I'm in ur language lab, confuzing ur linguistz

For a while, I've been noticing the cat macro (lolcat) popping up on people's flists - though I have the impression that the spate is slackening. Be that as it may, here are a couple of interesting speculations about the linguistic significance of the mangled English, or rather the manner in which it's mangled:

This one also has some interesting background info about various internet picture macros which was new to me - I certainly didn't know that the O RLY? picture really did originate with the snowy owl).

Mark Liberman at Language Log reacts to the previous post here, suggesting that it's not so much a pidgin as baby language. Actually, of course, it's netspeak and thus more associated with teenagers than anything else, although there may be a parallel 'infantilize the cute animal!' process going on.