OK, I’m obviously so over-committed that I’m now officially Out Of Touch. I didn’t know what a “lolcat” was until I stumbled across this article.
At the risk of completely ruining my credibility as someone who’s supposed to Know Stuff About Teh Intertubes by summarising something that’s already been reported in the mainstream media — which means the Sydney Morning Herald‘s “Stay In Touch” column will run it next week — here’s the skinny…
Eric Nakagawa was “between jobs” in January when he found the picture at right. On a whim he and a mate created a website around it, I Can Has Cheezburger. Six month later, they’re getting 500 new submissions and 200,000 unique visitors every day.
Mr Nakagawa doesn’t need that day job any more.
Read the Wall Street Journal article explaining the history of the lolcat, and Anil Dash’s fantastic essay on the linguistic aspects, Cats Can Has Grammar.
Now you need to write a crikey.com.au article. LOL
@Nick: I know, pretty sad eh? I mean, even Murdoch’s media ran a reader competition for lolcats and you’ve created the lolcode programming language.
Still, the Wikipedia entry on lolcats is worth a read.
KTHXBYE.
Can it be lulz time nao plz?
A shocking, shocking amount of my HDD is dedicated to such lol inducing images, like I say…the simpler the thing, the more lols I get
KKTHXBYE ^_^*
@Rhys: I think I’ve been too serious with use of teh intertubes lately. Vast slabs of “fun stuff” are passing me by.
That said, vast sections of my HDD are devoted to
the most filthy, filthy pornographythought-provoking arthouse movies. Lolz.Pfft. You call that history? You think you can explain away lolcats by starting with an image that just mysteriously appeared?
Try looking up “caturday” on ED or even lolcat on somewhere slightly more reputable.
They’re old though: just yesterday, I posted a LolCat For Jesus that I found on my grandma’s living room wall
Lolcats aren’t where it’s at any more though. lolgeeks ftw!
@Zhasper: Hey I’m quoting the Wall Street Journal as an explanation of where I finally caught up with this “phenomenon”. And I did link to Wikepedia in the comments to give some more of the back story.
The angle which interests me, though, isn’t that people are making amusing pictures — which as you point out they’ve been doing for ages — but that someone can turn it into a successful business in 6 months.
pfft. you’re always interested in weird things, but really, this takes the cake. who would be thinking about business plans when you can think about INVISIBLE BICYCLES lol!
@Zhasper: You are, of course, correct.