Attention Tastes Good Like a Politik Should

Lolcows are the new political meta. So why aren’t we laughing?

Illustration by Blake Colquitt

December 2014, Charlottesville, Virginia. You’re a loyal GameStop employee. For close to minimum wage, you find yourself frequently running an entire retail store all by yourself, ripping off kids (and their unaware parents) to maximize corporate profits, and consistently dealing with some of the most socially unaware — and smelliest — man-children in existence.

Sometimes, the fanaticism that enters your door crosses over to delusion and, rarely, even violence.

Tensions are never higher than Boxing Day — the day after Christmas — when the store is crowded, wallets are fat, and school break is in full swing. During the morning rush, a large, long-haired man wearing purple My Little Pony sunglasses bursts through the door, screaming incoherently about Sonic the Hedgehog. After you gently and politely ask him to leave, he whips out a pink can of mace, screeches, and unloads it directly into your face before turning tail to Naruto-run out of the mall.

Who, you think as you perplexedly scrub your tumid eyes, was that repulsive ogre of a man?

First arising to internet fame after an article detailing his semi-autobiographical webcomic was published to 4chan and the Something Awful website, Chris Weston Chandler (i.e., “Chris Chan”) is what’s known online as a lolcow: someone who is milked by their audience for laughs, usually at his or her own expense.

Beginning in 2007, via Lulu.com, 4chan, and his personal YouTube channel, Chris unabashedly broadcast his antics to the world, such as harassing women at his college campus (including the dean), running over the manager of his local game shop with his car, burning down his family home in an electrical fire, forming a doomsday cult, and declaring himself a living reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Unlike musicians, actors, or even influencers, lolcows are not famous because of their talent, charisma, or — frankly — any other positive attribute they may possess. In fact, quite the opposite is true: their fame is a direct result of their spectacular failures, lack of character, and inability to do anything worthy of note or praise. People pay attention to them for the same reason that, one would assume, some people watch NASCAR: they’re hoping to see a car crash.

Classic lolcows like Chris Chan are defined largely by their borderline unbelievable levels of naivety, failing to ever understand that their popularity is underpinned by people laughing at them — and finding revelry in their every failure and embarrassment.

Take, for example, Jordie Jordan (also known as “Wings of Redemption”), who was a talented and well-respected Call of Duty player in the late 2000’s. After rage-quitting a game against another highly-ranked player in 2011, his audience turned on him, trolling him for his inability to accept criticism and his massive weight gain, among other things. Before long, he was breaking controllers, shoving his wife, and in several cases, crying — all on camera. He has made myriad controversial and bizarre claims on public record, including that he killed a cat by trapping it under a bucket, that he forced his grandmother to stick her finger into his rectum to alleviate a painful defecation episode, and that he drank his own urine.

Or, a more modern example: Joshua Block, or “World of T-Shirts,” is a 24-year old who habitually blacks out drinking on livestream and engages in depraved and unsettling behavior, such as killing a fish by stomping on it repeatedly, saying the n-word, spitting on people, vomiting on public transit, and starting fights in foreign countries.

“A lolcow with a large enough audience is like a wildfire in a defunded national park: it can grow, and grow, and grow — unfettered and without any discernible stopping point.”

Most lolcows, like Chris, Jordie, and Joshua, continue on at exactly the same speed for their entire careers, without ever achieving any level of self-awareness. They embrace their role as a punching bag, enjoying the little attention and money that their participation in the milking generates.

Eventually, though, some begin to notice a pattern: the worse they act, the more attention they get — and the more attention they get, the more revenue they’re able to generate. Recognizing that bad behavior grows their audience much faster than good behavior, they double down on weaponizing their poor behavior as spectacle.

