It’s 2007. You're sitting in a cramped computer chair, the hum of a bulky monitor filling the room. You open a browser, and there it is. A grey, slightly chubby British Shorthair looking directly into your soul with a simple, grammatically disastrous request: "I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?" It was ridiculous. It was nonsensical. And honestly, it changed the entire trajectory of how we communicate online.
We take memes for granted now. They’re the background noise of the digital age. But before the TikTok's and the Reels, there was the "LOLcat." This wasn't just a funny picture of a cat; it was the birth of a cultural behemoth. Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami, the creators behind the original post, didn't set out to build a media empire. They just wanted to share something that made them laugh. But the internet had other plans. People didn't just look at the cat; they started making their own. Within months, Can I Has Cheezburger became a hub for a specific brand of digital joy that felt authentic, weird, and deeply human.
The Accidental Empire of LOLcats
The "Happy Cat" image actually predates the website. It was an existing image from a Russian cat food brand's promotion. But the captioning? That was the magic sauce. The specific "lolspeak" dialect—deliberately misspelled, phonetically driven, and ignoring every rule of English grammar—gave these animals a voice. It felt like how a cat would actually talk if it had access to a keyboard and a very limited understanding of syntax.
By the time Ben Huh and his investment group, Pet Holdings, bought the site for $2 million in 2007, it wasn't just a blog anymore. It was a proof of concept. It proved that user-generated content wasn't just a hobby; it was a business model. While traditional media was still trying to figure out how to put newspapers on the web, Huh was building a network of sites like FAIL Blog, I Has a Hotdog, and The Daily What.
They tapped into something primal. Humans have been obsessed with cats since Ancient Egypt, but the internet turned that obsession into a global currency. The site wasn't polished. It was messy. It looked like the early web because it was the early web. That lack of corporate sheen is exactly why it worked. You weren't being sold a product; you were participating in a joke that everyone was in on.
Why Lolspeak Actually Matters
Linguists actually started studying this. No, seriously. People like Gretchen McCulloch, author of Because Internet, have noted how "lolspeak" was one of the first sophisticated examples of internet-native language. It wasn't just "bad spelling." It had rules. You used "z" for plurals. You used "ceiling cat" to represent a benevolent deity and "basement cat" for the opposite.
It was a code. If you understood the grammar of Can I Has Cheezburger, you belonged to a specific tribe. This was the precursor to the way we use "doge" speak or the specific irony of modern Gen Z slang. It was the first time the internet collectively decided to break English to better express emotion.
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The Business of Being Funny
When Ben Huh took over, he did something radical for the time. He leaned into the community. Most websites back then were "top-down"—the editors picked what you saw. Cheezburger was "bottom-up." Users submitted the photos. Users voted. The front page was a meritocracy of the absurd.
By 2010, the Cheezburger Network was pulling in over 370 million page views a month. That’s staggering. To put that in perspective, they were competing with major news outlets for eyeballs, and they were doing it with pictures of cats stuck in bread slices.
- They published books that became New York Times bestsellers.
- They launched a reality TV show on Bravo called LOLwork.
- They secured $30 million in venture capital funding in 2011.
But growth has a price. As the site grew, the internet started to change. The "walled gardens" of Facebook and Twitter (now X) began to swallow the open web. People stopped going to specific hobby sites and started getting their memes delivered in a never-ending feed. The decentralized nature of the early 2000s web was dying, and Can I Has Cheezburger had to figure out how to survive in an era where cats were everywhere.
The Great Meme Shift
The mid-2010s were rough for the original meme kings. Video became the dominant format. A static image with "Impact" font started to look "cringe" or "normie" to the new generation of internet users. The site went through layoffs and restructuring. Ben Huh eventually stepped down.
Yet, the site didn't vanish. It survived because it pivoted. It stopped trying to be the only place for memes and started being a curated home for them. It leaned into nostalgia while also embracing the newer, weirder styles of humor that define the current era. It’s a survivor. In an internet landscape where sites like Gawker or Television Without Pity disappeared or transformed beyond recognition, Cheezburger is still there, still posting cats.
Why We Still Care About a Fat Grey Cat
There is a psychological comfort in the "I Can Has Cheezburger" era. It represents a "Small Town Internet." Before the algorithms were tuned to make us angry for engagement, and before everything was a political battleground, we just had cats.
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The site provided a template for digital empathy. You see a cat looking sad because it has no cheezburger, and you relate to that. It’s universal. It’s a low-stakes way to share a human feeling.
Misconceptions About the Site
A lot of people think the site died years ago. It didn't. It's actually still a massive traffic driver, though its influence is more subtle now. Others think it was just about cats. In reality, it was the first "Content Farm" that actually cared about its community. It pioneered the "upvote/downvote" system before Reddit became the giant it is today.
People also forget how much it influenced political discourse. During the early days of internet activism, memes were the primary weapon. The formatting and "remix culture" championed by Cheezburger laid the groundwork for how information—both good and bad—spreads today.
Navigating the Legacy
If you go to the site today, it’s a different beast. It’s a mix of listicles, trending Twitter threads, and yes, still some cats. It has adapted to the "attention economy" where you have to hook a reader in three seconds or lose them forever.
But the core DNA remains. It’s still about the "LOL."
When we look back at the history of the 21st century, Can I Has Cheezburger deserves a chapter. Not because it was high art, but because it was the first time we all looked at the same screen and laughed at the same thing. It was the glue of the early social web.
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Next Steps for the Meme Enthusiast:
If you want to understand the current state of internet culture, you have to look at its roots. Start by visiting the "Classic" archives of the site to see how humor evolved from simple captions to complex, multi-layered irony.
For creators, the lesson of Cheezburger is clear: Community is more important than the content itself. You can have the funniest picture in the world, but if you don't give people a way to participate, it’s just a picture. Encourage "remixing." Give your audience the tools to make your joke their own.
Finally, check out the "Know Your Meme" database entries on LOLcats. It provides a technical breakdown of how these specific images spread through 4chan and IRC before hitting the mainstream. Understanding the "Why" behind the "LOL" is the first step in mastering the digital landscape of 2026.
Keep your content weird. Keep it human. And maybe, just maybe, you can has cheezburger too.