Lolcat

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A typical cat macro image.

Lolcats, a compound of lol and cat,[1][2] are photos of cats with humorous captions. They are a type of image macro, and are also referred to as cat macros.[3] Lolcats are created for the purpose of sharing with others on imageboards and other internet forums, especially on Saturdays ("Caturdays").[4] Lolcats are similar to other animal-based image macros such as the O RLY? owl,[5] but the cuteness of cats "enhances"[6] the appeal and increasing prominence[7][8][9] of the Internet meme. Lolcat is a good example for anthropomorphisation.

Lolcat images usually consist of a photo of a cat with a large caption characteristically formatted in a sans serif font such as Impact or Arial Black.[10] The image is, on occasion, digitally edited for effect. The caption generally acts as a speech balloon encompassing a comment from the cat, or as a description of the depicted scene. The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax,[10] featuring "strangely-conjugated verbs, but [a tendency] to converge to a new set of rules in spelling and grammar."[11] These altered rules of English have been referred to as a type of pidgin[10] or baby talk.[12] The text parodies the grammar-poor patois stereotypically attributed to internet slang.

Frequently, lolcat captions take the form of snowclones in which nouns and verbs are replaced in a phrase.[12] Some phrases have a known source[13] while others seem to be specific to the lolcat form. These conventions are being built into a toy programming language called "LOLCODE".[2] Other common themes include holding invisible objects or jokes of the form "Im in ur noun, verb-ing ur noun."[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Robin Amer (2007-04-14). "I Can Has Talking Animals?". Open Source. Retrieved 2007-04-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ a b Dwight Silverman (2007-06-06). "I'M IN UR NEWSPAPER WRITIN MAH COLUM". Chron.com. Retrieved 2007-06-06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Randy A. Salas (2007-06-09). "Laugh at cat humor". Akron Beacon Journal, Star Tribune. Retrieved 2007-06-17. At first, they were called cat macros, but now go mostly by the name lolcats... {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "im in mai blog, postin' bout cats: The Cuteness of Grammatical errors". Linguistic Mystic. 2007-02-07. Retrieved 2007-04-29. A tradition called Caturday arose. On Saturdays, people would find pictures of cats with interesting expressions, then caption them in humorous ways. These have been posted in various places on the internet, and it's not uncommon for them to show up in random discussions on all sorts of sites... I've noted pretty significant deviations from conventional English Grammar. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Agger, Michael (2007-05-21). "Cat power: You cannot resist lolcats". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2007-05-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ a b Jay Cridlin (2007-06-01). "This be funny storyz". Tampa Bay Times.
  7. ^ Curt Holman (2007-05-25). "Lolcats are breeding like rabbits!". Creative Loafing Atlanta. Retrieved 2007-06-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ Randy A. Salas (2007-05-28). "Lolcats have the Internet laughing". Austin American-Statesman, Star Tribune. Retrieved 2007-06-17. It's no secret that cats are popular online. And one of the most popular kitty subcultures... {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ "Hillary Clinton Turns to YouTube Trolls for Campaign Song". AppScout, New York Times. 2007-06-04. Retrieved 2007-06-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ a b c Anil Dash (2007-04-23). "Anil Dash: Cats Can Has Grammar". Retrieved 2007-05-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ Annalee Newitz (2007-04-27). "I'M IN YR X Y-ING YOUR Z -- A Grammar of Lolcats". Table of Malcontents, a Wired blog. Retrieved 2007-04-29. These images... usually include a cute cat saying something related to buckets, cheeseburgers, or whatever else with strangely-conjugated verbs. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  12. ^ a b Mark Liberman (2007-04-25). "Language Log: Kitty Pidgin and asymmetrical tail-wags". Retrieved 2007-04-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Scott Gilbertson (2007-06-04). "Jokes For Nerds: Schrödinger's LOLcat". Compiler, a Wired blog. Retrieved 2007-06-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  1. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference beacon was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference statesman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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