What exactly does it take to become a lolcow?

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nycifer

nycifer

kiwifarms.net
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Dec 26, 2025
Like, from what I understood, the key moment you become one is when you're actively fighting back against the trolls who're harassing you. The kind of trolls that are actually smarter than you to know how to press your buttons to get you riled up, hence, you get mad and raging then it equals entertainment to them. Other times, you have to be so out of touch with reality or quirky that people find your tastes to be abnormal for anyone else to be into. That, when questioned about these tastes or interests, they get defensive and the more defensive they get then it equals to unintentional entertainment for all.

But what to you, does it take for someone to become a lolcow??
 
Does a sperg have to know it's being observed to be a lolcow? There are probably cows getting laughed at in threads that they don't even know exist. Now fighting back against the trolls is def peak lolcow behavior in most cases.
 
A lolcow is someone who absolutely refuses all advice or guidance to improve. Whatever their behavior, thats the key defining trait. They may quadruple down on their retarded beliefs or acts, but they will never significantly improve. That's a lolcow.
 
@Ryo Ma nails it.

As an example, I think that Sir Keir Starmer is a lolcow - however, others here might disagree and say he's not worthy of being called one.

It depends largely on what the community at large thinks.
 
I think the two main traits are the inability to learn from their own mistakes and addiction to online attention

The rest is just toppings on a pizza of failure
 
Complete lack of self awareness and reflection. Have met many people with all the traits of a cow. But they were aware enough to know better than to put it out there for the world.
 
At its core, a lolcow is anyone who acts as a fool of themselves and can be easily laughed at

You can draw some similar characteristics like refusing to take criticism, not learning from their past mistakes, sharing too much personal information etc. But really, if people don't find enjoyment in watching your tomfoolery, then you aren't a lolcow.

If I had to make any sort of analogy: Laughing at a comedian is like enjoying a good movie, and laughing at a lolcow is like enjoying a bad movie.
 
Long ass spergy -trust me bro- speculation post warning.

Cows come in many variants. I feel like most of the time, random chance and simply entertainment value is what separates lesser cows from the ones who “make it” (in the worst possible sense of that term).

Before the internet and as the lolcows of history section will clearly demonstrate, there has always been batshit, autistic, narcissistic, etc people. Most of them will never reach any meaningful exposure.

I would argue that all true lolcows have one or more mental illnesses and or personality disorders/ extreme traits. Whether or not they become recognized as cows depends on their pathology, whether or not they gain enough exposure, and whether or not their repeated interactions with their environment is entertaining or not. Note that entertainment value doesn’t necessarily mean funny. Causing any emotional response even if it’s anger can create engagement.

Finally the most prolific lolcows have a desire to be famous, and often act as the main driver of their public presence.

So imo any random schizo or narcissistic boss can be a potential lolcow. Cows tend to share common characteristics, but the unique expression of their pathology and engagement with their environment vary wildly.

The most prolific lolcows hit a perfect storm of factors that have made them popular:

Mental, and or personality disorders.
Entertaining engagement with their environment.
Self propagating exposure to the public.
A consistent belief in a warped perception of reality that prevents them from accepting any forms of accountability, self improvement and or treatment for their conditions.
A dedicated community of followers who are entertained by them, and thus indirectly feed into their delusions of grandeur.

And finally chance/ legacy. Pure chance plays a factor. Cows who got big early on have had a tendency to stay popular simply because they appeared to be uniquely batshit and funny when the internet first started to really take off. Think about it. The massive online presence today combined with SoMe has made the entire world painfully aware of just how many off the rocks people live amongst us in society. This used to be something that was primarily known within the world of mental health care and social workers.

Today we can all find 100s and 1000s of them on every conceivable platform out there using very simple searches. So the pool of cows is vastly greater now than it was in the old days, and it takes a bit of chance for a cow to be noticed.


And finally a significant variable today is previous exposure i.e. if you’re already “famous” / have some established public presence on the internet and then later turn retarded (think of Iddubz for instance) you almost automatically become a cow because you’re a known person.

🧩 In advance. I have just mused about cow “psychology” for a while and had the time to sperg so there it is.
 
Wew. I had this discussion with somebody a while back, but I wanted to give it some more thought. I compiled a very brief and clearly incomplete list of what I called the "Traits of lolcowdom." It's not too dissimilar to what @Smecker wrote above, since there are definitely some common traits among all lolcows. Either way, my list is:
  • Being terminally online, incapable of separating real life from the internet (Porktits, FallenChungus...)
  • Being incapable of ignoring criticism or trolling attempts (PizzaCake, Raxx, Porktits...)
  • Being a delusional narcissist with an enormous ego and greatly exaggerated views of one's own abilities and achievements (Mald, Porktits, CWC, Raxx, PizzaCake...)
  • Having gross hygiene (Raxx, CWC...)
  • Having an insufferable, self-centered personality (Mald, Porktits, FallenChungus, CWC, Raxx...)
  • Refusing to change, incapable of learning from mistakes, doubling down on what clearly doesn't work (Raxx, CWC, FallenChungus...)
  • Shitty creative projects with no quality (CWC, Raxx, FallenChungus, Porktits, Mald...)
  • Being a sex pest (Raxx, FallenChungus, CWC...)
Do note that not all of these traits have to be present in one lolcow. Mald is clearly capable of ignoring trolls and critics. Will Stancil clearly adopted average hygiene practices... But I fully believe that there is a clear point at which somebody becomes a lolcow: Being incapable of ignoring the trolls.

Terry Davis (PBUH) had a clear mental illness, and that's pretty much the reason for his eccentric behavior. He had reasons to back up his ego because Temple OS was not a shitty Sonichu-like project, but was impressive from a computer science perspective. He was also not gross and not a sex pest. But Terry was still incapable of backing out from the trolls. That combined with his eccentric personality earned him a place in lolcow Valhalla...

Now, is this a definite 100% guaranteed standard to deserve a thread in the 'farms? Again, no (see: Mald), but it's a very good predictor.

In general, I believe that a cow is simply somebody interesting to observe, usually because they are big retards who fuck everything up, but then again, Terry was no retard, so it's not only because of that.

Anyway, if you think there are traits I missed (there have to be) and want to name some cows that do not fit into the usual traits, I'll be reading. It would be funny to make a cow Venn diagram or some shit...
 
From what I see here - a form of repetitiveness. Nothing the cows do is really surprising, and any entertainment value comes from them publicly doing the same thing over and over and seemingly never getting bored of it.
 
souschef said:
I think the two main traits are the inability to learn from their own mistakes and addiction to online attention

The rest is just toppings on a pizza of failure
Click to expand...
This is pretty concise. I would also add in a touch of dunning-kreuger and say it's the basic of the basic definition. The core ingredients, one would say
 
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