LOLcats

A LOLcat, from ICanHasCheezburger

OMG I R IN UR NEWSWEEK PUTTING TEH CAPSHUNS ON UR CAT FOTOS. This headline is an example of LOLspeak--an Internet-based language most often used on photos of cats. Translated, it means, “Wow, I’m writing about LOLcats in NEWSWEEK.” LOLwhat, you ask? It started with early Web geeks, who decided to share cat photos with misspelled captions. (LOL, for the non-web savvy, means “Laugh Out Loud.”) If you’ve made it through this paragraph without confusion, you’re probably one of the millions who visit my Web site, the largest LOLcat community in the world, every month. Even by the lofty standards of the Internet’s weird and wacky, LOLcats stand out as a particular oddity. Born from the “not safe for work” bowels of the Web, the pastime of captioning cat photos exploded into the collective culture of Web junkies in 2007, for no apparent reason. Almost overnight, millions were engaged: posting, captioning, e-mailing family, friends--and even Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. Why did the LOLcat phenom happen? Genetics actually play a key role. Over thousands of years, humans have perfected the weapon of cuteness in the form of kittens. This genetically engineered commando of cute collided fang first into an enormous demographic shift in America: couples having fewer babies, and more pets. And cats aren’t the only beneficiary; LOLdogs thrive on their own at ihasahotdog.com. The Internet, it seems, was just collateral damage. Unable to resist the cuteness and fun of juxtaposing human troubles with kittens and puppies, it just about buckled under the weight of LOLcats and LOLdogs and cried, “Halp!”