Since its inception, the Internet has acted as a breeding ground for the strange, outcast, and depraved members of society. Within these digital echo chambers, anonymous mobs form a twisted and obsessive “anti-worship” that can rocket these social pariahs into mythological infamy. But why does this happen? And what does it say about us that it does?
If you’ve ever been online and seen someone whose whole account made you cringe, then you’ve probably seen a lolcow. For the uninitiated, a lolcow is essentially the digital iteration of the town fool. They are “digital figures whose missteps, eccentricities, and tragedies are endlessly “milked” for laughs” (The Fox Files).
This “milking” takes the form of invasive, aggressive, and relentless trolling, clip-farming, and harassment by a faceless virtual mob. The “community” around lolcows is obsessive to an almost disturbing degree. They create subReddits, forums, and social media accounts dedicated to archiving every minute movement and action of these lolcows. They pour hundreds of thousands of their own dollars into encouraging their lolcow of choice, ensuring an endless stream of laughs. It would be no stretch to call what they do stalker behavior.
But if you asked many of these people, they wouldn’t call it bullying. Many lolcows aren’t just weird; they’ve often committed morally reprehensible acts like scamming, incest, abuse, racism, child grooming, and more. Therefore, the harassment and exposure are an act of “justice.” But is it really justice or something more insidious?
The origin of the lolcow
The term “lolcow” dates back to the early 2000s on old forums and content aggregation platforms like 4Chan, 8Chan, Reddit, Something Awful, Kiwi Farms, and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Although Kiwi Farms is credited for popularizing the term, its first recorded use is on Encyclopedia Dramatica in 2007.
Within this satirical Encyclopedia Dramatica entry, the heart of the issue is already apparent.
“A good Flame Warrior can turn even the most dignified poster into a lol-cow, dehumanizing them every step of the way. For some unknown reason, (With only a few exceptions) the lol-cow cannot break the cycle and regain their humanity” (Encyclopedia Dramatica).
The joy the lolcow produces for its audience is derived from the lolcow’s dehumanization. These people enjoy the depths of depravity and devastation that they can drag a lolcow down to. One can measure the value of a lolcow by degrees of absurdity. What is the craziest thing you can make them do or say? Just how far will they go? And can you push them further?
It’s worth noting that this absurdity is contingent on a lolcow’s susceptibility to exploitation and trolling. It should then come as no surprise that a vast majority of lolcows belong to vulnerable minority groups like the LGBTQ+ or neurodivergent communities. These vulnerabilities are also further exacerbated by issues like race, gender, and income/social class.
Lolcows throughout digital history
Due to the internet’s natural life cycle, new lolcows appear quite frequently. As the Internet becomes more popular and attention spans get shorter, it becomes easier to find new cannon fodder. Few, however, are able to cultivate levels of “anti-fandom” powerful enough to rise above the rest.
These are the unlucky few who have made the Internet history books. They are the ones that most commonly come up in conversation about lolcows and have a designated spot on most lolcow tier lists. (Yes, you read that correctly. There are many lolcow tier lists out there, if you wish to degrade your sense of humanity.)
Because people do not see these individuals as humans, they can treat them as characters. And just like any other form of entertainment, people develop favorites.
To save you the trouble of looking, here are a few notable figures worth mentioning:
- Chris Chan/Christine Chandler
- Daniel Larson
- Joshua Block/World of T-Shirts
- Tophia Chu
- Elphaba/Elphaba Orion Doherty
- Ash Trevino
- Cyraxx/Chance Wilkins
- King Cobra
- Boogie2988
- BossmanJack
- NovaOnline/Gabriel Gage
- YandereDev
- Tyler Catastrophe (Recent)
Even in this short list, there are clear patterns in the types of people the Internet obsesses over. And nowhere are those patterns more obvious than in the infamous Chris Chan.
The prototype: Chris Chan
Most Internet historians point to Chris Chan as the first official lolcow. The Internet watched in real time as Chris Chan went from a severely autistic middle schooler obsessed with Sonic and Pokémon to a delusional, bigoted, and manic adult charged with raping her own mother.
Chris Chan’s story is one laced with tragedy. While there is no excuse for her bigoted remarks and behavior, you cannot deny the Internet’s role in her downfall. She is a mentally disabled, heavy-set, trans woman with mountains of debt and a predisposition to delusions. And the Internet took every single one of those vulnerabilities and exploited them to the highest degree.
