Tiger King and the psychology of cute

Most of you don’t know this, but my childhood dream job has always been a big cats researcher. There is something about big cats, some trait or combination of traits, that fascinated me. The size and the fluffiness. Combination of beauty and danger. There was …something about the fur, the claws, and the predatory look in their eyes. Also, it did not help that I was reading a lot of encyclopedias in my early childhood, where tigers were always depicted as majestic kings of the jungle. But we never had cats when I was young, always dogs, and only once I got my first cat in my early 20ies, I realized how huge the difference is. Now I have two cats, and even though I don't always show it, I love them with all my heart and I could never imagine loving dogs the same way. Imagine my intrigue when I saw the popularity of the (at the time) new Netflix show The Tiger King. It is a show about big cats breeder Joe Exotic, which is mostly happening in Oklahoma, USA. The story and the people in it are … incredibly unique, to put it diplomatically. Amongst a myriad of interesting things about the show and people behind it, there are a couple of interesting psychological concepts at work as well. There are the cats themselves, which hold seemingly unlimited power over human hearts. There is the always interesting psychology of cult behavior, which we will address in the second part. So let's get out there to the fields of Oklahoma and see if we can make sense of it all through the eyes of the psychology.

Let’s recap. Meet Joe. Gun-toting polyamorous gay redneck ex-presidential candidate, who is, at the time of my writing this piece, incarcerated for attempted murder-for-hire. Over the course of the show, we meet the animals he owned in his zoo, the people that worked there, his multiple husbands, his archnemesis (“Are you really living your best life if you don’t have one?”) Carol Baskin, and other prominent people in the big cats trade. There are funerals with songs and ballsacks, there are sex cults, politics, expired Wall-Mart meat, assassination attempts, early streaming examples, real-life Scarface references, and much, much more. With incredible animals peppered throughout the show for easier watching. Honestly, no recap can make this story justice, because every element of it is stranger than the last.

The Tigers

Right of the bat, there are tigers. Tiger cubs, to be exact. They are just the most adorable things in the world, arguably second only to internet sensation Baby Joda. One after the other, all the tiger breeders seem to almost instinctively know one thing – tigers (all animals, really, and even humans) are the cutest when they are young. National Geographic states that tigers are only economically useful for a period of 12 weeks (tigers usually live up to 15 years in the wild, similarly to a common household cat).

National Geographic states that tigers are only economically useful for a period of 12 weeks.

Some go on to be bred, some spend their lifetimes in exhibits, and some spend all their lives being petted as cubs. And no, we did not develop a growth-inhibiting hormone. They get put down, is what I mean. See, tigers, even though they belong to a different genus, are actually cats. Please hold your gasps and outrage until the end of the show, thank you very much. And as any cat owners will tell you (usually without even needing to ask them), cats breed like crazy. Unlike some shitty monochromatic bears, cats reproduce often and with great intensity. Household cats mate twice a year, reach sexual maturity between 5 and 10 months, and produce on average 3 kittens twice per year. That is similar to wild tigers, but something strange happens to cats bred by humans. See, most wild cubs die at the hand of human hunters, other male tigers (male tigers to female tigers: “oh you already have children? Not anymore! ... So, wanna make some kittens?”), starvation and freezing. When human breeders eliminate most of the dangers, tiger cub mortality drops significantly, and their numbers swell. That is part of the reason for that infamous Netflix line: There are more tigers in captivity, then there are in the wild.

The Baby schema

After the starting 12 weeks of their lives, tigers lose their appeal. Or, to be precise, they lose their financial appeal. They become too big, too dangerous, and they start to lose their baby schema.

What is a baby schema, you ask? Well, my dear curious reader, baby schema is what baby Joda, kittens, human babies, and all the other baby-prefixed characters. Baby Nintendo characters? Yep. Most of the good-aligned Disney characters? Yeah. Literally any live creature in its early developmental stages that is not part of a horror-themed art? Yeah, probably!

Here are the characteristics of the baby schema:

• Small size

• Large head relative to the body

• Large eyes relative to the body

• Eyes low in the face

• Round cheeks and bulbous forehead

• Small nose and chin

Here is an example.

I am personally not a fan, but those traits are particularly prevalent in what are called “lapdogs”. Your Pugs and Bulldogs, your Cavaliers and Shih Tzus. If you have one in your vicinity you can analyze their baby schema right now.

Samuel Felulah Rockwell, let go of that dog right now!

