July 10, 2012
This post is almost exactly one-year old. I represent it here today in direct response to the post my brother Allan Keyes ran yesterday. For the record: I HATE THE LOLCATS!
From July 1, 2011
If there is anything about me that you have to know it is that I hate lolcats. Hate them! I hate them with a passion that most people usually only reserve for their summer school teacher or mother-in-law. I hate looking at them, I hate talking about them, I hate people who like them.
I can barely restrain my rage long enough to type this.
Those damn things are everywhere. It is like somebody’s 50-year old unmarried aunt took over the internet. “Oh look! How cute! The cat wants a cheeseburger! Silly kitty! Kitty-cats can’t eat cheeseburgers.” She then forwards it to everyone in her address book, including her nephew who deletes her messages unopened, all her book club friends, and her pen pal in Michigan, who calls her up later that night to tell her about the wonderful kitty picture she found in her mailbox.
Why do I hate them so much? It isn’t the pictures themselves as much as it is the mindset behind them. I can’t imagine who would find them so cute/funny/loveable. It has to be the same people who keep The Family Circus in business and I hate that too. (I also hate the illiteracy. Cats are usually personified as wise and aloof. Where did the lousy grammar come from?) There is a simplicity and purity about them that drives me nuts. Their wholesomeness only serves to feed something very dark in me. It is a visceral reaction. Very, very visceral.
So of course the lolcats came up in conversation with my brother. It was no accident. He knows what they do to me so he dropped them into a conversation just to hear the bile and venom in my voice, the growl as I started ranting “I hate those &$%^# things! HATE THEM!”
It went on from there. I can be quite eloquent when screaming in near-incoherent rage.
I finally wound down, caught my breath, and ended my side of the conversation with the eminently logical “I was here first!” Since I am old enough to remember rotary phones, LP’s, and my manners, not to mention a time before the internet, I felt pretty secure in my position.
Well, I was half right. Just not the half that counts.
Despite the fact that research into what would eventually become the internet reaches back as far as- yes, this is fact- the 1950’s, the world wide web as we know it didn’t pop into existence until the 1990’s and the first lolcat puked itself online in 2006. (Yes, I actually researched the damned things.) But the story doesn’t end there. I was shocked, awed, dismayed, and just plain flabbergasted, gobsmacked, and slobberknocked to find that the unfunny felines have a history dating back to… hold on for it…the 1870’s.
Yes, the lolcats are part of a tradition that stretches back 140 years.
1905, by Harry Whittier Frees
A very stupid tradition.
Time Magazine once stated that lolcats have “a distinctly old-school, early 1990s, Usenet feel to [them].” Old-school 1990’s? Go back to school, Time Magazine. In Britain, Harry Pointer was taking pictures of his cats and adding funny captions back in the 19th Century.
Thanks, Harry. You have a lot to answer for.
Taking a picture back then was a bit of work. You couldn’t just whip out your cell phone and snap a picture. Even a still life took a good deal of setting up of equipment. On top of that, who would then take the time to get the cats to stay still, let alone dressed, long enough to those pictures? What kind of lonely weirdos were those guys?
I can only imagine my great-great-grandfather looking at that daguerreotype and ripping it up in disgust.
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
You’re really holding back, I can tell. 😉 & remember that there are Lol – ruses, Lol – bots, even Lol – zombies. ( Hand to God, pinky – swear, swear on my mother’s grave, etc. )
Progress ? ( I can haz progress ? mwahahaha….. !! )
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While I really don’t like any of them, none of them drive me nuts like the lolcats. I HATE THEM!
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Hmm. There may be a Tepid Zombie post in there someplace.
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I think I heard that before, yeah….. 😉
Lol- amoeba ? 😀
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Well that was very sustinct and clear leaving me with the indelible sense of your disgust for lolcats! I get that. For what its worth getting cute little kittens can come back to bite you. I’ve always preferred dogs but was lonely so acquired two small kittens (yes took the pictures) But 4 years later, they are huge – weighing respectively 23 and 28 lbs. And when they want attention, well they’re cats. Not sweet, not cute or cuddle-able. Of course none of the other animals in the neighborhood bother them, but still – some sort of Karma thing cuz I really wanted a dog, I guess!
