Culture Rant: Lolcatastrophe

Martin · 16 years (10:10 AM · Jan 14, 2008)

Every now and then something annoys me so much that I just have to say something about it. File this under that heading.

Let's say that one day, sometime in the future, a hostile alien race came to Earth and decided to destroy the entire planet. Except in the midst of all the explosions and such, they reconsidered, and now you are the only person - nay, the only thing - left from the original Earth. The alien race, not having taken the time to study Earth before destroying it, relies on you to tell them all about the earth so they can recreate it exactly as it was (or at least, exactly as you remember it). What would you tell them? What would you make better, or worse?

One thing that I wouldn't tell them about is "lolcats." I would take the opportunity to strike them from the history and from the collective consciousness of the world without a second's hesitation.

And now, I can practically hear the thoughts of people who would be greatly distressed by this... "OMG! I'm on ur blogs, rightin complaintz!" or "WTF! I can has hates for u!"

Hate all you want - I wouldn't tell the evil space aliens about lolcats. No sir. If I see another picture of a cat within close approximation of a computer (or game console), overlayed with unintelligible graffiti, it'll be too soon. Lolcats are stupid. The end.

16 Comments

  • xygthop3 says:

    Totally agreed. I hate cats in real life and the last place I want to see them is on the net with a lame “ZOMGWTFBBQ” on them.

    Another pet hate (and I’m sure you may dislike it as well) is that stupid rabbit with a pancake on it’s head.

    Idiotic pets (and their owners) have no place in a digital world.

  • FredFredrickson says:

    Haha, yeah I hate that rabbit too. I can’t say that I hate all rabbits (never owned one myself, and who doesn’t like Bugs Bunny, after all?), but man… pet pictures with Impact font, internet-lingo plastered on top of them are idiotic, at best.

  • FredFredrickson says:

    Aaagh, it burns!

  • Jemgames says:

    Touche.

    Lolcats are a complete waste of bandwidth.

  • Darragh says:

    Ahhh, come on I guys, I can see where you’re coming from and all that, but some of them (text aside) can be just so funny! It’s all about the personification of an animal seen to be typically quite serious and boring, the funniest ones are those which make passes on human stereotypes:
    http://www.musiccitybloggers.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/funny-pictures-banker-cat.jpg
    for example.

  • Benaroth says:

    Surely this is just a bit silly Fred. Don’t you have to go out of your way to see one? So how is it such a problem if its your choice? I didn’t even know of the existance of lolcats until I read this!

  • Benaroth says:

    Haha Fred, I thank you for leading me to the lolcats! :P

  • xot says:

    I really don’t see how lolcatz are any worse than blograntz. :P You’ve got the greatest communication tool ever devised at your finger tips, and this is how you choose to use it? Im N UR brane ?ing UR piroarateez. Emphasis on Tease. :) It IS Caturday, after all.

  • FredFredrickson says:

    Haha, nice point Xot – I hope you’re not lashing out at me because you’re one of the people who plasters the internet with lolcats, though. ;)

    And Benaroth – You’ll like ’em now, and hate ’em later. Trust me.

    I admit, there are some good lolcats out there… but now, it’s just beating a dead horse. And magically resurrecting it. And beating it to death again.

  • xot says:

    Don’t make me RickRoll you! Now there’s something that needs to be nuked.

    I actually find the whole internet meme thing really fascinating. It used to take things like slang years to travel across a country. Today, new ideas criss-cross the globe in an instant. Memes are picked up, used intensely, and then thrown away as we move onto new memes. I’m not sure what that means for language, society, and our brains, but it’s something so radically new and powerful I can’t help but suspect it will have profound ramifications down the road. The idea of a collective unconscious has never been more real and I wonder what Carl Jung would have thought of it all. The potentially disturbing part to me is the disposable aspect. Does it cheapen ideas? Or does it encourage creative community, cooperation, growth, and mutual understanding? Can the internet be the key to world peace? Or is it a Pandora’s Box accelerating us toward social de-evolution in an increasing consumptive world full of empty ideas? Only time can answer these questions but I remain hopeful and positive, which is why I, for one, welcome our new lolcat overlords.

  • FredFredrickson says:

    That’s a good point Xot, and I have to admit, I appreciate the internet for this. Sure, it makes minor annoyances, like fanboyism and lolcats, and amplifies them to a much higher volume than they should ever have been at, but it all blends in with the chorus of the rest of humanity in the end… so I’ll grudgingly grant it a pass for now.

  • GMmarine says:

    These cats crack me up…

  • Purianite says:

    I agree with GMmarine. I can has cheezburger kthx?

  • superjoebob says:

    God I hate lolcats. Their just stupid cat pictures that people take and add text to, most of which is incredibly stupid text that just tries to fit in as much “1337 speak” as they can in one line. If I could rewrite the universe, I would get rid of the “Jesus lol” pictures as well. All they are are pictures of jesus with him saying “lol” after everything, and it seems everyone around me is obsessed with them. How do you get famous on the internet making pictures of Jesus saying lol!? The only stupid things I really appreciate at all on the internet are the sparta pictures and gif’s with the guy from 300’s head on them, once again a simple concept, but they always seem to do it for me :P

  • lolcat says:

    i iz rapin ur blogz

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