

Lolcats: deeper than you think? - andreyf
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/15/pathos_lolcats/print.html

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unalone
He might have somewhat of a point, but he utterly kills it by playing up the
pictures. Something funny becomes signs of deep, passionate regret. (Was the
walrus saga really clever at all, or tragic at all, past the first one?)
Lolsecrets has "world-weary" cats. Lolsecrets is not very funny. It's a very
poor example of lolcattery. And I know it's snobbish, but I don't like how it
completely avoids talking about Caturday, which would have explained why
people like lolcats much more succinctly (it depicts animals, which we see as
having subhuman intelligence, saying things in a broken manner; the humor
comes from being able to imagine certain cats saying certain things) and
without the drama.

~~~
albertcardona
What is undeniable is the culture woven under it all, of which lolcats are
just an expression channel.

The article is worth a read. The author argues that, beyond those merely
comic, best lolcat pictures spark a giggle because of the human tragedy they
depict.

~~~
unalone
Yeah, but I'm really not certain they do. Lolcats don't exist as measures of
tragedy.

There might be some amount of recognition there: we laugh because we imagine
the cats as humans, saying the things they do. But that isn't the same thing
as all as reflecting tragedy.

I think a better article would be one analyzing just how willing people are to
laugh at things that aren't funny, given any reason at all. The first bunch of
lolcats were funny. Now, most of them are pretty stupid. All of the spinoffs -
lolpresident comes to mind - are incredibly stupid. And yet, people enjoy
them, and laugh hard at them, because they've been conditioned to think that
big words over a picture are funny.

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palish
_"...depicts a male and female unicorn standing on a sliver of land in the
rain as Noah's Ark sails away. Having arrived too late, all the unicorns can
do is watch the ark recede into the distance as the waters rise around them.
The image conveys so much regret -- the idea that we were so close, that we
could still have these magical creatures among us today if only we'd been more
patient. It's the sadness of missed opportunities."_

Am I the only one who has no idea what the article's point is? Hehe.

I mean, I imagine you could write an article all about, say, reading lamps. If
you _really_ wanted to. But what's the point?

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ojbyrne
I think the real "web 2.0" story, percolating under the surface is 4chan.org.

~~~
sc
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?i...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?incamp=article_popular_2)

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neilc
_Their flagship site, Icanhascheezburger.com, is one of Web 2.0's big success
stories -- on track to top a billion page views this year -- and its content
is entirely user-generated._

Damn it, Icanhascheezburger.com is _not_ Web 2.0.

~~~
lutorm
"Web 2.0 describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology
and web design that aim to enhance creativity, secure information sharing,
collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the
development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such
as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and
folksonomies."

Wikipedia seems to think it is. How is ichc different in any significant way
from youtube?

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mynameishere
I think lolcats just represent infantilism.

<http://xkcd.com/231/> (<\-- you've already seen it)

Take a glance at the comments at Icanhascheezburger if you don't believe.

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Hexstream
Somehow, I'm having a really hard time taking an article about lolcats
seriously. (btw I love lolcats. But _analysing_ them?)

