The Internet is Serious Business: LOLcats

May 10, 2011

As a librarian, I am a dedicated researcher of the very serious business of the Internet. I have set forth to find the most influential picture on the entire World Wide Web, and I have concluded that it is one of a cat posing the following question:  "I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?"  From this humble beginning, the LOLcat meme set forth to conquer the Internet and the world at large. LOLcats are so popular that they now have their own day of the week, Caturday.

What is a LOLcat? Put simply, it is a picture of a cat (or cats) with a humorous caption, typically in a dialect called LOLspeak. LOLspeak is a hybrid language of texting abbreviations and acronyms, the mangled grammar of poorly translated instruction manuals, intentional misspelling, and geek in-jokes. For instance, let’s translate the following phrase from English to LOLspeak:

English: “Hello. My name is Fluffy and I am an adorable cat. Would you feed me, please? Thank you.”

LOLspeak: “O Hai! Mai naem R Flufi and I R kyewt kitteh. I can haz fud plz? KTHXBAI.”

I have conducted exhaustive and painstaking research into the LOLcat phenomenon, and I have discovered the following recurring themes:

• Cats are evil geniuses.
• Kittens are very cute evil geniuses.
• Some cats are long, some are happy, and others are serious.
• Cats have nothing but contempt for dogs.
• Cats demand service from their human subjects.
• Cats want food, especially cheeseburgers.
• There is an apocalyptic war (Catnarok) between Longcat, servant of Ceiling Cat, and Tacgnol, servant of Basement Cat.

Serious business indeed.

KTHXBAI,

Jeff D.
Grandview Branch

Picture credit:  Flickr user Quinn Dombrowski.