About

Is it can be hugs tiem now plees? is an image macro series featuring an aww-inducing kitten sadly staring at the viewer; the sentence is intentionally misspelled for humorous effects. Several derivatives of "X tiem now plees" have been used in 4chan's /r/ and other "user-request" forums to reiterate one's request for a particular reward without coming off as being rude or obnoxious.

Origin

In early 2006, a peculiar image of a cute kitten with a sad look began to circulate on Internet. Then, someone else came up with a silly idea to pair it up with an equally innocent caption that read "is it can be hugs tiem now plees?"

According to the Encyclopedia Dramatica, the original instance (as shown above) came from a British forum site B3ta and one of the early derivatives was first uploaded on ErrorAccessDenied.com on November 14th, 2006.

Spread

At the beginning, the "hug tiem" kitten was mostly featured on LOLcat websites, including lolcat.com, lolcatz.net and Roflcat.com. Later it was picked up by personal blogs and Facebook, as well as on Deviant Art

Further boosted by the soaring popularity of LOLcat meme circa late 2006, the kitten macro quickly became synonymous with cuteness and even spawned a series of derivative images featuring both cute and weird looking things.

Usage on 4chan

According to the Lurkmore wiki:

Originally derived from a cat image macro (cat macros frequently use bad spelling and grammar), it has been adopted by /r/etards as a more subtle means of making requests outside of /r/.

On 4chan, /r/ is an imageboard where users exchange anonymous requests for a specific reward, whatever it may be (ex: warez links, passwords, other rarities). In /r/, the catchphrase has been as a subtle way of forcing the same request or topic without suffering the wrath of moderators, because omg breaking news: everyone loves kittens.