Tuesday, September 18, 2007

PhiLOLsophers

You're familiar with lolcats, right? A lolcat is an image of a cat with an LOL (laugh-out-loud) caption. Slate's Michael Agger explains where they originated:

The lolcat phenomenon grew out of "image macros" that are used on message boards. Not long ago, message boards were quaint text-only conversations. Now, the threads on free-for-all sites overflow with images with embedded remarks such as "Moar!" (I like your comments, let's hear more), or "Owned!" (the person who replied to your comment has devastated you with his or her wit), or, my favorite, a white owl that asks "O RLY?" (your comment was so obvious).

Here's a lolcat:

Still don't get it? Wikipedia has an oddly pedantic definition of lolcats:

These images usually consist of a photo of a cat with a large caption characteristically formatted in a sans serif font such as Impact or Arial Black. The image is, on occasion, digitally edited for effect. The caption generally acts as a speech balloon encompassing a comment from the cat, or as a description of the depicted scene. The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax, featuring "strangely-conjugated verbs, but [a tendency] to converge to a new set of rules in spelling and grammar." These altered rules of English have been referred to as a type of pidgin or baby talk. The text parodies the grammar-poor patois stereotypically attributed to internet slang.

Anyway, the blog Super Punch now directs our attention to a new phenomenon: PhiLOLsophers. Check out this Flickr photo pool, for multiple examples. Here are a couple of funny ones:

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 12:29 PM

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