icanhascheezburger.com: the kitty site that's a phenomenon in UK!

London, Oct 21 : If you thought it's only shopping and porn sites that rule the internet, then you certainly need a reality check, for a cat themed humour site, called icanhascheezburger.com has become the latest fad among Britons.

The Seattle-based website, owned by Ben Huh, receives more than 8,000 cat pictures with insane captions everyday.

On the site, cat owners post pictures of their feline pets in various moods and provide with a caption in bold white lettering, misspelt in a language termed "lolspeak" or "pidgin kitty."

The site was founded by a between-jobs Hawaiian computer geek called Eric Nakagawa, which was later bought by Huh, a 35-year-old journalist, for 2 million dollars, reports Times Online.

This March, icanhascheezburger reached No 8 in a UK newspaper's 50 Most Powerful Blogs list and just last week, it was recording about 5.5 million hits every day.

Time magazine has called icanhascheezburger "no longer a subculture, just the culture", but it still retains some very cultish aspects.

However, Huh has claimed that despite the recent founding of a lolspeak dictionary, there are no real rules, but still certain customs have evolved.

The site is managing to be mainstream yet making its users feel as if they are part of an exclusive club.

Also, the childish language, or lolspeak is often mistaken for the textspeak of Generation Y, but its appeal goes far beyond millennials.

ANI