The Death of Cringe (LOL Cows are Boomer)

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone explore the shifting landscape of internet culture, focusing on the decline of "lolcows" and the concept of cringe. They discuss how the politicization of online spaces has changed the way people engage with and mock individuals who deviate from social norms. Malcolm argues that cringe is now seen as a "boomer" or "Gen X" phenomenon, with younger generations finding it distasteful to laugh at those with mental health issues or who are perceived as weaker. The couple also delves into the idea that one must pass through the "valley of cringe" to become truly based, using examples like the Tiger King and Donald Trump. They contrast this with figures like Carole Baskin and Hillary Clinton, who represent a desperate attempt to fit mainstream societal expectations. Throughout the conversation, Malcolm and Simone ponder the future of internet culture and the emergence of a new type of "lolcow" – those who come from privilege but fail to achieve happiness by adhering to the status quo.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Cringe is over. Cringe is boomer. Cows are like cringe is actually it's probably more Gen X, both of them.

Yeah. Boomers just shorthand, I think for

Simone Collins: old.

Malcolm Collins: You cannot be based.

Without being cringe.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And by that, what I mean, we're basis defined as without fear of societal expectations, do what you think is right, say what you think is true and interpret reality in a way that is logically consistent within whatever value you set, you have determined for yourself.

I actually think that we saw this reflected in the Trump Hillary election.

Trump was cringe. In many ways, it is almost impossible to say Trump isn't cringe, but he passed through the valley of cringe to base where he combined cringe and self comfort. The comfort was the ways that his value system was different from society's value system.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! It is wonderful to be talking to you today!

Simone Collins: Hi, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: Today, I am [00:01:00] going to be talking about something that one of our fans said in the Discord when I was chatting with them, and it really led me to reflect.

I was talking about lolcows and like the joke that, oh yeah, we want to be lolcows, surprising that we've never had like a kiwi farm made about us or something like that, given the number of times we've gone viral. We have two know your meme entries about us. And but we've never really done anything actually egregious.

It's more like we are egregious from an extremist leftist perspective, which just Doesn't really make us traditional lull cows anymore than, I don't know, some other individuals like Ben Shapiro could be seen as more lull Cowley than us, to be honest. But it got them talking about low cows and they're like, low cows are so boomer.

And I started thinking about it because I interact with a few different, types of communities online. I see the way different people interact online and I realized I do not see lolcow discussion amongst gen alpha or really amongst, younger gen [00:02:00] Z people. And then it got me thinking, wait, why is this?

So first let's talk about what lolcows are. Do you know what lolcows are Simone?

Simone Collins: My understanding is a lolcow is a, an online figure, someone who's public enough online to be fairly well documented. Who has done enough cringeworthy or egregious things that the community on Kiwi Farms has decided to begin creating detailed posts, categorizing and cataloging their various embarrassing behaviors and exploits so that everyone can sit and laugh at them.

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. It is so there's a couple of categories. There's lull cows and there's horror cows. Horror cows are like, they're just truly a horrifying human being. And then lull cows are, they are, funny. Chris Chan is probably the number one lull cow, although I think he kind of borders on a horror cow now with the, you heard what happened to him, right?

Simone Collins: No. [00:03:00]

Malcolm Collins: Oh so he was in jail for a bit. I think he might be out now. Oh dear. But he was in jail for sleeping with his mother. Oh! No!

Simone Collins: No!

Malcolm Collins: His dubious consent, it looks his very elderly Oh!

Simone Collins: Oh! Oh! That's

Malcolm Collins: where somebody becomes a horror cow.

Simone Collins: I think I'm going to vomit.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway, Oh God. Um, but it also brought me to another topic, which I think, so there's like, why do people engage with these sorts of people?

Like, why do they watch them? And it is because they like the emotional subset that these individuals trigger in them. And I think that there's a few Justice that a bad person had bad things happen to them. An opportunity to troll someone that you see as lesser than you. The feeling of cringe at another person.

And the feeling of disgust at another person. And also the feeling of learning how fringe [00:04:00] psychology is. Individuals, which is actually the thing that's most interesting to me. So I'll explain what I mean by that's interesting to me. I find it very interesting to study how the human mind works when it is breaking, because through that, like through studying how something like a car breaks, you can understand how the car might be put together.

neuroscientist who specialized in like abnormal psychology and stuff like that when the evolution of the human cognition this is really interesting to me because it does help me understand, when I see novel conditions where, especially where I see convergent behavior patterns across different locales, I can be like, Oh, this is an unusual behavior pattern, but it comes to convergently.

So something in our society must be pushing it, or it must be some sort of pre evolved pathway or a way that some system can break, which can then give me more insight into myself. But the other subsets I think are what draw most people, the cringe and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Which I never got. Also you [00:05:00] don't, even if you see cringe comedy, for example, in a TV show, both you and I can't take it.

So I think it's something we have a lot of difficulty taking. I find it

Malcolm Collins: very painful

Simone Collins: to

Malcolm Collins: watch. Yeah. And then this brought me to another thing, which is the statement that I was thinking and I was like, this is true. Cringe is over. Cringe is boomer. Cows are like cringe is actually it's probably more Gen X, both of them.

Cringe is Gen X and cows are Gen X, which we've got new boomers, right? Yeah. Boomers just shorthand, I think for

Simone Collins: old.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But remember when like our cringe used to be a thing and like things being cringy used to be a thing and you just wouldn't hear a young person call something cringe.

cringe anymore. Like we interact with young people and they don't use the term that much when they're talking about things. And so I think what we're seeing here is a cultural shift where when the internet first began to proliferate and the first [00:06:00] generation of genuinely online natives, which was really our generation.

We realized Oh my God, you can find people doing crazy, insane things on the internet. And then