Stupid laughs: Meet LOL Cats

Ever seen something that was insanely stupid, but you laughed anyway? This best describes a bizarre wave of image macros sweeping the Internet: LOL Cats.

First, what's an image macro?
Find a picture, preferably an amusing photo of an animal doing something sickeningly cute or wildly weird, and slap a phrase into it with a photo editor. This sort of thing doesn't require a degree in graphic arts, it's slap-dash photo shopping to say the least, but there is definitely a degree of creativity and nefariousness involved when it comes to the creators mind. Oh, and by the way, the phrases smacked across the images are generally best received if done in a fractured grammar. Why? Because we all know that animals can't spell very good. Just look at those Chick-fil-A cows.



Here's an example of LOL Cats that can be found at I Can Has Cheezburger.com




This isn't just cool for cats, or dogs, or seals, ferrets, owls or hedgehogs. LOL Whatever has hit the Internet in all sorts of odd places; genre fandoms, gaming communities and so on. This image macroing can be best traced back to forums, where they were used as a means of expression back and forth in conversation.

Fark.com has LOL Presidents
Live Journal is rife with LOL everything: Harry Potter, The 300, Anime, Doctor Who, Lost... you name it. Here's a brief list:

LOL Bees
IhasaTARDIS
IhasaMusical (Looks like it just started up and is a bit anemic)
IhasaStargate

For those wanting to try their hand at making cat macros, but who just didn't have the software or talent, there is the LOL!Cat Builder... But, as of posting this entry, the site appears to have had it's bandwidth blown. It's no surprise with the popularity of this techno-folk art movement.

Like most things it will run out of steam in the mainstream and revert back to it's appreciated roots within the forums, where SFTU and WTF were born.

Want to make your own LOL Cat, fractured Motivational poster or a movie poster of your Aunt Bernice in her underwear? Try out Fd's Flickr Toys

There's far more of this sort of wacky crap out there on the Net than what's been listed here, but sooner or later you'll come across it yourself. The Internet is a wondrous vast wasteland to lose yourself in, take some floppy disks on your journey to drop along the path so you can find your way back to RL.

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