Let’s talk about lolcats. Lolcats, or cat macros, are a subset of image macros. They’re pictures of cats with captions typed across them. In essence they’re the “Hang In There Baby” posters gone feral.
Anil Dash has a great post about them, in which he identifies a number of lolcat subclasses and discusses kitty pidgin, the mangled English used in many lolcat pictures. Kitty pidgin is surprisingly regular, which I suppose means, as Anil Dash puts it, that cats can has regular grammar.
A number of sites collect lolcat pictures, among them I Can Has Cheezburger and Meme Cats. If you browse through those sites, you’ll quickly get a feel for how lolcats work. If you’re inspired to make your own, remember: use Impact or Arial Black, and put a black outline around white letters.
While this is nice and all, I quickly realized that there are no long-form lolcat works. The closest is Spatch’s wonderful Cat Town, and it’s only a relative to lolcats. That set my fevered brain to spinning: what would a lolcat story look like? What if lolcats had a TV channel? What kind of shows would be on it?
The answer is clear: they would show Star Trek.
And thanks to Gunther Schmidl for the “Invisible Klingon” suggestion.
Technorati Tags: lolcats, meme-cats, cat-macros, star-trek
309 Comments
I laugh mightily.
I fear you.
GENIUS!
I DEMANDS RECOMPENSE
Fascinating.
This is totally awesome. And totally not slagging the server, amazingly. She’ll hold together.
[Do you hear me baby? Hold together.]
Hai-larious.
Offkey: is it me or does that totally look like a young Christina Applegate in the “food commercial” panel?
lolsisko
yes, that is christina applegate.
HA! I LOL’d!
More examples of lolcats at http://erroraccessdenied.com/funnyanimals
Cheers!
IM AT YUR SITE LOLING AT YUR PICZ
THIS TOTALY ROX
I is in UR commentz
Laffin’ at UR blog!
Nothing has ever been as awesome as this. Evar.
Loved it. Nice Settlers reference. Did you see http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2007/05/lol_trek.html
That made laughing noises come out of my face.
Also, big kudos on *not* resisting the urge to throw Sisko in there, but managing to do it without making the whole thing about the ‘crossover’.
I’m not ashamed to admit it…this has me a little bit tingly all down in myz partz.
oh god please let this turn into a trend bigger then lolcats.
Oh, that is *most* excellent. If only I could speex lolcatz better!
This is hilarious. I love it. ^_^
You is love. I steal this now. *g*
Look who linked you after dissing you on the bumper.
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2007/05/lol_trek.html
SO FULL OF WINS AND AWSUM
Seriously, this rules, and the “commercials” were divine inspiration.
This is great. I did want to point out one thing. While using the Impact font (or other Serif) seems to be across-the-board, many of the best image macros have used colors other than white. So, even though Wikipedia says that white is most often used, we should encourage artistic freedom.
Seems like the trend began with the “O RLY?” owl, which has been around since the early 1990s. LOLcats are far more well-known these days, and with so many people making them, why limit creativity?
I laugh.
Ha-Ha
Again! Again!
Ttruly hard to say how great of a job you’ve done there.
Now, more, more…
OMG funniest thing EVAR!!!!! Thanks for creating & sharing!
http://www.yougotlinks.com
is SO funny i hasd many lolls!
[i thinks dancing studio commercial would be slightly improved if "invisible" were added, but why mess with purrfection]
Win and awsum!
omg, you deserve an oscar for this!
I *need* the “whut?” Kirk and Spock as an icon.
OH HAI I LINKED U.
Found you through icanhascheezburger. This is genius.
you can has a pass!
This will only end in LOLBuffy.
Can i link to this? too great! “Whut?”
MORE!
Awesome!
And double points for the DS9 reference.
Oh this is great! I absolutely love it! Two of my favorite things combined purrfectly. Thank yous!
David Gerrold is a friend of mine, I am sooooo gonna show him this!!!
He will giggle a lot at it!!!
I has peed myselfs.
Super ultra treble points for Settlers of Catan reference.
Holy crap, “Invisible Klingon” is the best image macro EVAR.
This was hilarious the whole way through, but the very last panel killed me. I r ded! Ded from teh Sisko!
Agreed about the last frame, I no r expekt that one.
I can has tribble!?
Super lol!
Hey! You got your Star Trek in my LOLCats!
Dude, you got your LOLCats in my Star Trek…
All Your LOLTrek are belong to me.
ZOMG this was only mildly amusing to me until Commander Sisko showed up, now it pwns
Ey, muthah!
He he he…
Not bad!
I’ll sway from the pack to say I think this is lame. That kind of kitty speak is only cute when it’s done with kitties and even then it’s getting old. And some of that is more 1337 speak than kitty speak.
Highly entertaining good sir! Please do most post haste!
I f$#kin has almos dai laughin.