We have all felt it at some point in our lives. But what purpose does it serve? In what is a moment of pure serendipity (John Cusack film), the purpose of baby schema actually mirrors our previously discussed attachment theory. The latter discusses attachment from the point of the child towards its main caregiver, while baby schema theory claims it encourages caregiving and attachment in adults towards infants. Throw in sounds of whining or crying, and what you get is almost an involuntary explosion of oxytocin that makes you want to cuddle and take care of whatever is in front of you. Researchers Borgi & co. (2014) found this response in children as young as 3 years, which shows we develop a sense of “cuteness” very early in our lives.

And research into cuteness has shown that not all cuteness is created equal. In the word of Borgi & co. (2014):

"Independently of the degree of baby schema, adult and children in our study showed a more positive appraisal for animal than for human stimuli, and, among animals, they gave the highest score to the dog followed by the cat (an effect that disappeared when viewing young faces: puppies and kittens received a similar score). Humans' positive response toward animals (e.g., preference for animal over inanimate and human stimuli, positive behaviors directed to animals), as well as the highest rate of the dog, were previously shown in a number of studies (DeLoache et al., 2011; Lobue et al., 2012; Borgi and Cirulli, 2013)."

What they found out was that dogs are cuter than cats (which, as a proud cat owner, befuddled me to no end) and cats are cuter than humans.

What they found out was that dogs are cuter than cats and cats are cuter than humans.

Difference between cats and dogs disappears when comparing relative cuteness (that’s a thing) of feline and canine newborns. Their findings, it seems, are aligned with the broader scientific consensus on what is considered cute.

Pictured: Borgi & co., researching cuteness.

The Childhood

All pretty basic stuff so far. Small furry things are cute. Where it gets truly peculiar, is when we delve deeper into the psychology of cute. And the things we find ... are dark, and sometimes disturbing. It may change your outlook on cute things forever.

Did you know ... that childhood wasn’t always a thing? At least not the in the way we know it today. It’s true, for most of human history children were just like adults, but shorter. This, together with a lower life expectancy, is why they did stuff we are disgusted and perplexed by today, such as child brides and child labour. It is kind of a long walk, but I swear it’ll all be worth it in the end.

The origin of childhood, as a separate developmental stage, can be traced back to 17th century, to the writings of John Locke.

No.

His ideas that people are born as a “tabula rasa”, a blank slate, waiting to be shaped, molded by their caregivers gave rise to a new family ideology, first observed in the newly formed commercial middle class. The new ideology claimed that family should be centered around bringing up children. The idea of childhood, as a special period of innocence and divinity, started to take shape.

Those more versed in the ways of human history might be seeing a slight bump on the way to developing a modern idea of childhood. Specifically, a bump in the shape of the age of industrialization which was, in fact, NOT a great time to be a child. Or ... to be more precise, it wasn’t a great time to be a poor child (not that there ever was a great time or place to be that). Children from rich families were, surprise surprise, and in large part thanks to the ideas of Locke, unaffected by the horrors of late 18th century London. The large difference between how the children of the poor were treated and the ideas of childhood innocence that were promoted by higher classes is what led to the development of the child protection laws.

Basically, yeah!

Childhood, as we know it today, as a time of innocence, joy, learning, and happiness, has developed later still. A book that was considered a landmark piece of literature, that started the so-called “First Golden Age” (the X-Men movies of childhood literature, if you will) was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865.

Art by Diego Gomez.

The rise of mandatory state schooling pulled children out of factories and put them in classrooms. Our old buddy Freud also started making waves with his, at the time new developmental theory that painted a picture of children with his favorite colors – sex and aggression. By that time a booming market could no longer ignore this special time, this new key demographic and it followed the trend, it started making toys in line with the new idea of children. And that ... is our way back to cute. The toys for the children of that time’s tomorrow had to fit the new paradigm – much like a time of life that was supposed to be soft, safe, and innocent, toys too, became soft, safe and cuddly. This also allowed them to enact Freuds aggressive drives without breaking their toys. A side effect of this marketing trend was an increased exposure to all things cute, or in short, baby schema.

Did someone say marketing?? - Marvel

But baby schema is not only how things look, but also how things sound. Think baby tigers. Think Pikachu. Think Baby Yoda. Think ... Well, think any sidekick in Disney films. I’m sure you’ve figured it out already, but its the inability to use normal speech. All of the above are examples of speech consisting of repeating a single word, or short phrases, usually even just short sounds, always in a high pitch, with just enough variation to sound as if there is some meaning behind it. Groot is a notable exception to the rule because while he does speak with a single phrase, his tone is very low pitched, something Guardians of the Galaxy 2 fixed with a baby Groot (which in turn made him cuter). If you think about it for a second, I’m sure you will find plenty of other examples.

