LOL Cats Ask: "I Can Has Blawgher?"

You've seen them. I know you have. They're inquisitive cats with their own special language, and they live here.

The Lolcats craze began with this image, posted in January on the I Can Has Cheezburger Website.

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The meme's popularity hasn't waned yet. Many of your favorite bloggers and mine have posted lolcat photos or links. Djkatscan, aka Kat Sederquist, has a flickrstream with hundreds of lolcat-style shots.

There is also a lolcats group on Flickr, and an "official, invite-only", Flickr Can Has Cheezburger group that was pending as of May 21st.

Slate.com posted an article called "Cat Power: You Cannot Resist LOLCats" and a slideshow this week with lots of pictures and insight into this kitty-loving meme that will not die. Six Apart blog guru Anil Dash wrote a great description of the phenomenon here, describing the concept of image macro (known in plain English as putting funny captions on pictures), combined with the construct based on the old phrase "I'm in UR X Ying your Z," and a further description of lolcat-speak as a pidgin language.

He wrote a follow-up post with links to some resources he found in response to the original article.

And of course, as in the case of any popular idea, there are imitators. There are LOL bees on livejournal.com, and Fark.com has a growing "lolpresidents" thread. There are only twelve photos tagged "loldogs" on Flickr so far, though.

Do you have a favorite? Have you posted one of these photos or made up a caption? Let us know.

Laurie White is a dog person, who gets a major kick out of lolcats all the same.