Blog Minx

Rich Minx, I have no idea what a lolcat is. Help.

Okay. A lolcat is a coming together of ‘laugh out loud’ (lol) and cat. It’s a photo of a cat, generally, although sometimes other pets make cameos, with an English-butchering white caption on it. Lolcats used to be called macrocats. They’re not a new invention, but recently they seem to be sweeping the interweb.

Oh. Really? Why?

Well, there’s a good article about the lolcat phenomenon here. But basically:

• Cat photos are always popular.
• Especially when you dress them up or catch them in a funny pose.
• Photos with silly captions are always popular too.
• The kitty-pidgin caption (’I has fashion cents’) is in right now as well.
• Some are hilarious, if you share my sense of humor. Some are just a bit retarded. Check out this site and this one.

Okay, I’ve had a look and some are pretty funny. But what’s this got to do with me?

• We all need a laugh.
• It’s important to keep tabs on web trends.
• There are opportunities to make money by creating spin-offs of web trends. Apart from starting your own lolcat site, you could sell lolcat t-shirts and posters, post lolcat videos on YouTube, write a lolcat picture book, and so on.

But beware: some people are getting lolcat fatigue. You might be coming in at the tail end of lolcats (pun intended). So what is the next trend? Sad pictures of cats called nolcats?