I Can Has Clever Subgek Line?

I was never completely sold on the whole internet Lolcats /"I Can Has Cheezburger?" phenomenon, but at Salon.com, Jay Dixit (of Psychology Today) explains it in a way that makes sense to me. I guess. This theory in particular is cute:

The comic form is generally a prophylaxis against sentimentality. By articulating profound feelings through cats and marine mammals speaking garbled English, we're able to shroud genuine emotions in pseudo-irony — which means those animals can evoke deeper emotions without fear of mockery or cheapness.

One problem though. People who abhor sentimentality will still hate these captioned kitties. I fall somewhere in between. For instance, I never use 'LOL' in an email.*


* I did use it once, actually.