Roll Your Own LOL, Not Just For Cats Anymore

by Scott Beale on May 30, 2007 · 67 comments

Zombie Cat

So like it or not, the LOL hyper-meme explosion shows no signs of slowing down, causing English teachers to cringe at the very sight of these grammar destroying image mutations.

First there was the breakout Lolcats. A few early websites were on the scene, but it was I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? that perpetuated and propelled this image macro meme into internet history. Here’s my previous write-up on lolcats.

Taking the meme to the next level, Irina Slutsky, Schlomo Rabinowitz and Veronica Belmont joined forces to make a live-action lolcat show in “Vloggies Show Episode 8”.

But it doesn’t stop there. Anyone can start their own LOLx meme and online tools like LolCat Builder make it even easier to amass your image macro empire.

So with that, here’s my brief history and round-up of LOL mutations:

lolgay

Two early copylolcats had the same theme, lolgay and LOLgays. It’s not clear if the LOLgays post on Gawker by Choire Sicha was inspired by the lolgay blog which pre-dates the post by a few days.

LOLTrek

LOLTrek by Live Granades, expanded the meme to long form, morphing a classic Star Trek episode into “We Has Tribbles And Also Toubles”.

lolgeeks

Next up was lolgeeks. Here’s my write-up from earlier this month.

LOL President

Then there was the birth of LOL President, along with a Fark Photoshop contest.

LOLmaps

The first non-mammal entry was LOLmaps by Nikolas R. Schiller.


LOL the News

LOL the News recently emerged from the void, lolifiying news images.

invisible pants

Making a cultural leap, lolburners showed up to the party, attempting to transform Burning Man imagery into the next big meme.

O'Reilly's Newest Release: LOLCODE

Moving away from images altogether, LOLCODE, helps you program in LOL.

The LOLcky Horror Picture Show

And it just keeps getting more absurd, with the latest entry, The LOLcky Horror Picture Show, LOLing the entire cult film. [via Boing Boing]

Something tells me that this is just the beginning. If you find others, let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post.

Ok, the floodgates have been opened. So just to beat this meme to a pulp, I’m going to start listing all of the LOLsites that we come across. Special thanks to Xeni who sent a bunch our way.

LOLBOTS

LOLBOTS

Lolbats

Lolbats

Lolpr0n

Lolpr0n

LolPilgrims

LolPilgrims

Lol*lost

Lol*lost

Speaking “Jumping the Shark”, check out LOLFonz.

lolnin

lolnin

LOLTHEORISTS

LOLTHEORISTS

lolvangelists

lolvangelists

LOLgod

LOLgod

lolgoth

lolgoth

lolbrarians

lolbrarians

LOLHeroes

LOLHeroes

lolsingularity

lolsingularity

LOL: Boing Boing

LOL: Boing Boing by Ian McKellar using LOL Feeds

u-forgot-ur-stick

lolcopz

LOLTHULU

LOLTHULU

LOLRAPZ

LOLRAPZ

Pink Floyd LOL Wall

Pink Floyd LOL Wall

the real origin of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats

Ape Lad reports on the real origin of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats.

LOL80

LOL80’s

UPDATE: I’m no longer adding new LOL’s to this post, but if you have one that is not listed here, just post it in the comments.

Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

Don’t Wanna Be Obama’s Elf Anymore

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, The Adventues of Hobo Lolcats

