No matter what people say about the importance of social networking or e-commerce, the Internet's true forte will always be in finding creative ways to waste time and bringing them to the masses. One of the more popular new distractions on the web is known as lolcats ("lol" as in "laughing out loud"). Lolcats are pictures of cats with large, grammatically incorrect captions. Websites collect and show them, www.icanhascheezburger.com being the most popular.

Describing the photos in words seldom does justice to their complex, nuanced nature; however, one of the simpler ones - the picture that spawned the website's bizarre name - gives some insight into the lolcats phenomenon. In it, a fat gray cat with big yellow eyes sits on his hind legs. His mouth is open in what looks like a smile, with head tilted earnestly. The caption, in large, Arial print reads, "I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?"

Most lolcats photos are this weird, or more so. The absurdity factor makes it hilarious to some, annoying to others. But the movement has enough followers that icanhascheezburger.com reportedly receives more than a quarter of a million hits a day. And, like all great trends, lolcats has inspired knockoffs. There are now websites devoted to lolpresidents, lolbrarians (lol librarians), loldogs, lolgeeks, and lolgays.

If all of this seems like one big Internet in-joke, that's probably because it is; many of the captions for lolcats pictures come from previously existing jokes by Internet gamers. Still, you don't really have to get them to laugh, since goofy cat pictures are funny in their own right, and because some of the captions are more universally, if subversively, clever. (For instance, a picture of a cat with an enormous, oval-shaped belly with the caption "I had a wutermlon...but I eated it" is the sort of visual joke that lolcats does best.)

If you need a distraction at work, there are 79 pages of these things dating back to January of this year. But, if you're not a cat person, relax - given the average length of internet trends, there should be a new one soon.