Trolls used all manner of deception, impersonation, and harassment to erode Chris’s already fragile sense of reality. Notable delusions that trolls encouraged include:
- There is a dimension where all fictional characters are real.
- There will come a day when the fictional character dimension and ours will merge together. And on that day, Chris will ascend to “godhood,” as the liaison between dimensions.
- Chris is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
- Listening to subliminals during her transition could grow her a vagina underneath her penis. (This caused her to try to cut into her penis in order to get to her “vagina,” leading to infection)
It is difficult to describe the intensity and enormity of the anti-fandom that consequently grew around Chris Chan. Self-labeled “Christorians” pride themselves on being experts on everything Chris. The premier encyclopedia on Chris Chan, CWCki, reads like something out of a Truman Show-esque nightmare.
Everything about Chris is tracked. Her public appearances, court documents, online activity, relationships, addresses, delusions, and more. Everything is compiled into neat articles for anyone’s perusal. And when you finish your stalking, the fun doesn’t end there. The community portals and Discord are right there, so you can bond over this mentally unwell individual with thousands of others like you.
The lifecycle of the lolcow
There are several phases that I believe define the creation of a lolcow. The sheltered nobody, the viral moment/the discovery period, the anti-cult of personality, the witch hunt/trial by fire, and the memeification.
Phase 1: The sheltered nobody
Most lolcows have simple beginnings. They’re usually people who carve out little corners of the Internet to pursue their goals/dreams. In Chris Chan’s case, she wanted a girlfriend. In the case of people like NovaOnline, Cyraxx, Daniel Larson, and Elphaba, they wanted to become famous creators and musicians.
Sometimes they even develop a tiny community around themselves. One of the more recent lolcows, Tyler Catastrophe, is a perfect example of this. Although people cringe at his “undeserved” confidence now, when he started, he had a reasonably supportive audience/comment section that encouraged his behavior.
If everything were right in the world, no lolcow would make it past the sheltered nobody phase. Every community has weirdos. Unless they’re actively harming others, the best way to handle them is to just let them live in their weirdness. But unfortunately, the world is not so kind.
Phase 2: The viral moment/discovery period
The viral moment is the best and worst thing that can happen to a lolcow. All it takes is one or two clips to gain traction before the lolcow rockets to fame. In the case of Tyler Catastrophe, it was him auditioning himself for the band LoveJoy and professing his undying love for Minecraft YouTuber, frontman, and infamous abuser, Wilbur Soot. In NovaOnline’s case, it was something as simple as a Wing Stop review on TikTok. Whatever the event, it puts more eyes on the creator than ever before.
The first wave of the viral moment is mostly gawkers. I’d call it the Internet equivalent of a crowd gathering around some guy freaking out in the town square. It’s not great. But it’s also a pretty normal human reaction to something weird happening.
The next wave is where the problem begins to spiral. These people are the detectives. They’re not willing to let well enough alone. They feel the need to dig up as much information as possible on the subject. During this stage, new controversial clips can surface several times a day, leading to even more gawkers.
And that influx of attention is the crux of the issue. Most lolcows have some form of cognitive impairment. Which means they do not, or cannot, differentiate between good and bad attention. Especially when it comes with increased social capital through followers, and sometimes real capital through donations. They think that because the farmer feeds them, they are loved. Most do not understand what is taken in return.
This creates the conflict of interest at the center of a lolcow’s existence. Can you accept the money and attention you desire if it comes at the expense of humiliation and harassment?
Phase 3: The anti-cult of personality
This phase is where the parasocial relationships pass the point of no return. Because of all the information ingested from phase 2, people feel they truly know the lolcow. And because of that, they feel that they have the right to discuss the topic and cast judgment as much as they please.
People build community in subReddits and forums dedicated to the lolcow. Factions form based on the inevitable discourse. The information from phase 2 is systematically archived and treated as a mix between character lore and a criminal case file. People know everything from the lolcow’s address history to how many drinks they’ve had in a day.
By this phase, the lolcow isn’t a person anymore. They’re a character to dissect and obsess over. This shift is vital in the formation of the lolcow. It marks the point where people allow themselves to treat the lolcow however they want. No one blinks twice at the abuse and torment a child inflicts upon a toy of their favorite character. And the lolcow is no different. People indulge in poking, prodding, and ripping them apart until they can’t physically take it anymore.