Kinetic Steam Works Roll Out

Cats I Am Near, Finding The Closest Cats By Zipcode

LOLCats Sing “Love Cats” by The Cure

filed under Uncategorized

{ 16 trackbacks }

Linker Barn: Thursday June 1
May 30, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Population of One » Blog Archive » This meme will take over the world
May 31, 2007 at 10:19 am
LOLfreakingeverything « young and hungry
May 31, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Stephen Years Dot Com » Schroedinger’s LOLCat
June 1, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Ocelopotamus — Ocpot Presents … LOLHeroes
June 3, 2007 at 4:43 am
Dwa makra « maddama  Wordpress
June 3, 2007 at 3:29 pm
LOLSquid « Archies Archive
June 4, 2007 at 1:06 am
Niklas’ blog » Blog Archive » My Del.icio.us bookmarks created during the past week
June 8, 2007 at 12:03 am
LolCathulhu!!! « raincoaster
June 11, 2007 at 6:37 pm
ten THOUSAND tentacles! « raincoaster
June 13, 2007 at 10:40 pm
An Australian Musical Tribute to the Fighting Spirit of the Pasha Bulker. « typing is not activism….
July 1, 2007 at 6:57 pm
No LOLterrorists, but almost everything else | MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
July 11, 2007 at 1:59 pm
dem Pa säin Blog » Blog Archive » lolxembourg
August 1, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Below Digital Waters « Heather’s Poor Excuse
August 12, 2007 at 10:13 pm
lol'ing, whut iz it? | loliticz.com
September 19, 2007 at 10:02 am
As If One Internet Meme Was Not Enough To Generate Instant Lifetime Fame To Its Inventor « Link En Fuego
September 27, 2007 at 1:17 am

{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Mr. BabyMan May 30, 2007 at 5:43 pm

That’s hilarious! I must’ve seen that Kevin Rose picture dozens of times, and never thought to use it for “invisibles”!

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2 Pervasive Distributed Computing May 30, 2007 at 6:39 pm

I do not understand this “HAS CHEEZBURGER?” Please resubmit your question in Neuro-Linguistic Programming Assembly Language. RJRNLL-7

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3 A librarian May 30, 2007 at 11:09 pm

LOLbrarians – some may be funny only to librarians

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4 Fraser May 30, 2007 at 11:15 pm

I made this a few weeks ago… might update sometime. http://lolvangelists.blogspot.com (captioned televangelists)

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5 datakid May 30, 2007 at 11:17 pm
6 nin_fan May 31, 2007 at 12:14 am

lolnin.com brings Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails into the mix

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7 Mark Rowan May 31, 2007 at 1:39 am

It’s not quite LOL, but it IS LIS (laugh in-side). I started a little bloggity full of darker cat macros. Click on my name to visit, if you please.

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8 Jess May 31, 2007 at 6:16 am

Here’s a little something I whipped up over at my blog.

Lolcats + Batman = Lolbats

Shameless, I know.

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9 Scott Jennings May 31, 2007 at 6:30 am
10 Rainer Brockerhoff May 31, 2007 at 7:14 am

Not sure how much this has been replicated, but here’s loldevs

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11 Cameron May 31, 2007 at 8:21 am

don’t forget LOLlost! Lotsa steelin’ babeez and invisible candybarz

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12 Alfie May 31, 2007 at 10:35 am

And of course, http://www.LOLtwitter.com – taking the mick out of one question – ‘what are you doing?’

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13 Ian McKellar May 31, 2007 at 11:44 am

I wrote a script to make lolcats style images of my twitter friends (I missed the downtime cats!) and then generalized it into lolfeeds. It makes the internet cuter.

http://lol.ianloic.com/

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14 Pete Mandik May 31, 2007 at 1:28 pm
15 Egypt Urnash May 31, 2007 at 3:24 pm
16 LOLbabes May 31, 2007 at 8:44 pm

Hey – it’s not a REAL internet fad until it involves hot chicks: LOLbabes.com

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17 Leah Hope June 1, 2007 at 7:26 am

no no no… not lol-televangelists. telelolgelists.

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18 Alex Kirk June 1, 2007 at 12:38 pm

I just set up LOLPresidents.com a week ago. We’re updating constantly, and have stuff from Fark, around the web, and some original submissions. Come take a look!

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19 engtech @ internet duct tape June 1, 2007 at 1:17 pm
20 raincoaster June 1, 2007 at 5:39 pm

I don’t mind being left out…scrolling through the comments, now I know about lolnin! That is teh ossum!

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21 Marna June 2, 2007 at 6:37 am

You missed LOLbrarians.

I’m in ur liberry, being ur liberrian.

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22 raincoaster June 2, 2007 at 9:13 pm

Donut fergit LolGay! Flame on!

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23 Ocelopotamus June 3, 2007 at 4:48 am

OK, I may regret this, but: I have created some LOLHeroes. Sayvin teh wurld …

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24 Mike K June 3, 2007 at 9:02 am

The lolsingularity is here.

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25 Andrea June 4, 2007 at 9:00 am

Don’t forget about LolBuffy!

