# Lolrus
Lolrus is an image macro built around photos of Minazo, a southern elephant seal at Japan's Enoshima Aquarium who posed with a blue bucket. After the two-panel 'I Has A Bucket / Noooo they be stealin' my bucket' macro spread in early 2007, it became one of the foundational LOLcat-era pinniped memes.
## Origin
The subject of the macro is Minazo, a 4.5-meter, roughly two-ton southern elephant seal brought from Uruguay to Enoshima Aquarium in Fujisawa, Japan in 1995. His signature trick was clutching a bucket in one flipper while sticking out his tongue during his three-a-day shows[1]. Minazo died on October 4, 2005, at age 11 after his appetite abruptly failed[4].
The earliest known 'I has a bucket' posting of Minazo appeared on a YTMND page by user ZombiePirate on July 24, 2006, set to the theme from 'The Price is Right'[2]. On December 23, 2006, Flickr user T-Bisqit uploaded the now-canonical two-panel macro pairing the bucket photo with an aquarium employee reaching in, captioned 'Noooo they be stealin' my bucket'[2].
- **Platform:** YTMND / Flickr (viral spread)
- **Creator:** Flickr user T-Bisqit
- **Date:** 2006
## Overview
Lolrus works as a two-panel image macro that tells a tiny tragicomic story in broken LOLcat English. The top panel shows Minazo cradling a blue bucket against his belly with his tongue out, captioned 'I Has A Bucket,' while the bottom panel shows an aquarium keeper reaching for the bucket, captioned 'Noooo they be stealin' my bucket'[1]. The joke lives in that whiplash between contentment and outrage, delivered in the same misspelled voice popularized by I Can Has Cheezburger.
Although Minazo was an elephant seal, the meme fandom rebranded him as a walrus, and the term 'lolrus' spread as a catch-all for any pinniped reaction image[3]. The format also gave rise to a whole sub-genre of bucket-themed macros featuring seals, sea lions, and manatees, always centered on the pathos of a lost or stolen bucket[2].
## How It Spread
The macro broke out on January 4, 2007, when I Can Has Cheezburger featured 'I Has A Bucket,' a post that later racked up more than 3,900 Facebook shares[2]. A single-serving site, IHasABucket.com, followed on February 6, 2007, and Urban Dictionary user Chupac added a 'lolrus' entry on April 24, 2007 defining it as 'a walrus who has lost a bucket'[3]. By September 12, 2007, the character was recognizable enough to appear as a category in a 4chan /b/ Jeopardy thread[2].
On January 27, 2008, humor blog Neatorama published a belated tribute after mistakenly reporting Minazo's death as recent, then correcting the post to note he had died in 2005. The piece linked out to the 'Complete Walrus Bucket Saga' and helped canonize the character beyond the Cheezburger orbit[1]. I Can Has Cheezburger returned to the character on December 15, 2010 with 'The Story of the Lolrus,' a fictionalized biography built around notable bucket macros. The meme kept a long tail on Tumblr under the #lolrus and #i has a bucket tags, and a Facebook fan page had passed 1,800 likes by August 2012.
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Lolrus?
Lolrus is a 2006-era image macro of a bucket-holding elephant seal named Minazo, usually paired with the caption 'I Has A Bucket' and a follow-up panel about someone stealing it[1].
### Where did Lolrus come from?
The macro comes from photos of Minazo at Enoshima Aquarium in Japan, first captioned on a YTMND page in July 2006 and codified as a two-panel Flickr upload by user T-Bisqit that December[2].
### What does Lolrus mean?
'Lolrus' is a portmanteau of 'lol' and 'walrus,' defined on Urban Dictionary in April 2007 as 'a walrus who has lost a bucket,' even though the animal in the photos is technically an elephant seal[3].
### How do you use Lolrus?
People typically post the two-panel 'I Has A Bucket / Noooo they be stealin' my bucket' macro to react to petty theft or minor injustice, or build new bucket-themed captions on other pinniped photos[2].
### Is Lolrus still popular?
Lolrus is a classic LOLcat-era macro rather than a currently trending format, though it kept a steady tail on Tumblr under #lolrus and #i has a bucket and on a Facebook fan page that passed 1,800 likes by 2012[1].
## References
1. [https://www.neatorama.com/2008/01/27/walrus-found-stolen-bucket-kicked-it/]()
2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lolrus]()
3. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lolrus]()
4. [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2005/10/07/national/popular-enoshima-aquarium-seal-dies-after-10-1-2-year-run/]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/lolrus
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