Phase 4: The witch hunt/trial by fire
The witch hunt/trial by fire is the dark companion to the discovery period. This is the phase where all the skeletons come out of the closet. And believe it or not, mentally unwell and disadvantaged people have a lot of skeletons to dig through.
The charges are simultaneously endless and repetitive. Endangerment of the public through poor hygiene, scamming, theft, child grooming, abuse (physical, mental, and financial), sexual assault and harassment, violence, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, incest, bomb threats, and pedophilia, to name a few. Worst of all, there are many lolcows who are guilty of not just one or two, but all of the above charges.
The more dirt the mob finds, the more entitled they feel to being judge, jury, and executioner (with an emphasis on executioner). I cannot stress enough how dark people get during this phase. Malicious catfishing, doxxing, and gang stalking are incredibly common tactics in these communities.
Ironically, their “punishments and retribution” only spur more offenses from the lolcow. Being pushed to their breaking point from the endless onslaught of harassment causes the lolcow to act out in even more extreme ways. Creating an endless cycle of offenses and punishment.
Phase 5: The memeification
Phase 5 is the nail in the coffin for the lolcow. They’ve been dehumanized past the point of being a character. Now they are nothing more than a living joke. Every single thing they say or do is cause for ridicule by virtue of it coming from them. Any ounce of autonomy they had over their lives is gone. Replaced by the whims of their voracious and cruel audience.
The memes and edits stop being callouts, and start being pure mockery.
There is no redemption from this point.
The history of the “freak”
Lolcows are not a new phenomenon. There is a long tradition of freaks and fools throughout history.
“For centuries, disability has been discursively and materially fashioned through frameworks of monstrosity or freakishness to demarcate a bodily and cognitive ‘otherness.’ …In medieval Europe, royals kept ‘natural fools’: developmentally disabled people whose mannerisms and relational interactions intended to delight and amuse the noble class. The enlightenment and Industrial Revolutions also manifested disability as entertainment through human zoos and freakshows…” (Lolcows and the mediation of digital freakshows).
In many ways, the witch hunts and scapegoats are of a similar vein. They are outcast figures that the community chooses to vent their grievances.
However, there is one key difference that separates the fools of old from the lolcows of now. And that is the Internet. We take many things about the Internet for granted. Namely, how it reinforces systems of discrimination and fascism, and its ability to collapse time and space.
In “Lolcows and the mediation of digital freakshows,” Rauchberg discusses at length how “algorithmic ableism” is integral to digital platforms. The platform logic itself “reproduces ableist ideas about value, capacity, and visibility into platform infrastructures and economies.” It is not a coincidence that the majority of lolcows are disabled. It is part of the design.
To the second point, modern audiences have unprecedented access to lolcows/freaks. In the past, there was at least separation. At the end of the show, the freaks and audience members alike could go home and live their lives. But the show never ends for the modern lolcow. Once a moment is recorded online, it lives forever. Their lives are always open for “public purview.” Their worst selves are immortalized, and their current selves face brutal scrutiny and surveillance.
The psychology and fascist influences of lolcow culture
Still, none of this answers the why. Why do people care this much? Why is any of this even a thing? It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a lot of this has to do with moral superiority complexes and ableism. People get off on other people’s misery because it gives them pride and confidence in their own lives. This is especially true if their object of torment has committed some kind of “wrongdoing”.
It’s cruelty and violence disguised as justice and morality. But I want to take it a step further. I believe lolcow culture provides a “morally defensable” avenue for people to vent their hatred of minorities. If it were any other situation, their actions would be condemned. But through lolcows, their bigotry can be not only normalized, but encouraged. So when they go on to hate a marginalized person who hasn’t even done wrong, it doesn’t feel that crazy.
For me, it all rings with echoes of mob lynchings in America. The people in these forums love to giggle and bond over their next sick plans to torment their lolcow. I wonder if what they feel might be similar to how those White people felt donning their white cloaks in the middle of the night. Do their anonymous screens feel as safe as those white masks? Are they feeling the same pride and self-righteousness flare in their blood while “enacting their justice”? All of those “club” meetings, secret signals, and “meetups” late into the night must have felt an awful lot like community, too.
It’s not a one-to-one. There’s a big difference between the falsely accused victims of the past and the convicted criminals we’re talking about today. And I’m not going to try to defend these people as if many of them aren’t fully grown adults, conscious of their actions. But I do ask you to think twice next time a lolcow clip passes your feed. Are you the audience at the circus, the jury, or another angry pitchfork in the mob?
