I can haz new blog?

IF the Victorian Liberal Party is good for anything, it's inspiring people to get back to their blogging. And although I can't promise anything as funny as the Liberal Party-powered anti-Ted Baillieu blog (may I nominate hewhostandsfornothing.com for blog address of the year?), I do intend to write about a subject equally as vile and insidious: lolcats. Surely no human can fail to be unaware of this pervasive little meme. These are the photos captioned with misspelled sentiments attributed to the pictures' subject(s), traditionally a cat but occasionally other adorable mammals. Observe an archetypal lolcats image:


Gold (although, technically, I think 'Hi' should have been spelt 'Hai'). Occasionally hilarious, very rarely thought-provoking and utterly inane. Despite the fact that some arts student is inevitably drafting up a dissertation on the significance of lolcats in a post-911, globalised information oriented paradigm and it's affect on synergy, the popularity of these cats surely represents the death knell of a thinking society. Now, as an internet writer I am contractually obliged to identify and describe schismatic and potentially non-existent 'subcultures' (within subcultures where possible), and I think I've found a new one; inanimate object lolcats. Check it out:

Look at it. It's hilarious! It's anthropomorphism meets comedy meets Dada. The lolcats format has become so absorbed into internet culture that it even works on furniture. Here's another example from this fascinating movement:

Is it a parody of a parody? Is it more, or less funny because it deviates subtley from the original source material? Who cares - it's an angry barbecue!

The reason inanimate lolcat pictures work is because of the human brain's innate tendency to recognise faces even when they aren't there. This process of unconsciously organising meaningless stimuli into something meaningful is called pareidolia. It's responsible for the man in the Moon, the face on Mars and has caused innumerable sightings of Jesus and The Virgin Mary in baked goods and highway overpasses. In that vein, it should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the internet that even god himself is not immune to the charms of the lolcats. As we speak, the Bible is being translated into lolcats speak. Here's an excerpt from Genesis:

'Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz. An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin. An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!'

God bless the internet.