It’s Furious Balancing

[That's Rolling On the Floor Laughing - not Rolfing as in massage therapy or rolfing as in an onomatopoetic way of saying vomiting.]

After my post yesterday, I decided to spend some time on the ‘Net searching for more literary LOLCats. Now, it’s my understanding that the LOLCat phenomena encompasses not only the visual pastiche of “cat picture and silly misspelled caption,” but also the language alone which, to me, is heavily influenced by l33tspeak. The popular Cats Can Has Grammar post by Anil Dash discusses kitty pidgin in more detail.

As far as Internet surfing is concerned, I have the attention span of a dog. “Oooooo, this looks inneresting.” ¹ Click. “Oh, a link to something else inneresting.” Click. “How cool.” Click. “What’s this?” Click. “Look! A shiny!” Click. Click. Click, click, clickclickclickclick.

In any event, I type “lolcat literary” and stumble upon a blog post with 550+ comments, some of which are downright hysterical. At least, they’re downright hysterical to me, the Phi Beta Kappa English Major Who is Still Twelve Years Old on the Inside.²

If you have time — and are so inclined — read through the comments.³ If you don’t have time, I’m going to post a few of the ones I like best.⁴ Oh, let’s make this a game! Name the Literary Allusion! Answers in the footnotes — no cheating! I think these are easy peasy anyway.

* * * * *

I can has peach?
O HAI MERMAIDZ! kbai^{5 6}

* * * * *

t3l3m4x0s: invisible daddy
su1t0rz: IN UR HALL, EATIN UR CHEEZBURGERS
0dyss3us: i can has ithaka?
p0s31dwn: NO WAI⁷

* * * * *

OH NOES !! I IS SUDDENLY TRANSFORMD INTO MONSTRUS INSECT !!

[ "Hey, guys, you won't believe the size of the bug I just squished in Gregor's room." ]⁸

* * * * *

IZ IN UR HORS
TAKIN UR BASE⁹

* * * * *

oh noes! dark!
im in ur old age, cussin
DO NOT WANT! ¹⁰

* * * * *

A few overlap the LOLCat speak with syntax from old text-based MUD’s.¹¹

> IM IN UR MEADHALL EATIN UR GUYZ
> wh@ h4pn!!
> 5umbdy set up utz t3h 6renz0r!!
> hai I r hiro can I has arm?
> OH NOES
> oh hai mom
> 4lL UR C4RLZ 4R3 83l0N9 T0 u2.
> i move zig make ur time.
> PWND ¹²

* * * * *

>UR IN HEL NOW
>U SEEZ A LAKE OF BURNIN FIRE
>U HAZ NO HOPE

N

>BEATRIZ IZ NOT THIS WAI

E

>BEATRIZ IZ NOT THIS WAI

S

>O NOES U IS EATIN BY A GRUE
>KTHX BAI¹³

* * * * *

That’s all for today, cats and kittens. All this LOLCat speak has worn me out. I think I need ice cream.

* * * * *

1. Inneresting is intentionally misspelled. Back off, Spelling Nazis. I would have made it just innerestin’, but the apostrophes looked wrong. [↩]
2. I began to suspect that I was a grown-up when I could go into a bookstore and buy fresh-off-the-presses hardcovers without a discount as an incentive. [↩]
3. There’s some delicious stuff in there from some highly creative people, including the LOLCat version of The Lord of The Rings. [↩]
4. Being the Way I Am, I need must balance this sentence with the “If you are not so inclined” portion. So, if you are not so inclined, why the heck are you here? Shouldn’t you be over on MySpace or something? [↩]
5. I think this would be better with kthxbai instead of kbai, but I’m leaving it as the author intended. [↩]
6. T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock [↩]
7. Homer, The Odyssey [↩]
8. Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis [↩]
9. Homer again, The Illiad [↩]
10. Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night [↩]
11. And, of course, All Your Base Are Belong to Us, which defies description by me at them moment. [↩]
12. Beowulf [↩]
13. Dante, The Divine Comedy. Oh, and Zork [↩]

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Books, LOLCats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.