Really Short Summary: LOLCATS Panel: I CAN HAZ CASE STUDY?

Photo cred: Patrick Haney

• Panelists: “Cheez” (I Can Has Cheezburger), Martin Grondin (LOLCat Bible), Ryan and Arija (LOLSecretz), Stephen Granades (LOLTrek), Adam Lindsay (LOLCode)
• Q: Do your parents know what you do? A: Sort of, but they don’t care. A: No. A: They think I’m a doctor. A: My mom is from Latvia.
• Q: Will you still laugh about this when you’re in nursing homes? A: Yes. But it will be old school by then. A: Who remembers Where’s the Beef? Who still talks about it? Touche. A: 30yrs from now we’re going to get CatRolled.
• People are really passionate about silly stuff. People are passionate about the smallest, most random things.
• Cats attract girls to the internet. lolcode contributors are 80% male. I can has cheezburger submitters are about ~%60 female.
• Q: lol becoming mainstream – effect on English language? A: Linguists love the Lolcat Bible.
• Q: What is the takeaway for making awesome? (Pls answer in LOL). Things that become big on the internet are combinations of small iterations on other people’s ideas. A: Lol + trek, Lol + cat, Lol + Bible, Walrus + bucket. Etc. Take two things people like and shove them together. A: The Internet can do anything. A: The idea is bigger than you. You are nothing. You are just the midwife of the idea, helping it into the world. A: Don’t listen to the haters. Use that time to serve the people that love you.
• Q: Dogs are man’s best friend, will cats be man’s best friend? A: No. A: When we think that, they have won.
• Q: Why did lol speak go from sounding like a baby to sounding retarded. A: Lolspeak started as a written language. The voice you hear is in your head. (laughter)
• Q: We tried to translate to Russian / Latvian. Fail. A: Spanish sort of works.
• Q: Why is LOL not spelled out? A: How do you pronounce the name of this conference? Touche.
• Font discussion. LOLCats typography is 8-bit. Alternatives? Comic Sans gets booed.
• Q: Future of written dialects? Where’s it going after lolcats?
• Q: Does lolcode have tail recursion? (laughter from crowd) A: Yeah. I loved Scheme, but I didn’t push tail recursion. [Crowd: Maybe you should!]
• Q: Who do I blame for Rick Rolling? Panelist Q: Which of you have Rock Rolled someone [everyone raises hand].
• Q: Favorite LOLs? A: EmoLOLs A:LOLBots A: MetaLOLs
• Q: What is a LOLCat. A: Wow, you must have a life? A: Google it.
• Q: You wear a DARE shirt, but you play WoW. A: WoW is not a drug. It is habit forming, but not a drug.
• Q: Have you guys been able to make money on this? A: Cheez has a staff of 8 people. A: Nope.
• Q: Does LOLCats help you get dates? A: No.
• Q: Prior to LOLCats, there was already lol speak. Why? A: Blame it on text messages.
• LOLCat book – going through 850,000 images. Trying to find full res versions of each one. It’s a nightmare. We’re crazy.
• Q: Do you own cats? A: Yes. His name is AJAX. A: I’m a cat person, but I’m allergic. A: I’m allergic too. A: I don’t like cats.
• Q: Is there LOLPorn? A: (by girl panelist) The most common meme for that is “Do not want.”
• Last Q: Everone’s comments are really great. You can get cheap Viagra.