I'm a 36 year old librarian who loves to run, read, do yoga and hang out with my friends and family. I ran the 2008 & 2009 Boston Marathon for Team Eye & Ear to support the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Go Team Eye & Ear!







Thursday, May 22, 2008

Why does the cat want a cheezburger?

Usually if someone has to explain the joke, the humor ends up being lost in the explanation; however, I am willing to risk that for the sake of clarification. I cannot understand what's funny, or even slightly humorous, about the "LOL Cats" phenomenon. What am I missing?

7 comments:

Suldog said...

Hmmmm. It IS tough to explain. However, I find much of the content humorous, so I'll try.

It's the confluence of cats as some sort of subhuman (occasionally, superhuman) beings, with a curious misspelled dialectic captioning (in most cases, supposedly typed out by the cats, or whatever other animal is pictured in the posting.)

Bad English & Cute Animals = Not Everybody's Cup Of Tea

There are also many in-jokes that have evolved over time, possibly indecipherable to the non-initiated. A walrus is supposed to have lost his "bukkit" and is constantly looking to find it. There is a ceiling cat and a basement cat (representations of God & Satan, white and black respectively.)

You're probably right in your first assumption, of course. If it has to be explained...

Got 2 Trot Librarian said...

Thanks, Suldog! I guess it makes a little bit more sense now that I know the cats typed the slogans. I'm actually laughing now, but not because I get the joke- but because I still can't believe I can't wrap my head around the concept. :)

Anonymous said...

If you do wind up finding it funny (and it took me a while before "OK, this is funny" overwhelmed "this is stupid" in my head), make sure you check out the LOLCat Bible. Many answers are there.

Anonymous said...

My esteemed colleague Suldog provides a concise, erudite explanation, but I'm afraid I must disagree with him on the origins of ceiling cat. Since this seems to be a family blog, I'll leave it at that :-).

Got 2 Trot Librarian said...

Perhaps you should keep Suldog in the dark too, as to perserve what little innocence he has left ;-)

the.effing.librarian said...

but that doesn't explain why a cat would want a cheeseburger. is it because the word looks funnier than "toonafish"?

Nick P. said...

This cat thing might possibly be one of the most bizarre internet phenomena yet.