What do LOLcats and silent film have in common? More than you might imagine.

This week gnovis, an academic journal focused on new media and technology, published its Spring issue. According to the editor, this issue is particularly “cute.” From his overview:

“wants moar: visual media’s use of text in LOLcats and silent film,” by Jed R. Brubaker, continues the trend of comparative historical analysis of media forms, but using texts that are infinitely more… well… cute. LOLcats, popular on the Internet since 2007, are photos of housecats with comical captions. Brubaker’s analysis compares the captions used in LOLcats to intertitles from the silent film era.

Yes, this is my first solo publication at the graduate level, and I am thrilled that it is on something that never fails to make me smile. I am sure all of my friends are sick of LOLcats, but I secretly love it when they “happen to come up” and some unsuspecting individual gives me a blank stare. I am forced to whip out my phone and pull up an image.

That said, there is more than just “cuteness” going on here. This article is a modified version of a paper I posted in January, in which I…

…argued that the relationships between image and text in both LOLCats and silent films share striking similarities. Both captions and intertitles were introduced to augment and extend the possibilities of the visual content.

The interesting outcome of this longer format article (aside from more cats!) was a consideration toward the ways in which technology choices in cultural products shape the possible trajectories for movement inside mediums like silent film and LOLcats. Film has reinvented itself a number of times, and we all look forward to 3D immersive films in the future. But what is the future of the LOLcat? How far can it develop beyond an image and some text? The use of these pictures on Jones Soda was surprising, but aside from using LOLcats in other contexts, I doubt that they will ever reinvent themselves out of their current (albeit cute) format.

For today, enjoy a little bit of film and LOLcat history, and an analysis of visual media.

wants moar: visual media’s use of text in LOLcats and silent film