!

9 posted on 06/22/2007 12:46:42 AM PDT by Allegra (Socks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows; All
It's actually very old...

"The more things change, the more they stay the same..."

[The true origin of] the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats

Not many people know this, but my great grandfather Aloysius "Gorilla" Koford, was also a cartoonist (see the video evidence here). From 1912-1913 he produced a comic strip which was featured in 17 newspapers, including the Philadephia Star-Democrat, the Tampa Telegraph, and the Santa Fe Good-Newser.


Minor point of interest?

The current gamer's craze of "pw3nd" ( an acronym for "owned" ) may have older origins in "pawned...


10 posted on 06/22/2007 2:24:23 AM PDT by backhoe (Fred Thompson- because No Other will Do...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows

11 posted on 06/22/2007 2:29:50 AM PDT by Daffynition (Label Warning: Formerly known as "rainbow sprinkles")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: JRios1968

12 posted on 06/22/2007 2:31:26 AM PDT by Daffynition (Label Warning: Formerly known as "rainbow sprinkles")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: backhoe

13 posted on 06/22/2007 2:41:48 AM PDT by Daffynition (Label Warning: Formerly known as "rainbow sprinkles")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: JRios1968

14 posted on 06/22/2007 2:43:58 AM PDT by BJClinton (Jimmy Carter: the Renaissance Man of incompetence)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows

Funny way to start Friday. Thanks.


15 posted on 06/22/2007 3:38:19 AM PDT by Biggirl (A biggirl with a big heart for God's animal creation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows

16 posted on 06/22/2007 4:01:14 AM PDT by Chasaway (Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Daffynition

17 posted on 06/22/2007 4:04:03 AM PDT by Chasaway (Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Foxfire4

O HAI

}:-)4


18 posted on 06/22/2007 4:26:54 AM PDT by Moose4 (Effing the ineffable since 1966.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Slings and Arrows

UR PHUNNY!


19 posted on 06/22/2007 5:12:12 AM PDT by Monkey Face (Never slap a man who’s chewing tobacco. ~~ Will Rogers)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Allegra

That one rules!


20 posted on 06/22/2007 5:35:08 AM PDT by Xenalyte (Lord, I apologize . . . and be with the starving pygmies in New Guinea amen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-48 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson