kicking puppies is bad

I admit that I have purposely been avoiding the lolcat phenomenon. I have repeatedly encountered the fuzzy kitten images accompanied by their horrible “leetspeak” in various places on the interweb. I didn’t understand them. I didn’t really want to understand them.

Today benjjuk wrote a journal entry about lolcats and the absurdity of their wikipedia article. I decided that maybe it was time that I tried to understand lolcats. So I visited wiki, and typed in ‘lolcats’. The entry was mildly disturbing. I visited ICanHasCheezburger.com for the first time (also mildly disturbing). I visited the wiki linked Wall Street Journal editorial claiming that, “What makes lolcats appealing is that it’s simultaneously obscure and accessible”. How exactly are lolcats “obscure”? Despite my efforts, I still don’t “get” lolcats.

But in my search for understanding, I came across something that was far more disturbing. Someone has created LOLCODE. This is probably “old news” to everyone else. But since I have been actively avoiding the lolcat phenomenon, I somehow missed the creation of LOLCODE (a programming language based on lolcat “leetspeak”). The following simple example displays the numbers 1-10 and terminates.

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
UP VAR!!1
VISIBLE VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

There are no words to describe my confusion. Why? Why would someone do that? Adam Lindsey (LOLCODE creator) you are evil. EVIL.