What Are Lolcats?

Funny, Grammatically Challenged Cat Photos Conquer the Web

Aug 14, 2009 Victoria Anisman-Reiner

Lolcats are everywhere! The funny cat photos with poorly spelled captions have become a major internet culture phenomenon with incredible popularity.

It's all but impossible to avoid the "lolcat" craze that has swept the internet since 2007. Lolcats are funny pictures of cats with short captions, usually written with poor spelling and grammar. On any given day, thousands if not millions of web readers seek out lol cats for their sheer entertainment value. Where did this phenomenon come from, and what makes a lolcat?

What is a Lolcat?

Lolcats are funny pictures of cats and kittens that feature captions written in a type of broken English commonly known as "lolspeak." They range from cute to silly to downright ridiculous.

One of the original lolcats – and the one that pops up everywhere – was photo of a chubby grey cat with a caption asking, "I can has cheezburger?" The cheezburger cat, commonly known as "Happy Cat," hit the web in 2005 and inspired dozens of cat owners and enthusiasts to jump on the bandwagon. The lolcat was born – a combination of the abbreviation lol or "laughing out loud" and cat. And with sites like icanhascheezburger.com, founded in 2007, the lolcat phenomenon began to spread.

Also known as lolcatz, lol cats, or LOLcats, these humorous felines and their grammatically challenged captions have become a part of internet culture that is almost impossible to avoid.

Lolcats in History

The first lol cats, according to Flavorwire.com, may have appeared in the work of American photographer Harry Whittier Frees, who sold pictures of cats and kittens dressed in tiny clothes made by his wife. Postcards and children's books sporting his photographs are valuable collector's items today. One of his postcards has begun circulating on the web – a photograph of a kitten wearing a dress and seated in a high chair, with the caption, "What's delaying my dinner?"

Apparently, people have always found it funny to see cats dressed in human clothes, or sporting captions that sound more human than feline. Other historical photographs include pictures of bears, dogs, and other animals dressed in children's clothing or in human-like poses.

What Makes a Lolcat?

Although there's plenty of variety in the lolcats found on the internet today, the checklist for the average lolcat includes:

• A cute cat photo (strange-looking cats also apply)
• A desperate, irritable, angry, or downright offensive comment
• Bad grammar ("kitty pidgen") and "lolspeak" spelling, derived from common internet short forms and gamer syntax
• The caption is added on top of the image in black or white block letters, without a speech or thought bubble

Some of the most common themes trace back to the "I can has cheezburger?" cat, and revolve around cats asking "I can has…?" or, variously, anything to do with cheezburgers. There are also plenty of lolcats making statements like, "I'm in ur tv, scrambling ur cablez" (I'm in your tv, scrambling your cables).

Piggybacking on the cats' success come dozens of websites promoting funny photos and videos of cats, dogs, mice, and other animals with the same kinds creative captions that lolcats are famous for. With their astonishing popularity, lolcats and similar joke images are a web phenomenon that's here to stay.

Reference

• Stanley, Caroline, "LOLCats: A Brief History," Flavorwire.com, 10 August 2009.
• Tossell, Ivor, "Are these cats talking, or are we just 'lol' at ourselves?" TheGlobeAndMail.com, 31 March 2009.

The copyright of the article What Are Lolcats? in Internet is owned by Victoria Anisman-Reiner. Permission to republish What Are Lolcats? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Lolcatz

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