Inanimate Object Lolcats Competition winner...

Congratulations to Jonas of Brunswick, Victoria for his ingenious entry.

Album Review: Ismism, Godley & Creme (1981)

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Ye olde inanimate object lolcat...

Married To The Sea

Irritating misconceptions #1. "All Americans are stupid"

If I went around saying that all Norwegians are lazy or that all Pakistanis cheat on their partners I would be labelled a generalising, racist twat by polite society. But if you state that everyone currently residing in the United States is a moron, even the most hard-left tolerance-mongers will start pumping their fists in the air in approval and point out that they're all morbidly obese as well. It's racist and it's stupid. How can you possibly make any sweeping generalisations about America? It's absolutely massive and incredibly diverse. Sure, they democratically elected a dullard for a president, but we had John Howard for almost a decade! Do you want to be personally held accountable for that?

It's somewhat striking to note that the majority of people I encounter who talk about how stupid Americans are have no problems wearing American clothes, listening to American music and watching American television. If Americans are so dumb, why are Australians so eager to absorb every aspect of their culture? Because we're dumb. Call it a generalisation if you will, but it seems painfully apparent that the majority of people living on this planet are dead set retards. Why single out the Americans? Australia's biggest cultural exports so far have been Crocodile Dundee, The Crocodile Hunter and Savage Garden - it seems to me that people who live in dumb houses shouldn't throw stones.

For example, would you be shocked to hear that half the Australian population are of below average intelligence? If so, consider yourself amongst them.

Inanimate object lolcat competition bonanza!

While I was researching the internet subculture of inanimate object lolcats (henceforth to be known as I.O.L's) for the previous post, I ended up on the Wikipedia page for pareidolia - the tendency for the human brain to intepret meaningless stimuli as something meaningful or significant. On the page they have an image of a clock that looks like a sad face. Observe: In other words, exactly the sort of thing that makes a great I.O.L. Unfortunately, I don't have the creative genius required to create a really classic lolcats image. This is where you, teh internet public, come in. I want you to submit your suggestion for a lolcats-style caption for this picture and our panel of crack-adjudicators will decide on the winner. Simply write your suggestions on the comment page of this post. Will there be a prize? I can't say, who knows what I might find on the side of the road between now and when the winner is announced! At the very least, your I.O.L. will be posted on this blog for all the world to see. And fleeting internet fame is what lolcats is all about. Get lol-ing!

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.