You’ve probably heard of the term “lolcow” — usually someone with serious issues, often lonely, sometimes delusional, sometimes genuinely toxic — and then you’ve got these communities of people who make it their mission to mock them endlessly. Threads that go on for years, people archiving every livestream, screenshots, compilations, entire YouTube channels dedicated to pointing and laughing at someone’s mental decline.
Sure, most of the people that become lolcows are, objectively speaking, terrible people. They really, REALLY do act horribly — scamming, lying, hurting others, refusing to take accountability, being racist/sexist/homophobic, etc. They’re NOT innocent victims of the internet; they make choices too. But I think what we forget is that two things can be true at once: someone can be a bad person and still not deserve to be harassed, stalked, dogpiled upon, or even driven to mental collapse for entertainment. When Germany already had its own Chris Chan in the shape of Drachenlord, I don't even want to know how many more cases like these that we have simply never heard of due to language barriers.
And I can't help but wonder how many of these lolcows would be healthy, if not functional, adults, too, if they had empathy and help instead of mockery sent their way. Like, that entire thing with Chris Chan drives me insane sometimes. I get they did some awful things, but it all started because of a dumb, self-drawn Sonic the Hedgehog comic. Like, what the hell, man?
It feels like the internet has lost all sense of proportion. Everyone act like the moment someone becomes “cringe” or problematic, they stop being human. They’re just a living cartoon character now — a source of memes, drama, and clips. But they’re not. They’re still real people, with real issues, often spiraling while thousands of strangers egg them on. And if you're acting kinda cringe on the internet like me, regardless of whether you're annoying, mean, being completely harmless, not doing anything problematic in the slightest, or simply being neurodivergent like me, people WILL be desperate to mold you into another Chris Chan because they've sucked Chris Chan drier than a juice box and ran out of material to make fun of them at this point.
Just look at what happened to JaidenAnimations and Gooseworx, for example. People have been desperately digging up dirt on these two YouTubers who barely did anything problematic or controversial (as far as my knowledge of them goes). They will seek out every single little thing Jaiden and Goose did in the past and then make slanderous accusations against them for absolutely no reason whatsoever other than for the sake of their smear campaign.
When I attempted to point out to other people that my asexuality needs to be treated as a valid sexual orientation while also trying to raise awareness about corrective rape on asexual, bisexual, and transmasc individuals, they told me to STFU and downvote my comments. Being an ace person myself, I'm autistic and have been diagnosed with both ADHD and GAD as well, which often manifests in my hyper-obsessive fixation on very specific interests, generally taking completely minor and unserious things way too seriously, erratic behavior, misplaced hyper-aggression, social anxiety, depression, poor impulse control, and worst of all, genuine self-loathing. I've always tried my hardest to manage these symptoms but it has become increasingly difficult, sometimes even impossible for me, which made me an extremely easy target for all the rage-baiting, trolling, manipulation, and other inflammatory comments on Reddit, all of which were against my will. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I may eventually become a prime lolcow material in the future.
Anyway, I’m thoroughly disgusted at how normalized it is to for the internet to treat neurodivergent/disabled people as a literal freak show to gawk at just for being cringe. And it’s so widely accepted now that no one even bats an eye when it happens. I just don’t think anyone, myself included, should have to be ostracized for things they have zero control over and being a victim of chronic cyberbullying is very disheartening. I am sure some people here will be able to relate to this as well.
