Lolcows in Fiction (Books, TV, Movies, etc.)

[Darwin Watterson]

I think Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants was mentioned a while back, but Spongebob himself is (presumably) an adult, yet acts like a hyperactive child most of the time, his fanatical devotion to Mr. Krabs and the Krusty Krab reeks of :autism:.

There's an episode where Mr. Krabs is legally required to give him some vacation days and being away from the Krusty Krab causes him to chimp the fuck out. Other episodes have had similar chimpouts, like the one where he was told that he was doing a good job in an employee evaluation. He figured that surely there must be something he could improve upon, and pushed for more criticism. However, upon being halfheartedly told that "you're using too much sauce" he has an emotional breakdown even though he himself wanted the criticism.

He's also completely incompetent at pretty much anything that isn't making Krabby Patties or blowing bubbles, as he's tried and failed to get his driver's license hundreds of times. Unlike Squidward, however, his lolcowdom doesn't come from delusions of grandeur. He's just a naive manchild who doesn't (intentionally) do anything to hurt anybody else.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Tom Bombadil is a lolcow. He's supposedly nearly a demigod or some shit, but comes across as a complete faggot.

Supposedly he's going to be in the Amazon TV series. Hopefully dropping into cringe-worthy songs that make no sense.

 

[Ratty]

Sophocles from Pokemon Sun/Moon and Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon.

He's a fat, nervous, shut-in teenager who plays video games all day, in a world where every other kid his age is out there traveling the world, catching 'em all, and fighting space gods. He also can't be left alone for more than a few minutes or he'll start crying, as indicated by a scene where he starts bawling at his cousin who is about to leave, making it out as if they're never gonna see each other again, only for it to turn out said cousin is just going shopping for a bit. His only claim to fame is creating and running a virtual reality festival plaza where people from anywhere in the world could meet, but then again, he shoves the responsibility of doing anything to improve the place onto the protagonist as soon as possible and only pops up every now and then to give out some rewards for doing well with it.

The fact that his name is Chrys/Chris in most non-english translations and his signature monster is an electric hedgehog doesn't help.

 

[Darwin Watterson]

Fry in Futurama is arguably an anti-cow. He's a moron who (unwittingly) fucked his grandmother in the past and became his own grandfather. But he also has a steady job, a sizeable network of friends, and while he spends a big portion of the series tailing Leela like a manosphere loser, he does eventually manage to win her over (and before that, he'd already fucked several hot women during the course of the show's run). He also wrote an opera that was hailed as "the greatest opera of all time." While it ended up failing in the end, that was only because he was playing a very difficult instrument that he required robot hands for, and he lost them before he could finish performing. He still wrote it, and it's considered good in-universe while he's able to perform it, so he evidently has some actual talent. There's also the fact that the aforementioned grandma-fucking ended up benefiting him in the long run because it allowed him to save the universe (it makes sense in context).

Come to think of it, most of the characters in Futurama are like that. They all have exceptional traits, but none of them are really hindered by them and they all still all manage to be varying degrees of functional adults. Even Zoidberg is shown to actually be a highly skilled doctor when he's not operating on human patients. The only genuine cow in the show is probably Zapp Brannigan, whom I already mentioned before.

 

[Fougaro]

For an additional fictional lolcow I would nominate Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother. When it comes to women he manages to be an even bigger fuckup than Raj from The Big Bang Theory, being as inexperienced and inept with the fairer sex like a teenager in spite of him starting in his late 20s/early 30s. While Raj has some genuine :autism: going on, Ted on the other hand is merely a "victim" of his own idiocy. The part that stands out the most has to be his creepy, almost stalker levels of obsession with Robin. He was only barely able to let go of her when she was about to get married to Barney. And what's worst is he was still thirsting after Robin almost immediately after his wife died. I'm convinced that in a different series Ted would have either gone full MGTOW or be a serial killer that preys upon women.

I'd pretty much consider almost the entire cast to be lolcows with Marshall being the sole exception.

 

[TopCat]

Some shows open with a monologue about fair Verona (where they lay their scene), some shows open with a tap dance number with forty chorus members flapping in unison.

