ragesoss

I’ve been shopping on eBay lately for some original Harry Whittier Frees kitten photos. I have a feeling they might be very valuable some day (not that I would ever want to sell them if I do get any), and I can think of no greater service to Wikipedia than scanning and touching up a proto-lolcat (or a whole set) for featured picture status.

In lieu of a long post about the virtues and great significance of lolcats, allow me to share some LOLstuff I’ve found worthwhile:

• Hobotopia, the home of the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats by Adam Koford. See the complete archives on Flickr. (Thanks, Melinda.)
• Ethan Zuckerman’s Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism, a fascinating post about what must have been a great presentation. (Thanks, reddit.)
• Like my blog? It’s even better through a LOL feed! This site takes random photos from the “Cute Cats” Flickr feed and combines them with headlines from any RSS feed. (Thanks, Ethan Zuckerman.)
• LOLCat Bible Translation Project, an epic win, if it ever makes it to completion. (Thanks, Wikipedia.)
• Яolcats – English Translations of Eastern Bloc Lolcats. (Thanks, SJ.)
• Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, Clay Shirky’s brilliant talk on cultures of participation (transcript). Among other great moments, it includes the instantly classic line “If you have some sans-serif fonts on your computer, you can play this game, too.”
• The one, the only, I Can Has Cheezburger? (Thanks, Melinda.) The only shortcoming is the near total absence of copyright/authorship details, making it tough to re-use good lolcats in free content projects, even though some are derived from free images. Compare the high-quality front page of icanhascheezburger to the abysmally unfunny lolcats on Wikimedia Commons. (And the somewhat decent, but way too small, set of “cat behavior” pictures, a.k.a., lol-ore.)

Possibly related posts:

1. Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #1090
2. LOLcats as Soulcraft
3. Wikipedia in the classroom
4. How freely licensed photos generally get used (a sequel)
5. Christmas in OK and TX