e*star LA

Since being with Roycifer, I’ve become somewhat of a cat fanatic.  I’ve formed special bonds with both his cats.  Thor, who’s the ”friends with everybody” cat, loves it when that special spot on his butt is scratched.  Pantera, despite being the ”friends with no one” and the alpha cat, has also taken a liking to me–and knowing she is a difficult, finicky “senior cat,” I’m quite honored.  His roommate also has a cat, which makes a total of three cats, and thus has made his condo a perpetual cat society.  Add some catnip into the mix and it’s pretty awesome, really, if you love cats.  And I do.  :) 

Since we started dating, it was always he who sent me cute cat pics from Cute Overload.  Yes, they were always cats and no other animals.  Cat lovers, indeed.  Mind you, I keep my perusing the site to these particular links he sends me because I do have a certain quota on daily cuteness I’m exposed to every day. 

Y’see, I’m an animal lover, but the cuteness and that sympathy evoked by vulnerability that makes you go “aww” somewhat equates to a sort of helplessness that I can’t stomach.  I just want to protect these little animals, yet I know I can’t, so I have a need to bring myself back to a certain reality.  The cuteness is just too much.

And then came a day when Roycifer started sending me links to .jpgs with animals in them, but instead they had a bold-faced caption to them and instead of all-out cuteness, these animals were friggin’ … funny.  Yes, really funny.  And grammatically suicidal.  Add to that, horrible spelling.  Talk about anthropomorphism at its best.

The picture that started it all

There’s just something about talking animals, about giving animals a voice and having a load of fun aligning sayings with the expressions we catch them with.  If you think about it, a large majority of animals in American animation history has a foreign accent.  Of course, it’s a way to hold animals at arm’s length to us, real live humans with more intelligence, yet only some of whom speak perfect, Anglo-American English.  (Remember the controversy over the voice actors for the villainous hyenas in The Lion King being black?  That social commentary will be saved for another day, though.)

The Lolcats, though, are more than that.  They use our internet jargon, our internet acronyms and even our internet inside jokes.  After all, only an audience who spends more time on the internet than is required to read, say, only Yahoo! headlines during the day would find them funny.  Common formats of the block-lettered captions doubling as speech bubbles include “I has ___” and “Im in ur ___, ___-ing your ___” (explanation).

So I guess it’s not ironic that I Can Has Cheezburger is the Number 1 Wordpress blog at the moment.  One thing’s for certain:  I’m certainly one of the drones, spending time there on an almost-daily basis.  It’s just too funny to pass up.

Leave me alone; I just happen to like my humor with a side of cat.

Love,
*e

Lolcat sights 4 ur lols:
Lolcats Volume 1
Lolcats Volume 2
I Can Has Cheezburger