If you suffer from cute aggression, a cow might be your pet of choice, at least according to Lacie Evans, aka "Farmer Lacie," a cattlewoman who runs a farm in Hillsboro, Ohio. In this funny video, she describes cows as "just big dogs" and introduces us to her cow Snow, who is the perfect animal to take out her cuteness aggression on. She demonstrates how she can squeeze Snow, and kiss her and hug her as hard as she wants to, and Snow is just here for it. How does getting out her cute aggression on a totally willing cow feel? Farmer Lacie exclaims, "You just feel better. You just feel better. It's great." And Snow the cow also looks like she's simply enjoying the attention.
What's cute aggression, anyway? NPR explains:
When people encounter too much cuteness, the result can be something scientists call "cute aggression."
People "just have this flash of thinking: 'I want to crush it' or 'I want to squeeze it until pops' or 'I want to punch it,' " says Katherine Stavropoulos, a psychologist in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside.
About half of all adults have those thoughts sometimes, says Stavropoulos, who published a study about the phenomenon in early December in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. But those people wouldn't really take a swipe at Bambi or Thumper, she says.
"When people feel this way, it's with no desire to cause harm," Stavropoulos says. The thoughts appear to be an involuntary response to being overwhelmed by a positive emotion.
For more of Farmer Lacie and her cows—who, as she explains here, are raised as pets, and are NOT eaten nor raised for milk—follow her on TikTok or Instagram.
