lolcats

For years, those in the know have flocked to one site to get their daily fix of funny pictures of cats.

There's plenty of contenders for the crown, but the king of such sites, I Can Has Cheezburger, has long since left its rivals in the dust in the rarefied field of LOLCats, bringing in countless thousands of people every day who stop by to see images like one of a cat grabbing hold of its human and saying, "You have a pulse. You're well enough to get up and feed me."

The company behind I Can Has Cheezburger, Cheezburger Inc., employs more than 90 people who run dozens of blogs. And over the years, as they've built an audience in the millions, they've spawned two best-selling books. But they've never had a TV show. Until now. … Read more

The golden age of LOLcats is upon us. All those irritating and occasionally awesome captioned pictures of kitties are digging their claws even deeper into the soft, sockless, and vulnerable flesh of our pop culture with a new reality show premiering on Bravo in about a month.

"LOLwork" is a comedic documentary-style show that keeps tabs on the goings-on around the Seattle offices of Ben Huh's time-wasting (or productivity-boosting, depending on your choice of studies) empire, the Cheezburger Network.… Read more

It turns out my obsessive daily viewing of eye-searingly adorable animal pictures online is actually an integral part of of my work productivity plan. I am indebted to some Japanese scientists for this revelation.

Researchers from Hiroshima University conducted a study to examine the effects of viewing cute images on task performance. Guess what? Looking at images of baby animals boosted performance, I'm thrilled to report.… Read more

I've noticed something shocking lately. Many Web sites don't have any cats on them at all. The CNET front page, for example, is completely devoid of Nyans, monorail cats, and keyboard cats. What has the online world come to?

Thank goodness for Meowbify. When you run a URL through Meowbify, it puts everything into its rightful place. Cats become the stars of BBC News. Animated cat .gifs take over GameSpot. The official White House site is invaded by a white cat popping out of a box. All is right with the world.… Read more

The times have a-changed. This generation's Bob Dylans, Joan Baezes, and Ramblin' Jack Elliotts aren't gathering in locales like New York's legendary Washington Square Park to swap chords and licks. They're busily congregating in the gigantic public park that is the Internet, via social media.

And, as a recent video makes clear, YouTube, Facebook, and other such sites seem also to be taking the place of street corners or truck beds when it comes to providing a stage for budding protest singers and their songs.

Forest Gibson and Zachary Cohn's "The Day the LOLcats Died" (embedded below) is certainly not the first Internet protest song, or even the first anti-SOPA tune to wend its way across the Web. ("Firewall" and "SOPA Cabana" are but two other anti-antipiracy screeds that have come before--with "Cabana" even suggesting Dylan and his "Subterranean Homesick Blues" via handwritten lyrics on cards).

But the presentation and form of "LOLCats" call to mind, in a way these other tunes don't, the stereotypical image of the protest singer: a lone soul busily killing fascists with his or her acoustic machine.… Read more

Watch out, Facebook, because Google+ just got the feature that will wipe you off the social-network map.

I'm talking about a LOLcat text generator.

"Today we're rolling out a feature that makes it easier to add big, bold text on top of your photos," programmer Colin McMillen said in a Google+ post today. "To try it out, drop a photo into the sharebox on Google+, then click the "Add text" button underneath the photo. Type in something funny, then share and enjoy."

OK, so maybe it won't dent Facebook's dominance, … Read more

By the middle of the past decade, cats of all sorts emerged as the driving force that keeps the Internet turning daily. With cats no longer restricted to cameo appearances on "America's Funniest Home Videos," the feline media empire has grown exponentially and continues to search for new places to seed its influence.

It is part of our mission at CNET to preserve the human race, and it is with that mission in mind--and with deference to our kitty overlords--that we present this gallery of the most important new iPad applications for cats. We encourage you to take a look and educate yourself about the new tools our enemies furry pals are using.

… Read more

If it's the end of the year, that must mean it's awards season. And in the world of Web culture, there's one site that hopes to have the final word on the best of the year's offerings.

That would be Urlesque, an AOL site that is becoming a must-visit for those interested in the latest and greatest Internet memes. In 2008, the site launched the Urlies, its first Web culture awards, and now, it is in the middle of collecting readers' votes for the best of 2010.

As you might expect, there are plenty of cat … Read more

If you're reading this, there's a pretty good chance you've visited I Can Has Cheezburger, the Internet's foremost repository of LOLCats.

Then again, you might not even know what a LOLCat is. If so, here's a brief primer: At its simplest, it's a picture of a cat accompanied by a silly, misspelled caption. There might also--or instead--be a walrus and some variation of the phrase "mah bucket."

A few years ago, LOLCats began bouncing around the Internet and quickly became one of the fastest-growing online memes. In the earliest days, they might … Read more