And some shows open with a vlog about ShadowLordStan eating a rotten burger as his girlfriend looks on in disgust.

That was when you knew that Hawk Mom Theatre’s lolcow was going to be something a little different.

The show is centered around Sheena, a jaded twenty-something who is the enthusiastic (if somewhat airheaded) girlfriend of ShadowLordStan, an internet sensation who has stuck around far beyond his five minutes of fame. In his desperate attempts to become popular again, Stan has descended to the point of being a ‘lolcow’, which the show helpfully defines as “a person whose foolish behavior can be ‘milked’ for amusement”, in other words, a perfect target for online trolls. Over the course of the show, Sheena begins to take on the trolls herself, and her life begins a downwards spiral as she becomes a lolcow herself.

Hawk Mom Theatre advertised the show as a dark comedy and it certainly fits the bill. For every time that you burst your stomach laughing at Sheena showing off her mid-range kitchen gadgets as if they were made of solid gold, you also get a heart-wrenching moment where you realize that she truly does love her little lolcow. Even though they don’t spend a lot of time together, Sheena’s still comforted by knowing that he’s just a door away.

Sheena is brought to life brilliantly by Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes, who does an amazing job at displaying the character’s many shades of pure optimism, false happiness, frustration at life, and hopelessness as the show goes on. She has a fantastic energy on stage that breaks your heart when you see that light go out of her eyes.

The trio of podcasters bring their own special energy to the show as well, using their natural chemistry to create an entertaining peanut gallery filled with three distinctive personalities. Watching the bookworm, couch potato, and philosophy major deal with the guilt of inadvertently inspiring their viewers to call the SWAT team to Stan and Sheena’s house is one of the highlights of the middle portion of the show. (This is a reference to a real-life phenomenon called ‘swatting’ in which people would call police or SWAT teams to the homes of Twitch streamers).

I applaud playwright Robbie Huebner’s choice to tackle the pertinent issue of online harassment. The reality of online culture is that there are people who dedicate themselves to tearing down content creators. Since its inception in 2005, the webcomic XKCD has had at least three websites devoted to harshly criticizing its content, all of which are very uniquely named different variants of XKCD sucks. In 2015, YouTube Let’s Play channel Game Grumps had a discussion board devoted to ranting about problems that the fanbase had with a show starring people sitting in a room playing video games, complete with its own three-part witch hunt where the fans went after the wife of one of the creators’.

While I did thoroughly enjoy the show, and found myself laughing at it’s witty dialogue and references to cyberculture, the plot is unfortunately the servant of two masters. By trying to deal with both the battle between Sheena and the podcasters on one hand and her crumbling relationship with Stan on the other, the show tries to fit two independent conflicts into its 65-minute runtime. While both problems are seemingly related to each other, the script does not allow them to crossover enough, perhaps hindered by the choice to have Stan never physically appear on stage. Whenever Sheena lashes out at the podcast group, she hurts ShadowLordStan’s online credibility, but rather than having a confrontation about her actions, Stan just locks himself in his room for longer and longer portions of the day. The script has two interesting plot threads, and if they could compliment each other better (perhaps by deciding which is the main conflict and which is the side story), the entire show would improve as a result. The script is already very good. With a little more focus, I believe that this could ascend to an undoubtedly great piece of theatre.

That being said, lolcow is one of my favorite shows that I have seen at a Fringe Festival in a long time, and I will heartily recommend it to anyone I know that is looking for something funny, something entertaining, something different, or something that is just plain enjoyable.

You can catch lolcow at the Langham Court Theatre on Thursday, August 31 at 7:45pm, or on Saturday, September 2 at 3:00pm.

REVIEW: lolcow

https://foureyestwoglasses.wordpress.com/2017/08/30/review-lolcow-at-the-victoria-fringe/

 

[jewelry investor]

The god emporer, as of recently.

Spoiler: spoilers

Wanted to exterminate all space Marines because they served thier purpose.
Decide to orchestrate the Horus Heresy to make marines kill each other.
Oh gee look how that turned out.

