August 29, 2007's Posts

August 2007

I Can Has Cheezburger makes the WSJ

Posted by Scott on August 29, 2007 at 1:23 p.m.

Saturday's Wall Street Journal covers a classic American success story.

"Eric Nakagawa was between jobs last January when he came across a funny picture while surfing the Web: a high-strung cat with an open maw making a garbled request for a cheeseburger."

Look at this impressive traffic growth:

"Nearly nine months after launching icanhascheezburger.com, Mr. Nakagawa's site receives around 200,000 unique visitors and a half-million page views each day"

What's it all about? LOL ("laughing out loud") + cats = LOLcats.

"There's not much to it: Take a digital photo -- often one of household pets, particularly cats -- and purposefully place misspelled text on top."

Here's a roundup of blog reactions:

Tech blogger Anil Dash weighs in (and gets credit for funniest title) The LOL Street Journal:

"thanks to my most recent appearance in the Wall Street Journal, I am sorely tempted to put “occasional lolcat critic” on my sidebar. Whatcha think?"

Derek Powazek ("a thinker, designer, and writer in San Francisco") wants in on the action:

"I’m totally putting “occasional lolcat critic” on my business cards."

William Lozito of NameWire considers an interesting question:

"Will L33t, LoLcats Be the Next Company and Brand Naming Trends?"

(L33t = "leet" = "elite")

Mobile blogger Russell Beattie is "browsing the latest and giggling like a moron."

Susan A. Kitchens of 2020 Hindsight thinks this means the fad has peaked: In UR WSJ Peaking ur Fad.

Jeff Kopp of In Back of Beyond asks

"A waste of time? You be the judge."

Title: With 'LOLcats' Internet Fad, Anyone Can Get In on the Joke

Author: Aaron Rutkoff

Publication: The Wall Street Journal Online, WSJ.com

Column: Time Waster

Length: 1,048 words

Date: August 25, 2007

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Top Humor Blogs (and cute)

Posted by Scott on August 29, 2007 at 7 a.m.

The lighter side of life is well represented in the Technorati 100. (What more can I say? Humor defies analysis.)

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?

(http://icanhascheezburger.com/)

(pictures of animals with funny captions)

#19 on the Technorati 100 *

Entertainment > Humor

We gathers and publishes pictures of lol* (pictures of animals with funny captions). You may also find some non-cat pictures -- this a treasure fuh you.

Lolwhut?

Some people call pictures of cats with funny/weird or many other derived types of captions — lolcats or cat macros.

(The blog's title is "kitty pidgin" for "Can I have a cheeseburger?")

Something Awful

(http://www.somethingawful.com/)

The Internet Makes You Stupid

#42 on the Technorati 100 *

Entertainment > Humor

Shopping > Novelties

Something Awful has been mocking itself and the internet since 1999, bringing you reviews of the worst movies, video games, and websites to ever exist. If it's something and it's awful, it's probably on Something Awful, where the internet makes you stupid.

Cute Overload

(http://cuteoverload.com/)

#85 on the Technorati 100 *

Entertainment > Humor

"Because sometimes you just need to look at pictures of kittens." (TIME, 50 coolest websites 2006, AUGUST 2006)

"Cute Overload has stepped up to become the internet's definitive reference on fuzzy little animals with big eyes." (six apart, "recognizing the best blogs on the web", april 2006)

"Visiting it is like taking a happy pill." (BoingBoing.net, December 2005)

The Dilbert Blog

(http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/)

#88 on the Technorati 100 *

Entertainment > Humor

(The blog is great evidence that Scott Adams is just as funny and interesting in prose as in his world famous comic strip.)

* as of August 1, 2007

A complete aside: apparently this post is the first Web page to use the phrase "humor defies analysis". (I don't count the 2 PDF files that Google finds.) Perhaps there's a more common way of expressing the same idea?

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