“DarkSydePhil,” or just “DSP,” (legally, Phillip Burnell), is one of the most notorious intentional lolcows on the internet. His livestreams consist mostly of begging his audience for money and whining about his financial situation while he plays video games — poorly — in the background. His highlights include: masturbating to completion on stream (presumably without realizing he was on video), inadvertently showing his own bank statements on-screen (which demonstrated his degenerate spending on gacha-based mobile games), and berating a fan for sending him the “wrong type” of expensive gaming laptop as a gift. As his almost two-decade long career progressed, his behavior became progressively worse. Today, he is a caricature of a human being who goes out of his way to act as poorly as possible at every given opportunity.

Another personality-turned-lolcow, Steven Jason Williams (i.e., “Boogie2988”) was a beloved YouTube personality who descended into lolcow status after being caught for faking a cancer scare. After his heel turn, he was the principal in a blatant crypto-rug-pull scam and would later go on to expose himself on camera during a livestream, reveal a fresh face tattoo (which turned out to be Sharpie), and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of viewer donations (which he claimed were for food and rent) on sex workers. He defended the Holocaust, screamed violent threats at a disabled guest on his podcast, and fired a gun at a online adversary during a physical confrontation.

Even Clavicular, a name with which readers should by now be very familiar, has quite recently begun to lean into his status as a lolcow. After several close-encounter-drug-overdoses on stream, legal troubles stemming from a hit-and-run, an animal cruelty incident, and an alleged sexual assault, he returned to his stream with a brand-new face — and an audience that had changed its tune toward him. He learned that he could increase viewership by engaging in inflammatory behavior on stream: like injecting young women with filler, crying over the inclusion of cheese on his delivery hamburger, and complaining about his height. Unfortunately, he did not fully realize how making such buffoonery a mainstay of his brand would effect the way the internet perceives him.

Eventually, larger celebrities began to learn from lolcow culture. As it turns out, the problem with personalities like Chris Chan and DarkSydePhil wasn’t that they were too deep into toxic, parasocial relationships with their audiences. On the contrary — they just weren’t thinking big enough. A lolcow with a large enough audience is like a wildfire in a defunded national park: it can grow, and grow, and grow — unfettered and without any discernible stopping point.

Illustration by Blake Colquitt

George W. Bush, a man who proved time and time again throughout his political career that the greatest mark of an American politician is being a good hypothetical drinking buddy, was perhaps the first to see real success as a proto-lolcow. He frequently misquoted famous sayings (e.g., “fool me once”), never seemed to be able to zip up a jacket or operate an umbrella, winked at the Queen, fell off a Segway, ducked two shoes thrown at him by a Baghdadi journalist, and fainted in the White House after choking on a pretzel (a legitimate health scare). In short, he was a deeply unserious man in most ways — except, of course, his innumerable war crimes.

In the wake of the internet age — and with W as a test case — other politicians began to realize the bankability of attention. These politicians did not care why eyes were on them, as long as they were, in fact, on them. They understood that poor behavior is often superior to good behavior in pursuit of this goal: voters, especially in the U.S., were bored and jaded: they were happy to poke something with a stick just to see what happens.

Perhaps the most famous pre-Trump example is Sarah Palin. Palin, the governor of Alaska during the 2008 presidential election, ran on Republican nominee John McCain’s ticket as the vice presidential candidate. Clearly lacking any knowledge in policy matters (except for the fact that she could see Russia from her home state of Alaska), she was a fully vibes-based politician who spoke openly about being a ‘hockey mom,’ frequently asked aides what exactly the vice president’s job was, and regularly incorporated catchphrases such as “doggone it” and “you betcha” into her interviews and debates.

Palin helped launch the Tea Party after her foray into the national political spotlight ended — a party which would lay the groundwork for the rise of MAGA Republicans and, indeed, the first Trump presidency.

To make a comprehensive list of Trump’s lolcow moments as president would be a herculean endeavor. The lowlights include: looking directly into the solar eclipse, coining the term “covfefe,” obviously drawing over a map of Hurricane Dorian’s progress with a Sharpie, describing his cognitive test as though it was a bar exam, clearly misunderstanding how windmills work, holding a press conference in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping after mistaking it for a luxury hotel chain location, serving McDonald’s at sports championship team dinners, boarding Air Force One with toilet paper stuck to his shoe, installing a ‘Diet Coke button’ in the Oval Office, throwing paper towel rolls at Puerto Ricans, and speculating on live television whether disinfectant could be “injected” to combat the covid-19 virus.

