In Search of the Living, Purring, Singing Heart of the Online Cat-Industrial Complex
A gorgeously in-depth exploration of why there are so many lolcats on the Interwebz. Favorite quote:
What an Internet cat does is thus confront us with how cravenly we ourselves court approval. A cat, if it decides to love you, will do so only on its own terms, and, as that Viennese study showed, the more you let it come to you, i.e., the less you need it, the better loved you’re going to be. The reason the lolcat says “Oh hai” is because he only just noticed, and certainly doesn’t care, that you caught him serenely occupying ur nouns, verbing ur other nouns. He doesn’t worry about you or what you think; by his living in your screen, you can love him, but there isn’t a prayer of reciprocation. Thus is the Internet cat the realest cat of all.
Truly, all our base are belong to them.