Pikachu is cutest when most sad.

The Cute Agression

Lastly, psychology.

The psychological explanation of why we find cute things cute is ... a bit dark. See, it is not only enough to look cute, and sound cute you must also BE cute. And that means you have to be helpless, clueless, pitiful, sad. Puss in Boots is a suave cat with a velvety voice of Antonio Banderas, but when he truly wants to harness the powers of cute, he enlarges his eyes, makes mouths as small as possible, looks as if he is about to cry, and starts purring. You don’t NEED to be miserable to be cute, but humans find things MOST cute when they are miserable.

Engage maximum cuteness!

Think about the last time you saw something really cute in real life. Really think about it. A dog, a kitten, sure, for some people even babies. Really go back to that moment and think about it. What did you feel? What did you feel towards that object of cuteness? Were you, perhaps, overwhelmed by a sudden urge to hold that object, hug it, squeeze it, pinch it, take a bite out of it? There’s a reason sayings like “it's so cute I am going to die”, “I just want to eat him/her/it up”, “I want to crush it with my love/hugs” exist, and the reason is self-defense. At least according to the theory of Katherine Stavropoulos. She postulated that the aggression we sometimes feel towards the object we identify as cute is a deeply rooted defense mechanism and not the kind that we psychologists are most familiar with. This mechanism doesn't reduce anxiety, it protects us from fully shutting down in front of an unknown organism with possible harmful intentions. It is literally life-saving! You know, in theory.

The aggression we sometimes feel towards the object we identify as cute is a deeply rooted defense mechanism that protects us from fully shutting down in front of an unknown organism with possible harmful intentions.

It’s called Cute Aggression, and it is, in fact, a thing, if you are one of those who are reading this with a bewildered look on his/her face because you’ve never felt it. The research she did showed that response to cute is generally driven by the brain's emotional centers, while cute aggression, which is a response to overwhelming cuteness also includes a response from the brains reward system. In that way, she theorizes, the brain protects itself from being controlled by the cute thing completely.

Don't you just want to bash them with a bat?

Some go even further. Sianne Ngai claims that not only are cute things praying on our caregiving instincts, they also offer us a fantasy of control. She focuses mainly on the psychological aspect of cuteness and claims that we find things cute when those things lack something, when they need something, when they are dependant on others (us). In her words, “cuteness is aestheticized powerlessness”. Daniel Harris says “Cuteness is not something we find in our children, it is something we do to them. Because it aestheticizes helplessness, sadness, dependency, it almost always includes an act of sadism on the part of its creator, who makes an unconscious attempt to maim, hobble and embarrass the thing it seeks to idolize”. He also claimed that we look at cute things with a “transformative gaze that will stop at nothing to appease its hunger for expressing pity and big-heartedness, even at the expense of mutilating the object of its affections”. It means we are putting our need to express pity over the feelings of the object we are trying to show pity towards.

Ngai also connects this aggressive mutilating cuteness with, well, World War II of all things. She explains that the explosion of “kawaii culture” in Japan was, in fact, a response to the dehumanization and demilitarization (loss of power and autonomy) of their defeat in WWII. Kawaii culture, she claims, has exploded nowhere more than in Japan because no other nation has had its experience of being crushed (Hiroshima & Nagasaki), and because of it, no other nation identifies as strongly with powerless, helpless cute creatures. An added bonus, by worshipping kawaii things they also reclaim their fantasy of control and power.

By Jusu-Tengu

The conclusion

Joe figured that out. All the wild animal traders did. Baby tigers are the epitome of cuteness. Let’s look at Joe and his tigers through this new lens. You’ve got baby tigers, successfully fulfilling the visual requirements of the baby schema. Their sounds, hisses, growls, baby roars, all fit baby schema sounds. They are most valuable before the age of 12 weeks when they are most helpless, most in need of care, most pathetic. After 12 weeks, they start growing out of the baby schema, their voices deepen, and they are quickly becoming self-sufficient, which means the death of cuteness. Joe also uses his “conservationist efforts” as a selling point, which makes more sense when you know that people will pay more for the feeling of rescuing something helpless, something that needs you. What Joe is truly selling is the feeling of power over an inferior pathetic creature that is at the whim of our every (well-intentioned) desire. What Joe's clients feel is very similar to what most parents (and pet owners) feel on a daily basis, and is probably the same thing that drove Joe to this business in the first place. A sense of power and control over a helpless, cute thing.

Next week we will dive deep into the psychology of the people part of the Tiger King, Joe, Carol and Doc Antle. Stay tuned!