Get Your Degree in Memeology

A Masters in Memes: You are undoubtedly at least a little familiar with “lolspeak,” that grammatically insulting and overall ridiculous online dialect started by those darned Internet cats, lolcats. And of course this is not the only Web phenomenon you have heard of, I’m sure; the awls have spawned and spread so many Internet memes it’s hard to keep track of them all, let alone understand how and why things like pictures of cats accompanied by garbled English become so contagiously popular. Luckily the academic world is devoting some attention to the subject. Kate Miltner, a 29-year-old digital strategist left her job to become a student at the London School of Economics in order to study Internet memes in depth. Miltner isn’t the only one taking memes seriously. Other graduate students and independent research groups are trying to better understand the memespehre and its cultural implications.  The Independent

Netflix/Qwikster?: Did you get that bizarrely personal, kind of spilling-your-guts type of email from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings that started by addressing you by name and then opening with “I messed up. I own you an explanation”? Yeah, weird right? Almost as weird as Hastings’ announcement at the end of the email that Netflix would be separating its DVD-by-mail service and calling it “Qwikster.” Check out what the follow-up emails from an emotionally clingy home-entertainment-service CEO might look like, courtesy of HappyPlace. HappyPlace.com

Post-It Art of the Day: Wow, whoever did this has an impressive handle on the difficult medium that is post-it’s and an intimate understanding of the subject, Nyan Cat. They also have too much time on their hands and have wasted a lot of paper. The Daily What

Website of the Day: If you haven’t already checked out this website, you should. 27b/6 is humorist David Thorne’s site, which houses a collection of insanely obnoxious and equally hilarious posts. I can’t adequately describe the new heights of asshole humor that Thorn achieves in each of his posts and pranks—just read them. 27b/6