LOLcats

About

LOLcats are image macros, made of humorous photos of cats with superimposed text written in a form of broken English known as lolspeak.

Many of the most popular lolcat-based memes were popularized via 4chan.org, the 4chan tradition of Caturday, and Icanhascheezburger.com.

Although 4chan has proven to be instrumental in the spread and mutation of the cat macro meme, much of this seems to have been carried over to 4chan from the cultures of previous PHP and vBulletin-based message boards such as General Mayhem.

“The Internet is Serious Business” has grown into more of a catch-phrase, but began as an animated gif form of kitten image macro on Genmay.

The Cliche Kitty, otherwise known as the “Everytime you Masturbate, God Kills a Kitten” kitten was a popular kitten meme that grew to popularity through Fark.

Origin

The earliest instances of placing humorous text in cat photos can be seen in the works of Harry Whittier Frees, an American photographer, from the early 20th century:

Another popular example in pop culture is the famous “Hang in there, baby” poster from the 1970’s, which spawned a series of imitators itself.

Trends

According to Google Insights, searches for cats have decreased in the last 6 years.

The overall decrease in cat searches is likely an effect to the ever-growing supply of cats on the internet.