Pop Culture Thinks Cats Are Funny

Cats are funny, or so many people seem to agree. These furry felines are treated as a lovable companion in many homes worldwide. Not only so, people love to laugh at cats. This has manifested itself through the media and has even birthed a popular culture on the internet that focuses on the humor that cats provide.

The amusement often stems from seeing a cat carry out everyday human activities with comical results. An example is the mundane act of looking into a mirror. When a cat looks into a mirror, a common reaction is to approach the mirror cautiously, and then back away suddenly in fear as their own reflection in the mirror moves. In this case, curiosity does not kill the cat, but instead brings about laughter from their human counterparts. When caught on video, the joke is shared with viewers from all over the world.

Besides funny videoes, digitally edited images of cats can be found anywhere on the world wide web. These cats are shown either carrying out an everyday human activity or holding some form of modern equipment. Photos usually depict this domestic pet caught in bizarre poses and captions are then edited onto the image. These type of humorous images are called “lolcat”. In many online forums and chat sites, a special version of English known as internet slang is often used. “lol” is one such abbreviation of the English “laugh out loud” which is usually used to show amusement at something.

How would a typical lolcat look like? Image editors have successfully taken pictures of cats stretching out while standing on their hind legs. Coupled with a humorous caption associated with rock and roll, the domesticated pet is dramatically transformed into a rock star. While it adds to the humor, the photograph of the cat need not be unusual. A picture of a cat sitting around could become hilarious when the right caption is included.

The language of the captions plays a part in creating the humor. Ungrammatical, misspelled English parodied off internet slang is often the language of choice. This language has been termed “lolspeak” or “kitty pidgin”. A guide on how to use kitty pidgin has even been written on the internet.

There are a few common rules to observe in order to be a good writer of kitty pidgin. One is the heavy misuse of the verb “to be”. English syntactic rules are also abandoned as a free word order is utilized to the user’s fancy.

Misspelling is a major part of kitty pidgin. Some ways this has been done is replacing S with Z and importantly, “the” must be spelled as “teh”. In addition, lots of exclamation marks could be used in a single sentence, as well as using different internet abbreviations together in one word.

While funny cat video has always been a staple in game shows featuring home videos, lolcat has gone so far as to catch attention from the news and entertainment media. This cultural phenomena has even caught on with other popular domestic animals such as dogs and rabbits, forming “loldogs”, “lolrabbits” and so on. The bible has been translated into kitty pidgin as a parody and a comic book based off lolcat was published in 2008. With so much focus on cat humor, cats must be really funny!