Image macro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Not to be confused with macro photography.
An image macro of Johann Sebastian Bach.

In Internet culture, an Image macro is an image superimposed with text for humorous effect.[1]

Etymology and usage[edit]

The term "image macro" originated on forum websites.[2] The name derived from the fact that the "macros" were a short bit of text a user could enter that the forum software would automatically parse and expand into the code for a pre-defined image.[2] This in turn related to the computer science topic of a macro, defined as "a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped to an output sequence (also often a sequence of characters) according to a defined procedure".

Beginning in 2007, lolcats and similar image macros (a form of Internet phenomena) spread beyond the initial communities who created them and became widely popular.[1]


Although they come in many forms, the most common type of image macro is a photograph with large text superimposed in Impact font, using all upper-case letters and coloured white with a thick black outline.[citation needed] Exaggerated, intentional spelling errors are also used frequently for humorous effect.[citation needed]

One of the more famous image macros is "O RLY?" O RLY is often used on the internet as an abbreviation for the phrase "Oh, really?" Originally started with a snowy owl photograph (which is the classic O RLY image macro),[3] it spread out over the Web quickly and was followed by other macros that convey a wide range of emotions. Another style of image macro that has amassed its own separate subculture is the "lolcat", an image combining a photograph of a cat with text intended to contribute humour. The text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, and its use in this way is known as "lolspeak" or "kitty pidgin".[4]

See also[edit]

