Some say porn fueled the early growth of the Internet. People got motivated to learn how to surf — and first became willing to use money online — in order to look at explicit videos and pictures.

But let us not forget the importance of LOLcats, the goofy, feisty, furry cats who crowd the Web with their adorable whiskers. People have spent chunks of their lifetimes looking at cat videos and at photos that have captions written in kitty pidgin — “Mai naym not Awww, mai naym Jeffree,” for example. The universe of LOLcats isn’t just an Internet novelty, my friends; it’s a full-blown subculture with its own rules and rituals, and it generates many millions of page views every day.