Ai haz bin. . . ahem, um. . .
I have been entertaining myself lately by digging through icanhascheezbuger.com. I suspect that I’m woefully naive or old or otherwise out of touch, but where does the lol word harblescome from? (And yes, I know it refers to sensitive boy parts.) My best guess is that it’s a contraction of “hairy balls”.
I dunno. I love that webpage but I can’t visit it anymore because it keeps freezing up my computers, both at home and at work. That makes me sad in my soul.
Well I’m not sure of first usage, though it’s certainly going to be on ICHCB, but it’s a pun on hairballs, which cats hork up.
See? Cats make hairballs, boy cats have balls ,also referred to as marbles, covered in hair -> Hairballs+marbles+lolspeak= Harbles.
It’s been doing that to me as well. The page just locks up. Very annoying…
The term was used on 4chan in cat macros long before ICHCB even existed. And it’s generally spelled “harbls.” Used correctly, it refers to hairy balls, as in testicles, not hairballs that are coughed up.
If Wikipedia is correct, 4chan was launched in Oct. 2003.
You can find the term in the information of a poster called “LivingRoomPornStar” in Google Groups from July 2002. http://www.tribemagazine.com/board/showpost.php?p=274963&postcount=15.
So, it obviously predates both 4chan and ICHCB.
Male genitalia are called Yarbles in Clockwork Orange. Maybe it’s a felinisation of that to work in a reference to hairballs.
The post is that old, but the Location line almost certainly isn’t. The poster’s information is updated dynamically.
That’s not to say the term isn’t that old… it’s just older than ICHCB.
Thanks. I didn’t consider that possiblity.
I appreciate the education. I think.
Nothing else to add except I’m also frustrated at not being able to surf the Cheezburger Network because the damn thing freezes my browser!
I think most fans of I Can Has Cheezburger? are happier with the true origins of cat macros (Something Awful and 4chan) remaining obscured to them.