Trump and his ilk have taken the Joe Jackson approach to marketing: be as loud as you possibly can and act a buffoon in public at any opportunity — just make sure that you’re always in the headlines, at any cost. Trump adopted the lolcow ethos, absorbed it, and made it his entire ethos. Politics are no longer about being a dedicated public servant, or positively impacting the lives of the citizenry. Instead, the most important factor for winning elections is now brand recognition: the more outrageous your antics, the more likely you are to succeed.

And in a political landscape transformed — and still led — by Donald Trump, Republicans have to play along with his reality television approach to leadership. As Trump continues to up the ante as to just how insane and deluded a president can act in office, those who wish to remain in the conservative limelight must walk alongside him. As a result, we’ve seen a sharp rise in conspiracists, lechers, perverts, blowhards, and scam artists in Congress and the executive branch.

“Now, we’re living in a world where it’s almost impossible to get elected as a conservative in America unless you agree to be hooked up to Trump’s lolcow milking machine.”

George Santos (R), a New York Congressman in 2023, claimed that he worked at Goldman Sachs, that he was of Jewish descent (which he later revised to “Jew-ish”), that he had been a star athlete in college, that his mother was in the World Trade Center during September 11, that he produced a Broadway musical, and that he survived an assassination attempt, among other things — all of which were blatant lies. He reappropriated campaign funds for his own personal vacations, beauty treatments, and designer goods. Once he was caught, he doubled down, escalating his lies until he was expelled from Congress. Even now, he still makes money as an internet celebrity, hosting podcasts and appearing as a guest on those of others.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R), a former Congresswoman from Georgia, is perhaps the most quotable of the politicians spawned in the wake of Trump. She claimed that “Jewish space lasers” were responsible for California wildfires, referred to the Nazi secret police force as the “Gazpacho,” questioned whether September 11 was a conspiracy, openly supported QAnon, spoke publicly about the weather-modification abilities of world governments, and harassed mass shooting survivors.

Lauren Boebert (R - Colorado), repeatedly made racist comments about her fellow members of Congress, vowed to carry a gun through Capitol Hill, and — most recently — was kicked out of a Denver live theater performance of Beetlejuice for vaping, singing loudly, and engaging in sexual activities with her male companion from their seats.

Nancy Mace (R - South Carolina), instructed her personal staff to create and operate ‘burner accounts’ on Reddit to boost her popularity online, spoke openly on the House floor about her sex life (multiple times!), consistently uses the term “tranny,” and even (and this is absolutely true) shared blown-up images of her own nude body during a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing.

And these are some of the most popular Republican politicians in recent history.

Now, we’re living in a world where it’s almost impossible to get elected as a conservative in America unless you agree to be hooked up to Trump’s lolcow milking machine. He uses it to avoid accountability, print money, stay in power, and attack his enemies. When faced with scandal, he ducks ownership by either hiding behind his deeply unserious persona or by offering up a sacrificial lesser lolcow — like in the cases of Matt Gaetz, Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi.

U.S. politics are deeply rooted in capitalism and market demand. Trump, the absolute populist that he is, recognized this and gave the people what they wanted: a living meme in the White House. Every day he livestreams his stupidity to the world, and every day he is rewarded for his braindead, attention-seeking, childish antics.

He’s the head of a major political party and a two-term president.

Lolcows are undoubtedly the new political meta — and America loves it!

The Republican Party can never go back. Democrats are clamoring for a left-wing populist who is willing to ‘get their hands dirty,’ instead of “going high” when the Republicans “go low.” We have adjusted to our new normal, aided by the coming-of-age of an entire new generation that can’t remember a political debate without mud-slinging or name-calling. In the words of Christof — played by the immortal Ed Harris — in the 1998 classic The Truman Show: “we accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented.”

“Somebody help me, I’m being spontaneous!”

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