I Can Has Cheezburger?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| I Can Has Cheezburger? | |
|---|---|
 |
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| URL | http://www.icanhascheezburger.com |
| Type of site | Blog |
| Owner | "Cheezburger" and "Tofuburger" |
| Created by | "Cheezburger" and "Tofuburger" |
| Launched | January 2007 |
| Revenue | Advertisement |
I Can Has Cheezburger? (ICHC for short) is the name of a blog featuring lolcats, amongst other animals, and was created by Eric Nakagawa (Cheezburger), a blogger from Hawaii, and his partner, Kari Unebasami (Tofuburger). The website is one of the most popular lolcat sites on the internet,[1] receiving as many as 1,500,000 hits per day.[2] [3] ICHC was instrumental in bringing animal based image macros and lolspeak into mainstream usage.[4]
ICHC was created on January 11, 2007, when Nakagawa posted an image from Something Awful of a smiling grey cat with a caption of the cat asking, "I can has cheezburger?" (sic). It is from this image that the site derives its name. After posting similar images, Nakagawa then converted the site to a blog.[3]
ICHC's content is submitted by the site's readers, and hosts "the cheezburger factory", a lolcat builder that allows users to create their own lolcats. The number of submissions has risen dramatically with the growth of the site. In July 2007, ICHC received as many as 500 submissions per day.[5] By January 2008, the average was over 8000.[4] Only about a dozen or so submissions per day are posted to the website,[1] while updates are timed to coincide with when readers are most likely to be visiting the site - morning, lunch time and evenings.[3] As of early 2008, ICHC gets about 2 million page views per day.[6]
The site attempts to maintain a community feel, encouraging interactivity with readers via a voting system where users can rate an image from one to five "cheezburgers", and through running themes as one image will spawn responses into a running narrative. According to Nakagawa, "It's like you're creating a story supplied by people in the community, and then the people in the community supply the next part of the story."[3]
ICHC also hosts a wiki called "Speak lolspeak" designed to be a collection of key lolspeak phrases.
Although the site features mostly cats, occasionally other animals such as rabbits and walruses have made appearances. There is also a sister-site entitled "I has a Hot Dog!" which features Loldogs.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Rutkoff, Aaron (2007-08-25). With 'LOLcats' Internet Fad, Anyone Can Get In on the Joke. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
- ^ Huh, Ben (2008-03-09). SXSW 2008 Panel LOLWUT? Why Do I Keep Coming Back to This Website?. Rocketboom. Retrieved on 2008-03-16.
- ^ a b c d Tozzi, John (2007-07-13). Bloggers Bring in the Big Bucks. Buisness Week. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
- ^ a b Steel, Sharon (2008-02-01). The cuteness surge. The Phoenix. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
- ^ Grossman, Lev (2007-07-12). Creating a Cute Cat Frenzy. Time Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
- ^ Wortham, Jenna (2008-04-25). Behind the Memes: Kickin' It With the I Can Has Cheezburger? Kids. Wired Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
