Two Ways of Seeing the Same LOL
I re-read Hank Wasiak’s Change the Way You See Everything recently which is about differences between asset-based thinking (ABT) and deficit-based thinking (DBT). The core message of the book is that people who look what life has (assets) as opposed to what life is missing (deficits) are happier and more successful. I really like the message of asset-based thinking, and have been working to adapt the way I think to it.
The title reminds me of another book I read some time ago called How to See by George Nelson. If you don’t know George Nelson, he was one of the founders of modern American design. Some people just have the gift of seeing the world in a different an unique way.
I mention this because I saw something differently the other day. This LOL was on the homepage of I Can Has Cheezburger?:
and it gave me a little smile, but not a real laugh-out-loud. What I caught my eye was not the cat, but Marvin the Martian in the background, looking angry and frustrated.
What I like about LOLcats (and New Yorker cartoons) is that they tell a story, but only one frame of the story…the rest is up to the imagination of the reader. I imagined a different story:
Interestingly, I’m the only person who saw it that way because if you look at all the LOLs made with this picture, none of them address Marvin in the background. [Update: when I created this LOL, only 9 LOLs had been created from this picture. As of 9/28/2009 at 4pm, there are 127!]