$2 million before it was a year old. The lolcat craze has even spawned a pidgin language, as the the CEO of ICanHasCheezburger explained in this interview in October.
Some of these are legitimately clever:
while others go to show that any random juxtaposition of cat and text will probably end up amusing somebody:
An iPhone application released last week capitalizes on this cat infatuation in about the most effortless way possible: CatPaint lets you take any of 8 cat photos and tack them at random onto your existing photos. It's simple, it's ludicrous, it costs $0.99, and it has the entire tech world self-consciously thrilled. The application earned mention in articles and blog posts on Cnet, Wired, Gizmodo and many more usually-sophisticated sites. Lex Friedman, on Macworld.com, captures the general mood of these writeups: "CatPaint lets you e-mail your be-kittened masterpieces to your soon-to-be-ex-friends, or just save them to your camera roll in private shame."
They may not want to admit it, but even the most jaded techies are at least a little bit amused by the visual non sequitur of a cat--whether it be a leaping cat, an obese cat, or just a plain old cat sitting doing nothing--into an otherwise serious photo.
The internet can be a scary place. When we're not busy solving crimes or trying to avoid identity theft, I'm glad we can still find simple pleasure in one of mankind's most ancient pastimes--laughing at animals for not being like us. And as our world becomes more ordered, more mechanical, more copy-and-paste-able, I suspect that cats with their fat and fur and predatory instincts will only get more hilarious.
I can't think of a better way to end this post than with yet another ridiculous cat picture. So here's yet another ridiculous cat picture.
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