My son recently introduced me to lolcats via icanhascheezburger.com . Lolcats humor is like the first time you walk in on people reciting a Monty Python routine. Some of the jokes are immediately funny, but sometimes it feels like “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,”—uh, I don’t get it. It’s only after repeated exposure that you begin to understand the rhythms and references. You have to learn the rules—the fonts, the spellings, the subgenres within lolcats—before you can see what’s so funny–or not. It’s another example of how much we humans love form. A sort of visual limerick. A game.
Just Musing
Ah lye kit! M kittehs so funneh!
I won’t even try to write in LOLcat diction. But I’ve been oddly fascinated by the phenomenon ever since I read the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcats) – the entry was having its removal debated, and I took the rare step of entering the discussion fray, arguing strongly for its inclusion. (Then again, I am a Wikipedia inclusionist by nature.)
Your points about form are dead on… part of the reason I won’t try to mimic the style.
Interestingly, though I am a comedy freak, and am not above quoting my fave lines (and dig Python in a big way), I never do Python routines and almost never find it funny when others do either.
http://xkcd.com/c16.html
Python routines: allusion run amuck