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26 Ben E. June 4, 2007 at 10:35 am

It doesn’t seem to have gained much traction, but I am tickled green by the concept of LOLthulhu: http://isometric.sixsided.org/forum/read.php?1,640

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27 Linda June 4, 2007 at 10:59 am

LOLhistory is a very active site–or at least it was until the LOLcats builder got shut down. Everything seems to have stopped now–ttl bumr for evry1 hu does not has Photoshop or equiv. Here is the URL http://community.livejournal.com/lolhistory/

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28 Heidi June 7, 2007 at 12:43 pm

I like Jess’s lolbats the best. And now for the LolPitch:
lol dos and don’ts. Very funny.At least that’s what my mom tells me.
http://www.layercake.net/2007/06/05/morning-lolcats-im-in-ur-blawg-teechin-u-2-make-lolcats1/

Longest. Link. Ever.

I heart the laughing squid.

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29 Janis June 9, 2007 at 4:59 pm

What a wonderful compendium of LOL! Here’s another fun one:

lolbeatlz

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30 J S June 9, 2007 at 11:35 pm
31 Jason Young June 10, 2007 at 12:02 pm

and lolsaurs :-)

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32 J S June 10, 2007 at 1:11 pm
33 WhatLadder June 10, 2007 at 4:37 pm

fakecat is a lolcat parody.

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34 TylerStett June 11, 2007 at 11:24 am

Don’t forget LOLohan.com! It’s lol*’s for silly celeb girls.

Submit your own lolohan’s, lolparis’s, lol*’s… :)

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35 kalem June 13, 2007 at 6:32 am

check out

http://lolcatr.com

web’s first lolcat social networking site!

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36 Anonymous June 19, 2007 at 8:08 pm

What? Bullshit! All of these image memes come from 4chan. Most images here predate what you call “LOLcats” while others are memes entirely sepperate from ‘LOLcats”. Furthermore some are just spinoffs. You people have just embraced it and obscured its origins. I’m breaking rules one and two, but this is absurd! Enjoy your ‘new’ phenomenon.

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37 TrainSpotter July 3, 2007 at 7:22 am
38 LOL nptech July 9, 2007 at 7:24 pm

Comic relief for the nonprofit technology community:

http://lolnptech.blogspot.com

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39 Trudi August 13, 2007 at 7:34 pm

Oh how nice! I was reading can hzz cheezburger and saw LolSquid and linked over to here. My beloved and wonderful squids, you are my own lolhosts! I adore you!

Hugs

WinterSown

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40 Raiden August 27, 2007 at 10:34 pm

http://www.katurday.com is another good one

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41 Ryan Iverson September 4, 2007 at 8:26 am

lolsecretz.blogspot.com is a mashup of postsecret.com and LOLcats. Two great memes that go great together.

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42 Lloyd Wiebe September 10, 2007 at 9:47 am

And Now for Something Completely Different. :-)

A Politician with two faces.

check out LOLITICZ.COM for political LOL’s, hopefully funny, and mostly current lol’d pols from around the world.

bonafide.

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43 Mike September 21, 2007 at 3:03 pm

http://www.lolwigger.com This one is pretty good.

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44 trademark registration November 26, 2007 at 11:17 pm

Memes are the best because they are what they are: Random, funny pictures with even more random captions. The fact that they’re so catchy on the internet just shows how powerful even the most meaningless things are on the world wide web. It’ll be a sad day when /b/tards stop posting memes.

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45 Jamie Viebach March 16, 2008 at 8:36 pm
46 Lola May 19, 2008 at 6:16 am
47 Lorraine May 19, 2008 at 5:16 pm

There’s also the just-launched http://lolebrity.net

Who doesn’t love making fun of celebrities?

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48 Kallie May 20, 2008 at 12:52 pm

I actually saw LOLWrestlers too – that was sweet!

http://doubleaxhandle.com/category/lolwrestlers/

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49 Seileach Corleigh July 20, 2008 at 8:30 am

Here are two more:
Life on Mars (or should that be LOLonMars?) at
ihasacortina and
Doctor Who at
ihasatardis

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50 LOLRHCP October 23, 2008 at 12:02 pm

http://www.lolrhcp.com <— LOL RHCP, pretty much inspired by the courage of whoever started LOLNIN.

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51 maggie February 20, 2009 at 7:01 am

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