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Wow, those are big cats. I one had the sweetest little cat in the world but she became very sick and was mostly immobile. We later got a puppy who almost never saw the cat since she stayed in one room. One day the cat made her way into the living room and went under the couch. The puppy, curious, went under there too and I never saw what happened but I heard it. I heard the cat hiss, then yowl, a solid thunk, and the puppy flew out from under the couch and, at top speed, raced as far away as he could get inthe apartment. I’m sure she swatted him on the snout.
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Yes, cats are very fast on the uptake.
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I remember that. McDuff (the puppy) steered VERY clear of the cat from then on.
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Ragetoons? Thomas, google at your own risk!
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Are those the cats in the window in your post today (yesterday)?
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Yep, that would be them, My guys!
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Gird thy loins for this.
Until AK’s post and your followup, I had never heard of Lolcats and didn’t know what all the fuss was about. You have a lot to answer for having brought them into my life.
So I decided to Google the term to find out exactly what Lolcats were. You know how google figures out what you are typing and gives you suggestions? One of the suggestions was “Lolcat Bible.”
I made the mistake of clicking on it. Click if you dare: http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Genesis_1
It will make you want to bite your ears off.
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I am now officially an Atheist. There is no god.
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That’s right! He’s been replaced by Ceiling Cat.
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Pay honor to Ceiling Cat !!
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You were in a state of happy, blissful innocence before entering the world of Lolcats & reading the Lolcat Bible, I guess. Weird stuff. 😉
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Yes. Life willl no longer be the same. I’ve gotten my old Natasha Kinsky poster out of the attic and everything!
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Good film BTW
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I haven’t seen ” Cat People ” in its entirety. Didn’t they do a remake not so ** awfully ** long ago ?
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Actually I think the Nastasha Kinsky/Malcom McDowell version was a remake of an older version. I didn’t see the old one but the NK version is really good. The only trouble is that for me Malcom McDowell will always be Alex so he didn’t work as well as someone else might have.
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The original Cat People and its sequel Curse of the Cat People go back to the 50s. Saw them on TMC not long ago, pretty good.
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I had no idea the Lolcats were so organized.
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It’s a cult!
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It’s a secret society that honors cats. Fashioned after the Freemasons & Skull & Bones. 😉
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Thing is, that is totally believable to me.
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Part of their practices involve worship of Bastet, the Egyptian goddess, often depicted as a cat – headed human ( look it up, Bastet was a ” real ” Egyptian goddess ). Cats were considered sacred & often mummified after death.
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I’ve always heard the wives tale (?) that cats can see ghosts.
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What about the urban legend of the cat in the nursing home / hospital that could tell when a patient was about to die ? ” House, MD ” even did an episode based on the story.
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Or that they steal a baby’s breath. I guess a lolcat would steal a baby’s laughter.
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I haven’t heard an explanation of why black cats are considered unlucky. Maybe because black is a color associated w / witches, warlocks, the occult, black magic / sorcery & demons.
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Yeah and I think black=darkness which in ancient and prehistory was the scariest thing there was.
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Why did you think that the Black Forest was regarded w / fright ?
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Classically forests were always magical or scary. But the Black Forest is where gummy bears come from!
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Lol – Gummies !!! Omnomnomnom…… 😉
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Baby’s breath? I’ve heard they steal roses and petunias.
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Lol and pic-a-nic baskets.
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They’re harbingers of the Anti – Christ !! Or heralds of Galactus. Take your pick.
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Antichrist for sure. They are EVIL
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Comon Mr. B- LOLcats are adorable! But I will admit that far as net memes go, they’re behind fails, ragetoons and whatever you call it when you take a picture and give it an ironic caption ala those old motivational posters…
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