Is it wrong that I got the biggest laugh at ‘I trade wheat for sheep’? I am such a boardgame geek.
“whut?”
Omg. That is so funny. “whut?” I don’t even know why.
wow..this is f$#kin weak
I hate you now sir….not because it wasn’t funny…but because I didn’t think of it first.
Curses on you Oh Bald headed, water drinking, star trek loving ewok hater.
LOLOLZ
I laughin hard. My stress level on display.
I has having a heartatteck
I didn’t think I could laugh today. I wuz wrong.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Imagine Bold white letters with a black surrounding that says…
Very but very very good - Thanx
W00t! Awesome.
SRSLY.
-The Gneech
That’s fantastic!
I haven’t laughed so hard in ages… will definitely be pimping this all over the place:).
Seeing that pidgin English used with minority actors veers over the line to racism. Is everyone here too young to remember the controversy about Jar Jar Binks and his patois?
Please stop it! I’m laughing too much! HUH!
“The closest is Spatch’s wonderful Cat Town, and it’s only a relative to lolcats.”
If Cat Town is a relative, it’s the grandfather.
I don’t think that example fits. Jar Jar Binks was in effect a Stepin Fetchit character, and was the only one speaking in a stereotypical slave patois. Here the pidgin is applied across the board, with only Mr. Spock unaffected.
Pee my pants funny!
You can has jeanyus.
*wheeeeee*
I bow down to your greatness
lol
Where is scene with
“I’m in yer bar fightin yer doodz”
You be awesomez!
excellent, both for the “TWT” loltrek translation and for the informative lolcats links.
two thumbs, err…dewclaws up.
what cracks me up is Spock speaking normally…
you do realise you’ve now got to do all the others…
I lol’d. u iz can be full of win!!
You need turn “Be” to “Am” in sentences. Sound too much like ebonics, not lik catz…
Whuut?
I iz ROFDL!! (eg)
fantastico
fantastico. THANK YOU
OMG…”The Doomsday Machine” or “Amok Time” deserves this treatment…
Hey! That first commercial break has a young Christina Applegate in it!!
Now I know why normal people scare me.
So stephen, when are you going to get this on Digg?
Sean: someone did it for me.
I thought this would look cool as a video, so I made one here:
http://www.fliptrack.com/watch/K43MRLbt60
Invisible Klingon!
ROFLOL!
Very nice.
I knew this was going to happen however. I mean really.. is it not true that All Yor Tribble Already belong to US?
Holy crap, that is the hardest I’ve laughed since the Iraq invasion began.
It’s funny, my friend just showed me these episodes and then sends me this. HILARIOUS! I loved it!
*snrk*
*snrksnrk*
*snrk*
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!
Lame. Not enough cats.
This are LOLTrek.
It are full of win and lulz.
MOAR! plzkthxbai.
Stephen, yep, you are on the first page now, good luck, just went popular 21 min ago.
you have to much time on hand…lolol
LAWLS!
EL OH EL OH EL OH TREK.
i died laughing. no. /really/.
Are you going to adapt that for Dragon*Con TV?
I has cats. I loves Trek. Me be very happy. Me LOL a lot!!!
I BE ALL BEAMIN’ THIS TO MAI CHARMIN WIMMIN FRIENDS. WHUT?
I am mightily amused. Also, I propose “Kidgin” as a name for the language. Or perhaps, given the level of artistic culture reflected, “Kitschin.”
Sadly, no. DCTV has to be more careful about reusing things like existing Star Trek stories.
Joyce: “Kitschin” is excellent.
All my K-7 is belong to you.
This is a treasure 4 me!!!!!!!
Perfect.
I would’ve spelled it WOT instead of WHUT
ME TUMMY HERTZ BY LAFFING
I has can have many laffs and startled my dog. We is can have thanks you!!!
Troz!
where be ceiling tribble?
Is not Christina Applegate in Food Commercial. Is Jennifer Jason Leigh of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, etc. Hair colour, hairline, sultry look up under the eyebrows, etc. Think about it.
I don’t get it.
We has not need a ceiling tribbles, we has a vault tribbles. Is just as good.
f***ing stupid. just proven you have no grasp of “meme cats” by using ebonics in every other picture. “this be sucking”
I loved the invisible Klingon.
I cannot F***ing breathe! that was hilarious.
hilarious!
I has sheep for wheat.
Thanks! A heap big laugh.
Tribbles FTW! I almost hurt myself laughing when I saw Klingons saying “DO NOT WANT!”
omghee. hilarious AND you brought out the world’s first lol cat grammarnazis. BRAVO.
Bwahahahaa. Ha. Very funny.
I has funny picture at website. You likes. Is Trekkie picture.
I can now die, having lived a complete life. Thank you.
This is one of the funniest things I have seen on the internet in a really long time. Kudos!
I love it thanks very much!!!
