For an idea to become a meme, it must possess a mysterious quality that makes sharing it almost non-negotiable. Before you know where you are, you've tweeted a link or posted it to Facebook. LOLcats had that down right from the beginning.
It was already pretty obvious that cats would one day rule the internet. After all, what pet was a geek more likely to have: an outgoing energetic dog or a self-possessed, self-contained cat?
But LOLcats – essentially random pictures of cats with funny captions added (the LOL stands for laugh out loud) – beat all the other kitties by evolving their own language. LOLspeak, as it is known, is a kind of slangy internet dialect based a little bit on Engrish, a little bit on baby talk, and with a sprinkling of word inversions and often with a z instead of an s. For example, a breathtakingly sweet kitten is captioned: "Is it can be hugs tiem plees?" (Translation: is it time for a hug, please?) Cute cat meets cute slogan: LOLcats would rule.
According to net mythology LOLcats made their first appearances in 2005 or so, but within months they'd gone viral, with pictures of LOLcats saying "I can has cheezburger?" or "I are future cat" pretty much taking over the internet completely. Ceiling cat, Happy cat, Monorail cat, and Kitler (a cat with a black spot beneath his nose) were among the breakout stars, but so heavily did it rain cats that at one point the internet home of LOLcats, was getting 1.5m hits a day.
And while the meme itself has abated, so potent and far-reaching was its influence on memeology that it's generally agreed that the internet as you see it today is powered not by code and servers – but by kitties.
