Why do you like watching lolcows? -

[ChuckSlaughter]

More than once I've seen people disagree about why we're watching these people or what we're supposed to be doing.

Why do you watch?
What do you think we should be doing?
Is there any lolcows who are special cases?

Let's try and not comment on what other people shouldn't be doing, even though that's worth discussing I don't really know if it would actually end up making for a productive thread.

 

[millais]

"Because it's there"
- Sir Edmund Hillary

 

[HG 400]

I like lolcows because when you tease them about how they're not really any better than the people they make threads and discussions about, they get all ruffled and scream 'BAIT'.

 

[SpessCaptain]

Schadenfreude.

 

[VJ 343]

There are a lot of people here who watch cows as a sense of catharsis. Maybe they even see traits of themselves in the humble cow.

Things can always, by degrees, be worse.

 

[ChuckSlaughter]

I like lolcows because when you tease them about how they're not really any better than the people they make threads and discussions about, they get all ruffled and scream 'BAIT'.

BAIT

 

[Jared]

There but for the grace of god..

 

[chimpburgers]

I find some of them to be fascinating and others to be such a trainwreck that I can't look away. Sometimes it's just good comedy and lets me know that there are some truly fucked up people out there that do the unthinkable. I like to keep it light and also like the aspect about learning more about why they do the things that they do. There are even some that are pretty alright as people but just do something really weird or have some kind of odd obsession or character trait.

 

[Abethedemon]

I like things that are weird, obscure and free.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I like arguing with loveshies

 

[ActualKiwi]

Horrified fascination, and curiosity regarding their prevalent immunity to believing that whatever they are doing is wrong

 

[VLAD]

It's the marvel at finding someone that nobody in their right minds could have ever imagined. Like CWC's perfect storm of autism, ADF's incoherent translatinx facade, Moleman's wikisperging rampage, or Fedsmoker's Dirty Pig Tour. But it's not just the magic of discovery, it's the feeling you get from realizing that this person exists in the same world as you. I don't know what to call it, but it sure is something.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Because you never know what they're going to do or say next. And some of the personalities right off the bat are interesting.

 

[Doghouse]

I like hanging out with fairly normal people. If I'm going to read a 500 page thread about someone, they need to be fucking absurd.
Also, I will echo, there but for the grace of god.

 

[EmulatedLince]

Its like watching and studying a new specimen that no one ever recorded before and you dont know what to expect, but youre always surprised and fascinated with its next action, what makes you desire to see more and more.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

The psychological concept of theuncanny as something that is strangely familiar, rather than just mysterious,[1]was perhaps first fixed by Sigmund Freud in his essay Das Unheimliche.[2][3]

Because the uncanny is familiar, yet incongruous, it has been seen as creating cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject, due to the paradoxical nature of being simultaneously attracted to yet repulsed by an object. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize, as in the uncanny valley effect.

I think most lolcows fit this definition. They are 'real' bone and flesh people, but from our point of view they look like clowns, like caricatures or like fictional characters. We refuse to recognize these people as 'real' as average Joes we see everyday. And yet, as we dig and learn more about this people they seem less lile moronic cardboard cutouts and more disturbingly human and real: they have/had people they love, they were children at one point, they carry on with their daily routines; they experience all those small things you and I do.

 

[TheMightyMonarch]

I've always had a weird and disturbing since of humor. But in all honesty, I don't really know. I can't tell you why I find the concept of a grown autistic man who is so obsessed with Sonic the Headhog that he has his own OC and shitty comic to go with it and is so obsessed with finding a girlfriend that he goes through ridiculous lengths to get one hilarious. But I do.

 

[ObeseScreamingBlackMan]

Because they're the crazy street loons of the internet.

I can just as happily watch some guy in a giant pink hat and poop-filled trousers have an argument with a No Parking sign.

 

[CWCchange]

Cows are meant to be milked... and eaten.

From a serious standpoint, watching lolcows is essentially another facet of cinéma vérité. It falls under the same category of viral videos on YouTube with crazy people, or why Jerry Springer has been on TV for years. Um, maybe not the latter as it's fake, unless you parallel it to Jace Connors.

 

[The Fool]

It's a relic from my armchair psychologist days and now I do it out of pure habit, like how people stick with soap operas. This is my life now.