 

[Darwin Watterson]

the Jomfru Brothers, two greasy nerds who threw away a Harvard scholarship to devote their lives to Dethklok

Fun fact: “Jomfru” translates to “virgin” from...Scandinavian, I think?

 

[2al]

Obsessed with bringing down a website to the point of seemingly caring about nothing else. Sounds familiar, eh? : http://icarly.wikia.com/wiki/Nevel_Papperman

 

[Darwin Watterson]

Does Kenny from Black Mirror count?

Spoiler: Shut up and dance spoiler

The guy was caught jerking off to CP, and then blackmailed to do awful shit in order to prevent from facing consequences, such as robbing a bank and straight up murder. The fact that he is a pedophile is fucked up, but how he was willing to rob to hide that makes him straight up unlikable. There is also the fact it was trolls that ruined his life is also adding to him being a Lolcow

And a lesser degree might be the protagonists in the Waldo Moment and The Entire History of you.

I didn't really see the Waldo Moment or Entire History of You protagonists as cows, tbh, but yeah Kenny is totally a cow. The biggest cow in the show so far, though, has to be Robert Daly from USS Callister.

Spoiler: Episode spoilers

Daly and his friend James Walton are the co-founders of a tech company that released a popular computer game. Walton is the CEO, while Daly is the CTO. This technically means that they're both bosses, but the company's employees don't see Daly as one because he's a meek little beta bitch who doesn't act like a boss due to being afraid of any sort of confrontation. Walton, on the other hand, is a bit of a douche but is ultimately much more charismatic and likable, and it's strongly implied that he's the one responsible for most of the company's success.

Each night, when Daly gets home, he plays a developer's build of his company's game, re-skinned to look like a Star Trek knockoff that he watched as a kid. Since this is the future, Daly is able to actually go into the game. Here's where things start falling into place.

In this game, he's "Captain Daly." While the real Daly wears glasses and has a receding hairline, his game character has perfect vision and a full head of hair. Daly has also created digital copies of his co-workers and programmed him into the game. The show makes it explicitly clear that these copies can all think and feel things, and they have all the memories of their real-world selves up to the point of being created. To create these copies, Daly steals other peoples' trash to get DNA samples and then feeds them into a machine he has. He then keeps these items in a mini-fridge by his desk like a weirdo. Daly uses the game to satisfy his ego and sense of entitlement, as well as bully his "crew" and enact his petty revenge fantasies.

Yeah, that's another thing. Daly is a manchild who's petty as fuck. Walton, to be fair, was kind of a dick to Daly, but some of the others were subjected to this for things like bringing him the wrong sandwich, resetting admin privileges, and "insufficient smiling." Daly essentially controls reality in the game, so he can torture these people into playing along with his stupid storylines. He's shown to have a very childish outlook on things like sex. None of his copies have genitals, and his "genius plan" to distract a "villain" (really just another guy Daly hated at work who doesn't want to be there any more than the rest of them) just amounts to "there's a naked lady behind you." He does make all the females kiss him after each successful "adventure" but it's never open-mouthed.

 

[Red Hood]

That is true, King of the Hill is basically a satirical homage to suburban Texas, and Hank Hill is the exaggerated epitome of the conservative working class Texas suburbanite.

I would say of King of the Hill's main cast, Bill is the predominant lolcow. Any time that he gets into a new hobby or identity it completely takes over his life (see: the Harmonaholics, the gay hairdresser phase, bodybuilding) and gets a big head. Not to mention he briefly trooned out once.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I would say of King of the Hill's main cast, Bill is the predominant lolcow. Any time that he gets into a new hobby or identity it completely takes over his life (see: the Harmonaholics, the gay hairdresser phase, bodybuilding) and gets a big head. Not to mention he briefly trooned out once.

