Jump to content

Lolcat

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rickyray (talk | contribs) at 03:11, 14 June 2007 (→External links). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

A typical cat image macro.

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 thus also referred to as cat macros. Lolcats are created for the purpose of sharing them with others on imageboards and other internet forums, especially on Saturdays ("Caturdays").[3]

Lolcat images usually consist of a photo of a cat with a caption characteristically formatted in a sans serif font such as Impact or Arial Black.[4] The image is, on occasion, photoshopped for effect. The caption generally acts as a speech balloon encompassing a comment from the cat, or is a simple description of the depicted scene. The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax[4] featuring "strangely-conjugated verbs, but [a tendency] to converge to a new set of rules in spelling and grammar."[5] These altered rules of English have been referred to as a type of pidgin[4] or baby talk.[6] The text is frequently in the form of a snowclone parodying the grammar-poor patois stereotypically attributed to internet slang.

Lolcats are similar to other animal-based image macros, such as the O RLY? owl and captioned pictures of walruses (lolruses [7]), elephant seals, dogs, hamsters, birds, and rabbits.[8] The format is popular enough to have spread to subjects as diverse as United States Presidents and tapirs.

Recurring structures

Frequently, lolcat captions take the form of snowclones where nouns and verbs are replaced in a phrase. Some phrases have a known source while others seem to be specific to the lolcat form. These conventions are being built into a toy programming language called "LOLcode".[2]

Some common reoccuring phrases are:

  • "im in yur X Yin' ur Z", a snowclone of "I'm in ur base killin' ur doodz".
  • "I can has X?"
  • "oh hai, I has X'ed ur Y"
  • "do not want", from an Engrish mistranslation of Darth Vader's shout of "nooooo!" from Star Wars: Episode III.
  • "I has [a,an,teh] X"
  • "invisible X"
  • "I are X"
  • "X has a flavor"
  • "I made you [a,an] X, but I [ate,eated] it"
  • "I see what you did there"
  • "It's a trap" (or rhyming variations thereof, such as "It's a strap")
  • "X is [interested, not interested]"
  • "X Y is X", eg "curious cat is curious"
  • "fail"
  • "[X.] you're doing it wrong"
  • "[Let me show you my X.] My X. Let me show you [them, it]." (in a style similar to the motivational posters in some offices)

See also

References

  1. ^ "I Can Has Talking Animals?". Open Source (radio show). Retrieved 2007-04-29.
  2. ^ a b Silverman, Dwight (2007-6-6). "I'M IN UR NEWSPAPER WRITIN MAH COLUM". Chron.com. Retrieved 2007-06-06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ "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)
  4. ^ 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)
  5. ^ 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)
  6. ^ 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)
  7. ^ "I has a bucket / Noooo they be stealin' my bucket". 2007-06-05. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  8. ^ Agger, Michael (2007-05-21). "Cat power: You cannot resist lolcats". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2007-05-21. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lolcat&oldid=138053650"