Further reflections on the mystifying power of Cute Overload.
I wrote a few months ago about "Cute Overload." I had read about it long before I ever looked at it, but then avoided it for a long time because I was expecting, I don't know, paintings of dancing bunnies and kittens wearing booties and I didn't think I was the type. Now that I know that I am, a little voice in the back of my head is saying, What is wrong with dancing bunnies and pictures of kittens wearing booties?!"
Maybe I knew all along that I am most definitely prone to be drawn in by cuteness and just didn't want to open that door. Nick has shaken his head more than once over my collection of "Beanie Babies" (stuffed out of sight into an enormous storage bin in my closet) and my tendency to pat the heads of plush toys.
But that's not what Cute Overload is about, not really (though it might just open that door for you). Cute Overload is mostly about the real thing.
When "Rufflybuns", my hamster (not his real name), was still with us, my husband and I used to drag each other away from whatever we were doing to look at him asleep in a little curl with one paw curled up under his chin and the pads of his little feet on view. Even Nick couldn't resist the sight of a curled up hamster's paw pads. Why? And why is it different for women than for men? He would look at a curled-up actual hamster, but he wouldn't sit boggling at a photograph of a hamster for minutes on end. I do.
I want to understand why.
I'm writing about this because I just spent five minutes staring at a CO picture of a wee marmoset wrapped around someone's fingers. I just sat there drinking in the sight. Why? Why do I keep going back there to stare at pictures of animals?
I don't know, but I do know that I can literally feel my eyes dilate when I look at these photographs. They start feeling damp and teary. I get a sort of constricted feeling in the center of my chest; why? I don't understand it. The closest analogous experience in my life is eating really high quality chocolate after a period of chocolate deprivation.
There's that same slow, enjoyable feeling of pleasurable relaxation and happiness. Something unhappy knotted up somewhere in the region of my chest comes unknotted. It's the same feeling I get when I hear my cat purr; it's probably the same feeling that makes a cat purr. In fact, that probably sums it up: looking at these photographs creates a purry feeling.
As I've said before, Cute Overload delivers a more powerful dose of cute-related bliss than other websites I've seen because---as I've also said before---Meg Frost writes some amazingly perceptive copy that somehow hones right in on the aspects of the photograph that delivers the maximum load of cuteness. I'm not going to quote her text here because it wouldn't make any sense without the accompanying photograph, but if you go to the site and read her comments, you'll see.
But somehow or other, thanks to the combination of commentary and photography, Cute Overload's level of cute is exactly that. It is like mainlining cute. I don't, I don't, I don't, understand it.
"Why try to understand it?" you might ask. "Just revel in it! It's completely harmless and will make you feel instantly better about the world. Why analyze it?"
Which is what I asked myself and how I managed in the end to come to terms with the list for cuteness. It's a strange and inexplicable phenomenon that no one ever analyzes or discusses. There's plenty of discussion of lust and romantic love and all the shades in between, but what about the strange and irrational pleasure human beings get from the sight of baby animals.
Wouldn't you expect the response to be different, to be more universally what it is in, say, hunters, who see deer and think "Venison! Yum!" or who see a fox and think "Equine sporting event! Jolly!" ? As disgusting as I find their reaction, it really makes more biological sense than "Ooooh! Aaaaah!" How did cute---specifically the cuteness of other species--- burrow its way into the human (especially, though not exclusively, the female) human psyche? Is it because all babies have certain characteristics in common: large heads, tiny bodies, big eyes, and tiny faces? Is it because so many currently adult females watched too many cartoons of little talking animals.
You have to admit, it's an interesting question. The feeling, however pleasurable, seems to serve no clear biological purpose, unlike lust or romantic love, yet it has powerful physiological effects.
Not that only babies are cute. Check out this Cute Overload photograph of a rat----my stepdaughter, Emma, keeps fancy rats----all harnessed up for a walk. Or this Mama Peguin with a tiny baby penguin leaning against her. [Cf. Cute Overload's TM "Rules of Cuteness," "Rule of Cuteness #7: A thing, accompanied by a smaller version of that thing, is always cute."] Or check out this "dunkey" (as my mother would call it) photographed by a Flickr contact of mine, Greg Kendall.
So I am asking why? Why are human beings---female ones partiularly but also some men some of the time, including this one---so affected by images that meet a certain number of what creator Meg Frost calls the "Rules of Cuteness[TM]"? Why is the pleasure of looking at a picture of a curled up cat immensely enhanced FOR SO MANY OF US---it turns out that it is NOT just me--- if the kitten complies with Rule #22" What is the physiological and anthropological origin of the pleasure and satisfaction derived from a photograph of a cat/hedgehog/bunny/hamster which follows Rule #20"? (Siiiiiigh. Aren't you feeling happier now than you were before you clicked? And you know you did. You know you clicked and that you kept clicking).
In a Washington Post review, Frank Ahrens said:
[quote begins from "Adoration of the Adorable Raises the Cuteness Factor" by Frank Ahrens]
It must be a sign of encroaching age that one's tolerance for cuteness increases.
As a young man, I could not stand cute. Cute was for little girls, Japanese fads and crazy old ladies who dress up their little dogs in red sweaters and Santa hats for Christmas card photos. I saw cute as the refuge of the juvenile, the pathetic and the superficial.
Of course, I was an idiot. Did you see those panda videos?
CUUUUTE!...
But the site does more than flash photos. It's created an entire cute orthodoxy, including the 21 trademarked Rules of Cuteness...:
This is more than a hobby; it's a lifestyle, a religion. If you go to church, you sing the doxology. If you're a follower of Cutism, you chant: "Aw, wook at da woodle bunny! Wudda wudda wudda!"
[quote ends]
In his review, Ahrens mentions other sites that specialize in cuteness. But none of the sites I've seen is as eclectic as CO (and I've checked a lot of them out, I admit). And none has the CO commentary, which somehow magically enhances the cute.
Another man who appreciates the charms of cuteness----and who features at his site one of the selections from CO's famous "Cats 'n Racks [TM]" series----wrote this article in The Sacramento News and Review. As he says,
[quote begins from Ken Munger, "Cute Overload!"]
Admit it. However cynical and postmodern we might pretend to be, we can’t help oohing and aahing over cute photos of small mammals. Is it the oversized eyes? Or maybe the wistful looks?...Cynical is for suckers. Give me cute.
[quote ends]
I couldn't have put it better myself. And it's not just me, Frank, and Ken. Read some of the comments of Cute Overload's regulars.
Let us hope that Cute Overload and Meg Frost always use their frightening powers for good!
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