On the Joys of LOLCats

I'm starting out under an assumption here, which is a baaaad thing to do (as I've discovered this past week....urgh. We'll get there.) and so before I start holding forth, I'll ask this question:

Is everyone here familiar with the concept of LOLCats/cat macros?

If you are, you can skip down to the asterisk. If not, this bit below will explain somewhat. Links will open in a new window, so you won't get lost.
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What is a LOLCat? LOLCats (also known as cat macros) are images of cats (and walruses, and dogs, and other critters) to which a human has added captions indicating what the critter in the picture might say or think under the depicted circumstances. These thoughts or statements are often expressed in an amalgam of English and baby-talk, which has been designated as LOLKitteh. LOLKitteh As A Second Language is not a difficult study, but it does actually have a grammar (although the grammar is often violated for comic effect...same as English.)

My personal favorite LOLCat site is I Can Has Cheezburger?, or ICHC. Other sites devoted to cat macros are Meme Cats, Error: Access Denied, and Cute Overload (although CO is more straightforward pictures, like Stuff On My Cat or Daily Kitten. Daily Kitten also has a really great community of commentors; though the hundreds of comments are often a lot to wade through, it's often worth it--you'll find news items and recipes scattered throughout the "awwww, what a cute kitty!" posts.)

* (This is where to start if you already know about Teh Lolkittehz.)

I've been noticing a lot more traffic coming from I Can Has Cheezburger?, which...to all my lolfrenz, welcome to mine 'umble abode. (Should I hang out a sign that says "LOLKitteh Spoken Here", I wonder? Because...I mean, it IS, but not often. All the same, if your ICHC-dwelling has completely undermined your ability to speak Non-Kittehfied English, you're still welcome to comment here.) So again, to my lolfrenz: Welcome, and feel free to jump right in. Pisser was the one who put me up on ICHC, and I know Elfi and CBSB and Melissa have been here and commented, and I can't speak for how many others have passed through, but anyhow, it's good to have you. (If you're reading and NOT commenting...well, that's no fun, now is it??? Say sumthin', willya?) I generally make it a point to link to commentors' blogs/websites/given URLs, but to be honest, I haven't updated my blogroll in approximately forever, and so there are lots of commentors whose blogs aren't represented, and lots of defunct blogs in that list. I should clean that up, shouldn't I?... Maybe later, yeah.)

I'm not sure, exactly, what the appeal is of LOLcats. I know I personally like them because a) I love cats; b) I myself have some pretty entertaining cats; c) I'm a sucker for cute; d) I have a skewed sense of humor; and e) Did I mention I love cats?? But obviously, there's something more to this phenomenon--it's apparently a huge deal, though I didn't realize that until I saw...

...this. That link will take you to an .mp3 file of a song called "Cat Macros", by a gentleman by the name of Tom Smith. The lyrics are here, at ICHC: Cat Macros - by Tom Smith. If you find LOLcats amusing at all, this song will probably cause you to choke on your beverage of choice. Since childhood, I've had a soft spot for funny songs; I remember being eleven years old, staying up WAY past my bedtime on a Sunday night to listen to Dr. Demento. (I was one of those kids, yeah. I can still sing along with "Fish Heads" or "They're Coming To Take Me Away"--by heart!) I think LOLcats are like Dr. Demento songs for the Internet...but wait--that would make "Cat Macros" (the song) a song about (figurative) songs.....

I seem to have gotten lost in my own metaphor. But what do you want from me, anyway? it's not even 7 AM yet...I got up to give Tim a ride to work this morning, since he needed to be there at 6 AM and he was kind enough to come upstairs last night, at my request, at 3 in the morning, and without complaint, to kill a gigantic millipede on my bedroom wall. I mean....Here's a depiction of the millipede, approximately actual size:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()<
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Except it was MOVING, which made it much worse--all those little X's were rippling and pulsing and CREEPING MR RIGHT THE HELL OUT. So I thought about it for a minute, and then I got on the intercom phone and buzzed Tim, who promptly showed up with a handful of paper towels and a long-suffering expression.

(Why he would be willing to do this in the first place....well, that's a story for another blog post. I'll say only this for now: people are MUCH more complicated than cats, LOL or otherwise.)

Have a happy Catureday, all of you; more later, but in the meantime, I'm going back to sleep!