Just for Fun

You've been around the Internet for a while - so you've do doubt met Fluffy, Destroyer of Worlds. No? Well, here he is:

I don't know how long it's been going on, but there is a form of humor popular on the 'net: captioning funny animal pictures. I know, I know, we've all gotten the Cute Critter Spams, but trust me, these photos are far more amusing. Fluffy was the first one I saw, but when I discovered lolcats, I realized that this is actually an artform.

What are lolcats? Well, let the folks at icanhascheezburger explain it:

"The practice of captioning, specifically, cats started many years ago on anonymous forums, most prominently called the *chans. Supposedly, the practice of posting and the actual type of these images was termed “Caturday”.

Caturday

* A day when people all around the internet create, submit, send, email and send pictures of lolcat’s around the world.
* Throughout this all the tone of Caturday remains the same: POST SOME ******* CAT PICTURES.

This word has since detached from its original context, grown, and evolved into different terms like lolcats, lolrus, loldog and splintered into varying sub-memes and sub-sub-memes which employ different grammatical patterns, different contexts, and sometimes even merges memes. It has since spread through many forums, and online communities such as somethingawful, ebaumsworld.

The meme continues to evolve into many completely tangential and unrelated memes: lolbrarians, lolbees, lolpresidents (my favorite being LOLcode). A new LOL- spinoff is created every week. This is happening throughout the internet by people who are having fun, and being creative, by taking a meme (idea) and applying it in new and creative ways."

Lolcats generally speak in a specific way, along the lines of "I can haz cheezburger?"


Reportedly, this fat fellow was the one who started it all. And while he's adorable, he's far from the most amusing.

To find out more, check out the Icanhascheezberger site, or Macrocats. Or try making a lolcat of your own.

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