Although Bill has some lolcowy traits, I would consider him at most just a loser just trying to somehow make it through life, despite his numerous psychological issues (I think the only time he was acting like a douchebag was his bodybuilder phase). Peggy on the other hand...
She thinks she knows shit and thinks highly of herself, despite the fact that she showed her gullibility times and times again, including:

• being involved in pyramid schemes
• becoming part of a cult (and unwittingly pushing someone else into it in the process)
  
• believing to be a grand artist, with her works being sold just because they were presented as made by a retarded redneck
• thinking she knows Spanish fluently, which almost made her kidnap by accident some Mexican girl and put her in prison

Say what you want about Bill, at least his actions were (almost) never malicious. At worst he was a danger only to himself.

 

[UglyOldJafar]

Would Ash Ketchum from Pokemon count, considering how within more than ten years of the show's lifespan he has never won a league that was not related to a filler season, can't identify two idiots with their talking cat and by now has to revisit school?

 

[Red Hood]

Although Bill has some lolcowy traits, I would consider him at most just a loser just trying to somehow make it through life, despite his numerous psychological issues (I think the only time he was acting like a douchebag was his bodybuilder phase). Peggy on the other hand...
She thinks she knows shit and thinks highly of herself, despite the fact that she showed her gullibility times and times again, including:

• being involved in pyramid schemes
• becoming part of a cult (and unwittingly pushing some one else into it in the process)
  
• believing to be a grand artist, with her works being sold just because they were being presented as made by a exceptional redneck
• thinking to know Spanish fluently, which almost made her kidnap by accident some Mexican girl and put her in prison

Say what you want about Bill, at least his actions were (almost) never malicious. At worst he was a danger only to himself.

Peggy is lolcow material for sure. Don't forget the foot fetish video she got conned into doing. Interestingly I feel like Bobby is an anti-cow most of the time. He does some cringy or questionable stuff, but he's also socially well-adjusted, aware of his shortcomings (like when he explained to Peggy "So what if Bobby Hill's fat? He's funny, got lots of friends, a girlfriend...") and above all- he's still a kid.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Interestingly I feel like Bobby is an anti-cow most of the time. He does some cringy or questionable stuff, but he's also socially well-adjusted, aware of his shortcomings (like when he explained to Peggy "So what if Bobby Hill's fat? He's funny, got lots of friends, a girlfriend...") and above all- he's still a kid.

Not only that, but the kid has impressive mental stamina, considering Cotton tried to break him in a military school to make him more of a man. Bobby didn't gave a flying fuck, or as Hank put it:

Bobby is like mush, it can't be broken and it can't be built up, but it has the edge.

Speaking of KotH, what about Dale? Could we consider him a mild version of Terry A. Davis without his programming skills?

 

[Red Hood]

Not only that, but the kid has impressive mental stamina, considering Cotton tried to break him in a military school to make him more of a man. Bobby didn't gave a flying fuck, or as Hank put it:

Speaking of KotH, what about Dale? Could we consider him a mild version of Terry A. Davis without his programming skills?

Dale is a conspiratard from day one, and definitely has his cow moments. But I don't think he's quite to the Terry A. Davis level. Terry has a legimitate talent in one very limited field, and Dale isn't good at a lot (though he is a pretty good acting coach and doting father/husband, as well as firing people) as he's mentioned he "barely makes a living wage" as an Exterminator.

As tertiary characters go there are some major cows, even to the characters. Jimmy Wichard for one. But I think part of King of the Hill is that everyone has moments that come dangerously close to the lolcow path. Like when Bobby joined the coven- he realized on his own that drinking dog blood was retarded.

 

[UglyOldJafar]

Any of the characters from Bob's Burger that are not Bob.

 

[GiantSpiderInvasion]

Any of the characters from Bob's Burger that are not Bob.

But, even Bob has his moments, like having conversations with inanimate objects. Or, going to a food critic's house to make him taste his burger again, after a bad review.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Greg Heffley from Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I reread some of those books recently, and the dude's an arrogant prick who never learns from his mistakes

It was funny the first few times, but it's downright frustrating as it goes on.

Just thought about this again, and now I’m thinking that Rowley also has the potential (and the naïveté) to be a Chris-Chan tier lolcow.

 

[Koby_Fish]

This video comes to mind now that you mentioned Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Good lord. I knew the series was unappealing to me (the title was an INSTANT turn-off), but I had no idea the depths of depravity!