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[Note: I'm on semi-hiatus this week so original blogging will be light. I'm reposting stale old material that I hoped you missed, so that it will appear fresh and new.] 

Not long after Al Gore invented the internet, his wife Tipper uploaded a picture of the family cat launching one of the most ubiquitous trends in web culture. But over the past year, a strange subgenre called "lolcats" or "cat macros" has developed, turning a meme into a form of folk art.

As the Wikipedia entry explains, lolcats-- a portmanteau of "lol" and "cat"--are photos of cats with comedic captions created for the purpose of sharing with others on imageboards and other internet forums. The caption is characteristically formatted in a sans serif font such as Impact or Arial Black, usually in white letters with a black outline. (In fact, this type of lettering has come to define the genre, so much so that the use of other fonts and colors seem like a violation of an unwritten aesthetic code.) The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax featuring strangely-conjugated verbs. Despite the odd construction, the syntax has, as Anil Dash notes in a post on the topic, a "fairly consistent grammar."

The cats not only speak in a form of pidgin English (which makes the captions funnier) but they also tend to use "leetspeek", a written form of slang used primarily on the internet and online video games. David McRaney explains how this peculiar brand of folk art works as communication:

[A] fusion of sorts between learned, direct language and rapid, practical digital missives takes place with Leetspeak and macros. Both relay a great deal of information in a small burst of code. Each depends on the receiver of the information having working knowledge of the culture and its references. In a sense, these serve as argots, and help identify both sides of the information transfer as belonging to the subculture where they appear. The in-joke is part of the communication. The separation of ingroup and outgroup helps drive the rapid evolution of both leetspeak and macros.

The appeal of cat macros is that they can be enjoyed as folk art, even by those who are in the "outgroup." Listed below are a few of the various sub-genres:

Hanging on the walls of my office at work are several variations of Jasper Johns's paintings of the American flag. Few people ever comment, but I'm always curious how my colleagues perceive the paintings Do they think they're intended to be ironic, hyper-patriotic, merely decorative?

I also have no idea what Johns thought about the works or what he intended by the paintings. In fact, I've actively avoided finding out so that his artistic intent doesn't interfere with my own personal, peculiar interpretation. For me, seeing the Flags helps me to better see the Flag.

Normally when I look at an American flag I see -- an American flag. Although not consciously recognized, there is a certain semiotic understanding that the flag (a cloth with stars and stripes) is merely the signifier (the form the symbol takes) while the signified (the concept it represents) is America. Of course this leads to another level of recursion since "America" is also a sign that stands in for a variety of signified concepts, both tangible (our homeland) and intangible (our ideals).

When I look at Johns's Flags, though, I see something different: an abstract representation of an abstract symbol that itself represents abstract concepts. In looking at the paintings I no longer see "American Flag" but see past the symbol to what it represents. The paintings help me to "see" the authenticity of the flag in a way that I often miss when I encounter it flying on a flagpole.

Without Johns's painting to keep me focused, it would be easy for me to see the American Flag in a clichéd manner. This is why I was initially sympathetic to Barack Obama's claim that he doesn't wear the American flag lapel pin anymore because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Someone noticed I wasn't wearing a flag lapel pin but I am less concerned with what you are wearing on your lapel than what's in your heart… We have to lead on our values and our ideals.

He is absolutely right that the pins can be used as a substitute for a concept (patriotism) that has lost its meaning. But then I heard his explanation, and I realized there was something else going on. According to ABC News (via Marc Ambinder), Obama said:

Not long after Al Gore invented the internet, his wife Tipper uploaded a picture of the family cat launching one of the most ubiquitous trends in web culture. But over the past year, a strange subgenre called "lolcats" or "cat macros" has developed, turning a meme into a form of folk art.

As the Wikipedia entry explains, lolcats-- a portmanteau of "lol" and "cat"--are photos of cats with comedic captions created for the purpose of sharing with others on imageboards and other internet forums. The caption is characteristically formatted in a sans serif font such as Impact or Arial Black, usually in white letters with a black outline. (In fact, this type of lettering has come to define the genre, so much so that the use of other fonts and colors seem like a violation of an unwritten aesthetic code.) The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax featuring strangely-conjugated verbs. Despite the odd construction, the syntax has, as Anil Dash notes in a post on the topic, a "fairly consistent grammar."

The cats not only speak in a form of pidgin English (which makes the captions funnier) but they also tend to use "leetspeek", a written form of slang used primarily on the internet and online video games. David McRaney explains how this peculiar brand of folk art works as communication:

[A] fusion of sorts between learned, direct language and rapid, practical digital missives takes place with Leetspeak and macros. Both relay a great deal of information in a small burst of code. Each depends on the receiver of the information having working knowledge of the culture and its references. In a sense, these serve as argots, and help identify both sides of the information transfer as belonging to the subculture where they appear. The in-joke is part of the communication. The separation of ingroup and outgroup helps drive the rapid evolution of both leetspeak and macros.

The appeal of cat macros is that they can be enjoyed as folk art, even by those who are in the "outgroup." Listed below are a few of the various sub-genres:

What media has had the most influence on the conservative movement over the past forty years?

Various factions within conservatism will give widely differing responses. The old school intellectuals will have a short list that includes National Review, Bill Buckley's "Firing Line", Hayek's Road to Serfdom, and George Will's columns. The populist and paleocon wings will name Rush Limbaugh's radio show, Human Events, and CNN's Crossfire (Pat Buchanan-era). The more gullible (or cynical) might list books by Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly.

But the truth is that the vast majority of conservatives have never read Chamber's Witness or puzzled over what it means to "Immanentize the Eschaton." They don't subscribe to The Weekly Standard or The American Conservative. They didn't read the book that Goldwater didn't write (The Conscience of a Conservative) and never saw Buckley cuss out Gore Vidal on national TV.

So what media has influenced them the most? I offer three candidates for consideration: a book, a magazine, and a radio show. All three of which I believe have impacted American conservatism more than any other media.

°°°°°°

You might assume that An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's Oscar-winning PowerPoint presentation, was the first alarmist documentary on global warming by a celebrity. But that distinction actually goes to The Unchained Goddess (1958), a video produced by Frank Capra ("It's a Wonderful Life") and narrated by Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble, et al.). The video was first produced for Bell Labs for their television program "The Bell Telephone Hour."

Gore's apocalyptic claims are rather tame compared to those made by Dr. Frank Baxter. In an early scene Dr. Baxter--an English professor playing a scientist--explains the dangers that we face:

"It's been calculated that a few degrees rise in temperature would melt the polar ice caps. And if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion of the Mississippi valley. Tourists in glass-bottomed boats viewing the ground towers of Miami through one hundred and fifty feet of tropical water.

The animated map showing several states (including Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas) completely covered in water is the height of campy alarmist brilliance.

Like other Bell science films, The Unchained Goddess was shown in middle school science classes throughout the sixties. (Is it possible that Gore saw this film and had an eco-epiphany?) Hundreds of thousands of students were therefore made aware of the dangers of C02 emissions and melting icecaps. So why didn't they do anything about it? If the threat of Walt Disney World becoming Waterworld wasn't enough to scare the Baby Boom generation, why does Gore think we'll care now?

Other posts in this series: