Baroo?

As an animal lover I consider it my duty to spend at least one hour a day fawning over baby animals doing silly things. As you’ve probably been able to tell from my previous posts, I take a lot of breaks from work doing useless things like reading about Paris Hilton, exploring new magazine options, and obsessing over Eric Cartman and the rest of the South Park kiddos. In any case, if you find yourself needing a little pick-me-up, check out Cuteoverload.com. At first it may seem strange, but you’ll get sucked in, I promise. These people are hardcore about cute things, and have even developed their own language of cuteness, including words like baroo and muzzlepuff (admit, you’re curious now, aren’t you?). There’s even a glossary of terms if you get confused. The website won a Webby Award (People’s Voice Winner) for 2006, and has links to other websites dedicated to all things cute and fuzzy (although the rest pale in comparison, trust me).

How it works: fans and friends of the website send submissions, their own and ones floating about the web, to website creator Meg Frost who decides which images make the cut. Frost then comes up with terribly witty captions that only enhance the cute factor. The images are separated into categories by animal: birds, bunnies, farm animals, hedgehogs!, kitties, et cetera. The site gets about 55,000 visitors a day! Although they report that “an estimated 4/5 of our audience are fine, fine women,” Washington Post’s Frank Ahrens admits that the website has convinced him that cute isn’t just for little girls.

Also, it was voted the #1 Mood Lifter by Time, and if that doesn’t convince you to check out the website, you’re lame.