Necro-ing this because it's a topic that's been on my mind, and the thread popped up in the "Similar threads" feature when I went to post a new thread about the same thing. Some excellent discussion has been taking place here. I especially enjoy how the discussion has evolved over the years, as more and more lolcows were discovered and documented and the list of common traits became ever shorter and more specific.
Lolcows are a diverse bunch. They do not have any one race, gender, age, political affiliation, or profession. Not all of them are, nor claim to be, disabled or mentally ill. Not all of them are sexual degenerates. Not all of them are litigious or otherwise openly hostile to onlookers. Not all of them can even be said to be unintelligent, though perhaps all of them can be said to be foolish, and I will get into that.
However, while lolcows do not have anything physically in common with one another (other than being human beings who have not yet shuffled off this mortal coil) they do share some common attributes. The list of common attributes shared by every lolcow is quite short, but I've not seen any deviations from it. All of the following traits were discussed in previous posts in the thread, but I'll pull them together here.
All lolcows have:
- A vastly overinflated sense of self-worth. I'm putting this one first because I feel like every single other trait hinges upon it in some way. I have never once seen a lolcow who didn't think they were a precious little angel made up of perfectly-formed snowflakes whose existence is a gift to all of human civilization. This attribute does not always manifest directly as a symptom of a diagnosed mental illness, but it always exists, whether or not the lolcow is officially insane.
- A strong online presence. Every lolcow is a heavy and public internet user, which is why we wind up knowing so much about them. If Chris-chan was just some weirdo who played with LEGO bricks and drew with crayons and didn't post any of his shit online, he would never have been noticed nor documented. Similarly, even if John Bulla is sharing his pod in the loony bin with 30 other aging schizophrenic sex pests who run around with their dicks hanging out and huge, empty smiles glued on their faces while loudly fantasizing about which random pop starlets they want to have sex with, none of those people are lolcows because none of them are given regular unrestricted access to the web. In order for us to get information about a lolcow, we need to have easy access to information about them, mostly provided directly by them. This trait arises in part from the overinflated sense of self-worth, because people who are aware that their shit stinks generally don't smear their shit across the entire internet.
- An inability to learn, grow, or otherwise improve in any way. People who post on the internet too much and think that everything they post makes the internet a better place are common. Additionally, everybody fucks up now and again, and people who dump their entire lives on the internet usually expose their occasional fuckups too. However, most people who are smart enough to use the internet also understand cause and effect well enough to respond in some meaningful way when something bad happens as a consequence of their behavior. For some people this response is to stop doing the thing that caused the negative consequences; for some people this response is to take a better, more careful approach to the thing they fucked up on; for some people this response is to re-evaluate their approach to life; for some people this response is withdraw from the public eye so as to avoid negative attention. Lolcows are special in that no matter how many times they fuck up in the same (or substantially the same) way, they never, ever learn. A lolcow is a person who walks out of his house every morning, steps on the same rake in the same spot every morning, fumes angrily that he was hit in the face every morning, and never once thinks to move the rake or take a different route or watch his step more closely. Any time a lolcow does wise up and improve his behavior so as to stop fucking up, he stops being a lolcow. This trait arises in part from the overinflated sense of self-worth, because people try to admonish lolcows of the risks of their behavior all the fucking time, only to be cheerfully ignored and/or spat at because fuck you, I know what I'm doing you dumb troll.
- At least one more critical personality flaw aside from the above. This one is a wildcard, and I find it to be more debatable than the others. This one's the spice. This is what makes a particular lolcow unique, and it can take many forms. Many lolcows have more than one such flaw, and my take is that in general, the more severe flaws a lolcow has, the more entertaining they are. Such flaws may include but are not limited to:
- Arrested mental and emotional development (e.g. Chris-Chan, MovieBob)
- Addiction to mind-altering substances (e.g. Ethan Ralph, Lowtax)
- Sexual deviance rising to the level of criminality (e.g. Jonathan Yaniv, everyone in Animal Control)
- Dangerously high levels of physical and/or electronic and/or legal aggression (e.g. Jonathan Yaniv, Russell Greer, Ethan Ralph, the mountain jews)
- Addiction to consumer goods (e.g. Lou Gagliardi, MovieBob)
- Autism (e.g. Chris-Chan, orbiters of Chris-Chan)
- Schizophrenia (e.g. Terry Davis, John Bulla, Fedsmoker, basically all the cool lolcows who get taken from us too soon)
- A lethally high degree of gluttony (e.g. Lou Gagliardi, Amberlynn Reid, all the deathfats)
- Having one's entire life revolve around the notion they're magically trapped in the wrong body (e.g. otherkin, troons)
- A pathologically high degree of dishonesty (e.g. KhordKitty, Lou Gagliardi, Amberlynn Reid, basically all the deathfats)
- Profound sociopathy (e.g. Jonathan Yaniv, MovieBob, Russell Greer)
- Laziness to the point of resembling a humanoid slime mold (e.g. Lowtax)
I'm not being anywhere near comprehensive with these examples of traits nor of people with said traits. But a lolcow without any additional fucked up shit about him is generally just bland and uninteresting, in my view. Still, I expect this point to be more contentious.
