Roll Your Own LOL, Not Just For Cats Anymore
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:
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 by Live Granades, expanded the meme to long form, morphing a classic Star Trek episode into “We Has Tribbles And Also Toubles”.
Next up was lolgeeks. Here’s my write-up from earlier this month.
Then there was the birth of LOL President, along with a Fark Photoshop contest.
The first non-mammal entry was LOLmaps by Nikolas R. Schiller.
LOL the News recently emerged from the void, lolifiying news images.
Making a cultural leap, lolburners showed up to the party, attempting to transform Burning Man imagery into the next big meme.
Moving away from images altogether, LOLCODE, helps you program in LOL.
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.
Speaking “Jumping the Shark”, check out LOLFonz.
LOL: Boing Boing by Ian McKellar using LOL Feeds
Ape Lad reports on the real origin of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats.
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.
filed under: General
61 comments on “Roll Your Own LOL, Not Just For Cats Anymore”
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on Wednesday, May 30th, 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”!
on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I do not understand this “HAS CHEEZBURGER?” Please resubmit your question in Neuro-Linguistic Programming Assembly Language. RJRNLL-7
on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
LOLbrarians - some may be funny only to librarians
on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I made this a few weeks ago… might update sometime. http://lolvangelists.blogspot.com (captioned televangelists)
on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 12:14 am
lolnin.com brings Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails into the mix
on Thursday, May 31st, 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.
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 6:16 am
Here’s a little something I whipped up over at my blog.
Lolcats + Batman = Lolbats
Shameless, I know.
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 6:30 am
LOLFonz for the win!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khv4Na-2sJY
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 7:14 am
Not sure how much this has been replicated, but here’s loldevs…
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 8:21 am
don’t forget LOLlost! Lotsa steelin’ babeez and invisible candybarz
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 10:35 am
And of course, http://www.LOLtwitter.com - taking the mick out of one question - ‘what are you doing?’
on Thursday, May 31st, 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/
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 1:28 pm
LOLphilosophers AKA phiLOLsophers here:
http://www.petemandik.com/blog/2007/05/27/introducing-philolsophers/
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 3:24 pm
lipsumcoons
on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Hey - it’s not a REAL internet fad until it involves hot chicks: LOLbabes.com
on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 7:26 am
no no no… not lol-televangelists. telelolgelists.
on Friday, June 1st, 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!
on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 1:17 pm
You forgot lolgoths
http://raincoaster.com/tag/lolgoth/
on Friday, June 1st, 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!
on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 6:37 am
You missed LOLbrarians.
I’m in ur liberry, being ur liberrian.
on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Donut fergit LolGay! Flame on!
on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 4:48 am
OK, I may regret this, but: I have created some LOLHeroes. Sayvin teh wurld …
on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 9:02 am
The lolsingularity is here.
on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Don’t forget about LolBuffy!
on Monday, June 4th, 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
on Monday, June 4th, 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/
on Thursday, June 7th, 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.
on Saturday, June 9th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
What a wonderful compendium of LOL! Here’s another fun one:
lolbeatlz
on Saturday, June 9th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
http://loltapirs.com/
LOLTapirs.
on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
and lolsaurs :-)
on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
LOLsports?
http://dearmrsupercomputer.blogspot.com/2007/06/ntrodoosing-dms-lolsports1.html
on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
fakecat is a lolcat parody.
on Monday, June 11th, 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… :)
on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 6:32 am
check out
http://lolcatr.com
web’s first lolcat social networking site!
on Tuesday, June 19th, 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.
on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 7:22 am
LOLMETAL….
http://warehouse.carlh.com/article_141/
on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Comic relief for the nonprofit technology community:
http://lolnptech.blogspot.com
on Monday, August 13th, 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
on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
http://www.katurday.com is another good one
on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 8:26 am
lolsecretz.blogspot.com is a mashup of postsecret.com and LOLcats. Two great memes that go great together.
on Monday, September 10th, 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.
on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 3:03 pm
http://www.lolwigger.com This one is pretty good.
on Monday, November 26th, 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.
on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
LoLTurtles!
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11619&view=previous&sid=d808af2ba4ea9408a03568e58d2932cd