Did they grab you by the bagles ?
I’ve never seen the episode. And now, thanks to your abbreviated version, I don’t have to!
It was hillarious! I laughed, and am still laughing. So are all my Trekkie/Trekker (whichever you prefer) friends.
Have you ever considered writing Coles/Cliffs notes? LOL!
I have seen this episode… Brilliant!
BEST. BIT. EVER.
That is all.
zomg it’s a geek singularity!
(Kirk”WHUT?”#3)
:::snkkrsnikk:::
(”DONOTWANT”)
:::heegigglesnortheehee:::
(”INVISIBLEKLINGON”)
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!
You is win
beadattitude: I approve of Khan-cat.
Oh, and for those who haven’t seen the episode — you really should. It’s a funny one, plus for space considerations I left out the awesome bar fight scene.
ALL YOUR TRIBBLES ARE BELONG TO US
WHUT?
(This be was BRILLIANT.)
I heard from StarLady42 that you’re having a babee today? Congrats! It’s my birthday too! May the 4th be with you!
And this made me lol long, and lol hard. Thanks!
LOLTREK FTW!!!!!!!!!!
OMG!!! ROFLAO!!!
MOAR
That, sir, is made of win.
I was missing the bar scene.
I’M IN UR BAR, FIGHTIN’ UR XTRAS
And LOVE the cameo by Avery Brooks!
Brilliant!
Construction Commercial Cat Cameo.
Construction Commercial Cat Cameo.
Construction Commercial Cat Cameo.
Construction Commercial Cat Cameo.
- Zippy
Now THAT’s entertainment! haha!
Oh, oh, oh! My face hurts from laughing. Too funny.
lol wut? ur lolcat is terrible. has u ever even seen a lolcat? u talks about grammer liek u noes it, but u doesnt.
also, sorri coz i linkd ur image wehastrouble37.jpg, n it breaked. the link r gone now.
All your jokes are belong to us funny
Whut? Hilarious it are, muchly too. Also enjoyed it I did. Starting to sound like Yoda, I am. Stop, I must. Yeeees….
~ Jonathan Rich, I am
It Can Be Awesome Laugh-Times now ?!
This is awesome!
Even our furry friends without opposable thumbs (we am having no opposable thumbs?) would applaud at this. For the lolcat grammarnazis, how do you say “I am jealous I didn’t think of this first” in lolcateese?
Hey man, just doing the Trek or are you going to next conquer Shakespear? Because LolHamlet would be pretty funny…
For an original Trekkie, though the years, this was a great nostalgic LOL !!
wurd: Because of bandwidth problems, I disabled hotlinking. If you want, you can copy the image to your own server and use that in the link.
Awesome!
Of course, many bonus points for the Sisko cameo…
Dere wuz no catz n “construction commercial”. I M GYPED!!! (roflmfao)
And I thought “remastered” TOS was good … in lolcat it’s even better!
purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Oh, to be “charmin wimmin….”
Is it can be moar LOL tiem now?
If only the Internet would do every single original Star Trek episode this way. My life would be complete. Please… someone… entertain me!
The Lolrus-Bucket Saga is a sort of long form Lolcat relative as well.
I gots many lolses from “Main screen turn on,” myself. Make your time, kittehs!
Peed myself I has.
Teh funneh.
My math class had an assignment based on that episode. We watched it in class and then had to calculate something–probably how many tribbles existed in the end based on some concept we were learning.
You be awesome!
Picard: What do you think, Mr. Data?
Data: I believe the required answer is Ha! Ha! Ha! Actually Captain, I am amazed that Star Fleet survived the Kirk era.
whut? lol
kerrick, true, though that’s a found narrative.
Grand erection does follow hilarity.
Nothing like a good ol’ Star Trek Episode….
Oh hai Im big yellow Cat in ur basemnt, diggin ur fundashuns! Lulz too much sleep now, kthxbai.
I wish you’d had the bit where the Klingons called the Enterprise a “rust-bukket.”
WTH!!! lol, this was sooo hilarious! i laughed so hard, what is a tribble!!!??? lol!!
roflol til hurting & wet self
this be great. i be enjoying this. WHUT!
your awesomeness knows no bounds
That was absolutely brilliant; I read through it several times.
I am still be laffing for many minutes - I be having animals in mah home that are looking like tribbles with haed attached similar to furry cat-type heads! And long fuzzy tails!
Argh! lafter not stop - am having trouble obtain oxygen into lungs, and strange liquids squirts out noze…
ALL YOUR TRIBBLE ARE BELONG TO US!
TOO Funny!!!! As a die-hard Star Trek fan, and cat lover, thought this was hilarious. The Trouble with Tribbles was also my favorite Star Trek episode.
