• Cheezburger Tuesday

    Posted on July 31st, 2007 by and currently 2 commenting.

    keyboardcat.jpg I knew that I Can Has Cheezburger was a shamefully fun time waster. What I didn’t know until a Time magazine article earlier this month was just how many people also enjoy something as simplistic as unusual photos of cats with funny captions – the meme known as “LOLCATs”. Technorati ranks the site as #20 on its list of most popular blogs – 12 spots above Robert Scoble and 20 above mommy blogger superstar Dooce.

    Why do so many people link to a blog that is about nothing more than cute cats and funny sayings? Why do 200 – 500 people a day submit their own LOLCATs using the LOLCAT builder over at The Cheezburger Factory? Evidently, this plays into our basic need for mind candy and work escapism without the lasciviousness of a celebrity blog or intellectual ramblings of a business guru.
    When discussing “what goes viral”, we usually think about topics that appeal to the least common denominator in human nature – sexually risque content & potty humor topping that list. The wild success of the LOLCAT meme shows that “cute” is another powerful cultural unifier and the carrier for your message doesn’t have to be NSFW to travel.

  • http://www.brainsonfire.com FI Chris

    I love lolcats! I’ve been looking at ICHC almost since it started. Memes abound!

  • http://andrewtheplanner.blogspot.com andrewtheplanner

    I’ve been pondering on the topic of cute lately too after discovering the blog cuteoverload.com. I’m not sure where it ranks, but I’ll bet it’s fairly high. If you want to further explore the cuteoshpere I recommend the blog.

    I couldn’t agree with you more about cute being a powerful culture unifier and not needing nsfw trash to carry a message. I’m a sucker for all things cute and so is the crowd that gathers around my computer to watch a sleepy kitten video.