Cheezburger

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What Does Cheezburger Mean?

The word “cheezburger,” misspelled with a “z”, is based on the idea that cats, if they could write to humans, would have a primitive control of the English language, and would misspell most words. This kind of language has been called “lolspeak” after the phenomenon of “lolcatz” hit the Internet in the mid-2000s.

Techopedia Explains Cheezburger

The emergence of “lolspeak” and “cheezburger” can be traced to “I Can Haz Cheezburger,” a site set up in 2007. Content from the site has gone viral across the Internet and generated very popular memes, to much fanfare, with merchandise such as print books, T-shirts and plush toys. Over time, “lolcatz” became a prominent part of the Internet’s visual and comedic landscape. The site’s founders have compiled thousands of pictures with cute phrases that stemmed from the central premise of cats misspelling words in their communications with humans. Certain types of similar memes include “basement cat,” “ceiling cat,” “I see what you did there” and others.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.