You missed Scotty’s last line “and where they will be no Tribble at all”
OH MY!!, absolutely brillant, I have not laughed this in a long time. This is one of my favorite Star Trek Episodes. Now with more comedy than originally presented, and the cat commercials are too, too cute, I have sent this link to all my incognito trekkies. I want more, maybe a borg spinoff?
Die hard trekie here. wantz more kitteh wantz more 2, she lyk comershells
“This tribble is dead.”
“Hey that my line.”
Bloody genius!
you be wicked
This just be WAI too funny!!!Thanks for the effort…:)
I read through about half the comments and didn’t see anything about this, soooo…
I love how all the commercials have cats in them. Heh, even the construction commercial.
Wouldn’t that put Christina Applegate in her 50s
WHUT!!!!
I IZ DED FROM THE LAFFING!
2 pawses up
2 pawses r up
thats the funniest thing i be seein
ME WANT MORE! LOVE OLD STAR TREK!
I BE LOVING MUCH OLD TREK!!
Too too funny. ^^
OMG too too funny. Congrats!
Khan!!!! No shout,I hearz you.
ROTFLMAO. Ditto xxoo
Whut. This be mighty cool.
“Whoa they be always preggers!” lollerskates.
U R freeqin jeenius!!!!! LUV IT!!
Those were GREAT screenshots. You RUINED them with your stupid dialogue!!
That be totally excellent. I be lovin it!!!
Genious !!!
What I like most about it is how Spock is unaffected. Do you think this is actually how he feels *all the time*?! He explains something complicated and to his Vulcan ears Kirk’s response sounds like “WHUT?! I be firing the flashy blue lights at em!”
That made me laugh harder than a lot of the lolcats they’ve been posting lately!
Thanks !
There was no ‘O RLY?’.
um
this was good, but kinda stupid at times.
i is shutting up now.
LOL Brilliant! But there’s no wai to top it, so don’t even try, pleez!
[Comment by Tom
Those were GREAT screenshots. You RUINED them with your stupid dialogue!!
Posted on May 15, 2007 at 3:51 pm]
O HAI CODE WUN ALERT
sumbodee pls to be beemin teh Tom up wit teh klingons
k thks bai
Brilliant.
I lol’d. =B
awesomestest! just please don’t lol a star trek enterprise episode because that show was lamestest.
god help me, i loled
Aaaaaaamazing! That’s my favorite episode!
Hai! I is hurling big hairballz now! Tribbles is tasty hairballz?
Excellent relevent song here:
http://www.thefump.com/lyrics.php?id=85
Much LOLing. Made my day.
Thankses.
I can be haz laughter! done welz.
I can has pee myself giggling!!!!!!!!
You are an inspiration! In fact, you inspired me to attack a feature length film! What better film than one that has been essentially LOLed every Saturday for more than 30 years? “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” becomes “The LOLcky Horror Picture Show”!
You has BIG humor!!! :)I also has laugh mightily.
O.
M.
G.
You are a genius.
*bows*
I r in yr kitteh littr, diggin yr Star Drek.
That was wonderful!
Hee! I was wondering if you’d put Sisko in there.
INVISIBLE KLINGON
You are the Shakespeare of lolcat-speek.
Wait, I don’t like Shakespeare. You are the Kurt Vonnegut of lolcat-speke.
Whut’s that?
I is feeling very strange now.
Might be sever lolcat-illnezz.
Pleaze can anyone get Bones here.
LMAO! This is so great! I have to show this to my buddy the next time he comes over. We’ve both been Trek fans since the first season wayyyy back when. Thanks for this. *snork*
i has died luffing :)))
We enjoyed!
We would like to mention and post a link to this on our next show.
I think we will.
Love Long and Prosper
I is laugh like ijit.
OH HAI WILL U MARRY ME?
You’re a friggen’ genius.
I is laffing much!
He’s dead jim.
OMG BE LIKIN THS MORR THN 1ST VURSHUN
You is too funning!
Oh hai lolfrend! Pls come visit.
http://lolbuffy.blogspot.com/
I be laughing
For some reason, I don’t find the humor in any of the LOLcat things, but LOLStarTrek if friggin hilarious.
WHUT?
I don’t get it.
Loved this! After reading this and a long afternoon of movies, I made a Lonesome Dove (LOLsome Dove) one inspired by this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/takkunelwood/LOLsomeDove.png
I has **sniggers** !!
Oh, the lulz. My wishes is to see moar!
It was great until the Sisko reference. Then greatness evolved into sheer, unadulterated genius, with the subtlety of nothing less than a master.
*cough* Yeah, can you tell which series is my favourite?
I have an idea, yes….
K, I laff so hard, now I gots
togo wipe up. Funny !cuz I hate
STARTREK…EHH HEH
I am howling. Absolute genius. I’ll be linking this in my blog on Monday for sure. Great job!
This is awesome, I would love to see more LOLTREK in the future, they have a lot of LOL moments.