LolRats

What Is A LolRat?

A lolrat, or rat macro, is a derivative from the extremely popular meme (web craze) lolcats (the most famous of which is undoubtedly icanhascheezburger.com).  They are essentially pictures of rats with a funny caption spelled really really badly.  Checkout my blogroll for more examples of different types of lolz.

Where Do I Start?

You simply start with a photgraph of a rat!  The funnier the better of course - rats in unusual situations/yawning/pulling faces/sticking their tongue out/waving… it’s all good stuff.  Cute is good too.  But they don’t have to be obviously funny - some very good lolrats can be made out of everyday situations, providing the captioning is good.

How Do I Caption It?

You need a paint programme on your computer ideally to do this, but the paint you get free with your computer works just as well!  Arial is the traditional font - black outline and white fill, and this will suit most captions, but feel free to go creative!  Just remember that some fonts if used badly can detract from the quality and clarity of your picture, just as a good font can add to it.

icanhascheezburger alos has a good caption-making machine which sometimes I use if I’m not on my home PC.  Just remember that if you submit it to icanhascheezburger (power to the rat!) the image will disappear from your screen, so save it before you submit.  This can be found here.

Or, if all else fails, you can email the pic and your desired caption and I’ll slap it on for you.  For clarification, I won’t then claim a credit for this :)  You’ll still be credited for having captioned the image.

OK - I Can Think Of A Funny Caption, But How Do I Turn It Into LolSpeak?

If you’ve managed to think of a funny caption then you’ve done the hardest part already.  That’s the really tricky bit and often involves ‘thinking outside the box’.  Once you’ve done that, it’s really just a matter of translation.

Some tips:

1. Imagine that the caption is being spoken by a foreigner who understands English fairly well but has trouble with pronouns, connectives, tenses and all those other things that make sentences flow.  Think about messing around with the pluralisation too.

2. Get your synonyms mixed up.

3. Throw in a little text-speak as well.

4. Occasionally replace letters with corresponding numbers i.e I becomes 1, E becomes 3.  Don’t over-do it though or it can get annoying.  Try to limit it to once or twice each caption at most.

5. Simplify complex spelling rules i.e. ight (as in right) become ‘ite’ (as in rite); ’ck’ becomes ‘k’ (i.e. ’stuck’ becomes ’stuk’.)

6. Only punctuate for emphasis

7. Do you need those extra letters?  Do you need those vowels?  Don’t render the caption unreadable though.

Some rules; the loldictionary

These rules are not hard and fast, but are considered traditional by most lol-renderers.  As well as traditional translations, there are also some traditional captions to accompany certain scenarios:

! = !!1! 

Am = ‘iz’ or ‘r’ (as in ‘I iz tired’ or ‘I r tired’) 

Goodbye = ‘kthnxbai’ (’Ok, thanks - bye!’) 

Hello = ‘Hai’ or ‘ohai’ (’hi’ or ‘oh, hi’)

Fear = ‘ph33r’ (’pheer’ = ‘fear’)

Foolish = phoolish

Help = ‘Halp’

Like = ‘liek’

My = ‘mah’ or ‘ma’ or ‘meh’ or ‘mai’

OK = ‘okai’, ‘kai’ or ‘kthnx’ (’okay’, ‘ ‘k’ or ‘OK, thanks’)

Oh dear = ‘oh noes!’ (’oh no!’)

Rat = ratteh (rattie)

Really? = o rly?

Say/Said = ’ses’ or ’sez’

Seriously = srsly

Testicles = ‘harbulz/hrbllz’ or ‘tezzrcls’ (’hair-balls’ or ‘testicles’)

The = teh (due to fast typists getting their letters mixed up) or ‘da’

I Can’t Think Of A Caption - What Should I Do?

That’s ok.  You can send it to me and I’ll caption it (which will probably mean your picture doesn’t appear on the site immediately) or, if I’m stumped too, I’ll open it up to Lord Shamisen and selected friends.  Between us, we’ll do your picture justice.

Then What?

Either click on the links (there are 2) in my sidebar and email it to me, or if you know me on the fancy-rats.co.uk forum you can PM me your pictures.  I will crop, enhance and sort out your image if needs be.  Please let me know how you’d like me to credit you, and if you would like me to link to your site.

When Will My Picture Appear On The Site?

Oooh, it all depends.  I try to put up 5-6 pictures each day and, when I do, I do try to keep the submissions varied.  If you’ve submitted a picture already captioned it is likely to appear on the site faster but, if not, then there is no timescale.  At the time or writing I have about 150 uncaptioned images to work on!

Who Will Own The Copyright?

If the image is yours, regardless of who has captioned it or who owns the rat etc in the image, then you will retain ownership of the image.  However, if the animal in the shot does belong to someone else then it would be preferable for you to ask them if they can submit the picture first.

If you have taken the image from an image sharing website such as sxc.hu then these images are in public domain and therefore you do not own the copyright - however, you are able to use these images as long as you inform me where you found the image, so I can link back correctly.

If you have found the image via a random crawl of the internet you MUST NOT submit the image as your own.  If I suspect this is the case then I’m afraid that I will not accept the image on this site - I don’t want my ass sued off!

Can I Tell People If My Picture Appears Here?

Please do! The whole point of the LolRats site is to make people laugh, and the more people who see this site the more the laughter spreads! Plus, why shouldn’t you want to show off your lols?

Can I Use Any Of The Pictures That Appear Here On My Own Website?

Hmm, a slightly trickier one. Whilst it’s fine to link to the site or maybe even post one of the pictures onto a forum or blog in order to show friends, you certainly cannot use any of these pictures on your own website (unless they have been submitted to you by the creator seperately). The only exception would be for images that belong in the public domain - these are demarcated by a reference to sxc.hu or some other image-sharing website. However, in these instances, you are not allowed to copy the image as they appear on this site i.e. with caption.