» Kate Miltner Writes LOLCats Dissertation For The London School Of Economics

After extensive research and six focus groups, what she found was “how seemingly trivial pieces of media – pictures of cats with captions – can act as meaningful conduits to central elements of our humanity.

Well, obviously. I’ve only skimmed the dissertation so far. The questions asked of her focus group members include:

• Do you actively engage with lolcats (i.e., seek them out) or passively engage with lolcats (i.e., friends send them to you)?
• Approximately how often do you engage with Lolcats?

The concept of “Lolcat engagement” is a new one.