What is a Lolcat?

Do you ever wonder, what exactly IS a lolcat?

In a nutshell, a lolcat is a funny picture of a cat, with a funny caption attached to it.

LOL .ab - "Laugh out loud"

Cat - A domestic cat

Origins of Lolcats

It is said, "Lolcats" originated in 2005 from an internet forum. Funny pictures of cats were posted, along with captions to add to the humor. In 2006 the domain name www.lolcats.com was born and followed by IcanhazCheezburger.com in 2007. The name "lolcat" even appeared in Time [US], where they described the term as a national phenomena.

Lolcat speak

Certain speak has also been attached to lolcats. It can only be described as "broken English" with vulgar abbreviations such as:

"Im in ur" - I am in your...

"I can haz Cheezburger" - Can I have a Cheeseburger?

You can quickly understand the "Lolcat speak" and the humor behind trying to make the words look like "cat talk".

Design of lolcats

Many believe that to create a true lolcat you must use the font "Impact" and position the text above and below the pictured cat. This however, is a matter of choice for the designer and the origin of a "lolcat" is referred to: "A funny picture of a cat with a caption". Some lolcat pictures incorporate speech bubbles, excerpts from films and much more.

Examples of Lolcats

Locats - Icanhazcheezburger.com

Lolcats - lolcats.com

Animals with Funny Captions - StrangeNature.com