Roll Your Own LOL, Not Just For Cats Anymore

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 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.

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.

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

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

the real origin of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats

LOL80s
LOL80’s

Scott Beale
Scott Beale

Scott Beale founded Laughing Squid in 1995 in San Francisco and is currently based in New York City. When not running the blog, Scott can be found posting on Bluesky and sharing photos on Instagram.