Apps like TikTok have revolutionized the ability to go viral, and with that comes an increase in people getting attention for pretty stupid reasons. Some people lean into it, laugh at themselves, and even try to capitalize off of their silly catalyst to internet fame — remember hawk tuah? — but other targets of internet attention are more vulnerable to the ridicule that comes with heightened recognition.
The term “lolcow” generally describes a person who people make fun of on the internet. A lolcow isn’t in on the joke; they are either oblivious to the fact that they are being mocked or even think that they are admired and that their audience is made up of earnest fans. Oftentimes, a lolcow is usually someone who has a disability or is suffering from mental illness.
Online harassment to provoke targets of ridicule is more than just cruel cyberbullying — they have real effects on people’s lives. Take Daniel Larson, for example: he garnered a lot of internet attention from his bizarre TikTok posts and became a viral target. Larson is on the autism spectrum, homeless, and suffers from schizophrenia. His audience deliberately played into his delusions, egging him on to the point of him going to prison for threatening to bomb the White House, FBI headquarters, and multiple government buildings in Colorado.
Joshua Block is another TikTok obsession; also on the spectrum, Block originally blew up for quirky videos of boba and coffee reviews but has descended into severe alcoholism. Many people were enabling, if not encouraging, his excessive drinking and trying to trigger him to make a viral scene. Both Block and Larson have been approached and harassed in public, had their entire lives researched online, and have faced real-life impacts from online cyberbullying. Of course, they are ultimately responsible and accountable for their own actions, but it would be incorrect to not attribute a big part of their downfall to a mass of internet provocateurs.
There’s a voyeuristic perversion that comes from lolcow “communities”. People who engage in tormenting easily-provoked individuals online hide behind their anonymity and seem to genuinely enjoy watching the lolcow’s deteriorating lives. Some people try to justify their cyberbullying due to the fact that some lolcows have done to deserve the nonstop trolling (for example, Larson has admitted that he has been attracted to underage girls). Even when a lolcow is legitimately a bad person, their actions should be dealt with accordingly — not through onslaughts of relentless trolling and obsessive archiving of their every movement. Let’s be honest, if they weren’t mentally ill or didn’t have some type of disability, they wouldn’t be a lolcow — just hated. Besides, responding to someone demonstrating predatory behavior with cyberbullying and jokes takes away the seriousness of the actual allegation. It’s not about vigilante justice; it’s about bullying easy targets online for fun.
Part of the lolcow phenomenon that is perplexing is its parasocial nature. People involved are often part of a niche community building around a common obsession with their target. It’s more than messing with a creator onlline and moving about their day — there’s a stalkerish element in these communities. There are even online forums dedicated to certain lolcows that track their every move, pretty much mythologizing a lolcow’s identity. It’s almost an anti-stan culture; instead of unhealthy parasocial ties to their favorite character, people are compulsively immersing themselves in the world of someone they constantly cyberbully.
Sure, everyone has guilty pleasures, but binge watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians is very different from picking on mentally ill people on TikTok. Maybe we missed the memo, but we’re pretty sure that cyberbullying isn’t cool. Lolcow culture isn’t something worthwhile or admirable. If you see criminal behavior or admissions online, report it. Don’t flood the comments and put people down for being outcasts. It’s not sending the message you think it is.
What's Your Reaction?
