While You Were Offline: An Age-Old Enigma, Solved: Garfield Is a Boy … We Think

It's been such a crazy week in the real world—Oscar flubs! Presidential addresses! Nicole Kidman's clapping!—that keeping up with the virtual one has been a real pain. But that's why you come here, isn't it? To catch up on what you've missed? Here's everything that went down online while you were AFK.

What Happened: We know that Garfield loves lasagna. We know that Garfield doesn't like Mondays. We even know that Garfield can't stand Nermal. But you know what we didn't know for sure until this week? Garfield's gender.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: Citing an article from 2014, one brave man started something he didn't expect when he discovered that Garfield's creator, Jim Davis, once said that the cartoon cat was purposefully non-gendered:

What to do with this newfound knowledge? Why, share it with the world, of course…

That didn't sit well with everyone, however, as this tweet from two days later demonstrates:

Yes, that's right; there was a Wikipedia edit war over the gender of a cartoon cat that, let's be honest, you probably had never ever thought of as gendered anyway. How weird did it get? Let's check back in with Virgil.

Sheesh. No wonder this spilled over into the news. Indeed, the mainstream coverage of the story kicked everything to a new level on social media.

The ultimate verdict? Garfield is a male cat. But, you know, a cartoon male cat, so who really cares that much? Actually, we take that back; apparently, a lot of people care that much.
The Takeaway: Now that everyone knows his gender, it's time to move on to a bigger Garfield mystery.

What Happened: Someone put their feet on the White House furniture.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: Last week, President Donald Trump met with some leaders of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. That wasn't what got the internet's attention, though. Instead, it was this photo from the meeting:

Presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway's pose got a lot of people upset, it seemed, for a number of reasons:

Of course, not everyone was offended, with similarly diverse reasoning:

"Couchgate" quickly became a story where the reaction was the point: Were you outraged, and if so, what did that say about you? But, as with many internet outrages, it ended not too long after it began.

The Takeaway: We'll just leave you with this:

What Happened: Someone took a photograph of Alex Jones while he was shirtless, giving a dual thumbs up, and eating a plate of meat.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: Maybe you've heard of Alex Jones. He's a far-right radio host, conspiracy theorist, and, infamously, a man who once claimed the story of the Sandy Hook school shooting had "more holes in it than swiss cheese." He's also someone who might have been thanked by President Trump for contributing to his victory, who has boasted about advising Trump before the election and may, in fact, still be advising him now. So, who is this fascinating figure? German news outlet Der Spiegel tried to find out and, well, this happened:

We know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "What?" The answer, it turns out, is far stranger than you probably expected:

You bet that the internet had something to say about this.

(Don't worry: someone did that very thing.)

To the surprise of no one, the piece went viral. Note to any wonks hoping for lots of media attention over the next four years: the gauntlet has been thrown. You want people to talk to you? Get naked and start eating.
The Takeaway: Of course, not everyone was excited by this story getting so much attention.

What Happened: In a rare moment of online kindness, this week's biggest dog meme offered both puppies and affirmation.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: It all started with this tweet:

For those who can't quite make out what's going on in that image, it's pretty simple: You zoom in on the dog's nose, where there's text telling you to check out the bottom left of the image. There, there's more text suggesting you look at the top right of the image, which contains the text "You are beautiful." It was one of a number of similar images that appeared on social media this week:

Seeing as the internet is often an insulting, argumentative place to spend time, Twitter was thrilled to find something that just delivered joy.

Before too long, it became the hot new meme, but like all speedily viral memes, things got weirder the longer they continued:

Oh, internet. Can't you just let us have cute dogs and happy-making messages? Can't we have anything good?
The Takeaway: Every dog meme has its day.

What Happened: President Trump realized healthcare is far more involved than he originally thought.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports
What Really Happened: Remember when Trump was promising he would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on the first day of his presidency? And boasted that his replacement would cover "everybody"? Well, now that we're more than a month into his term, you might be wondering why the repeal has not yet come to pass. This week, Trump offered a quasi-explanation:

Wait. "Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated"? Really? Can we look at the tape?

Twitter was somewhat skeptical about Trump's read on the situation.

It wasn't just social media that zeroed in on the comments, either. Trump's words also got the media's attention, and at least one familiar face was unable to stop himself when asked for comment:

The Takeaway: Well, at least Bernie Sanders got to have some fun.