We're predators ourselves, so if we couldn't find predatory aspects (large, forward-facing eyes, for example) to be cute our babies would get left on hillsides.
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
94 points (92.0% liked)
Ask Lemmy
27495 readers
2535 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It's not something I'd generally consider to be one of my kinks, but I remember one time noticing a girl I know has somewhat more prominent than average canine teeth. Not ridiculously exaggerated vampire fangs or anything, definitely within the range of normal variation of the human species, but towards the upper end of that range, just a tiny bit longer and pointier than most.
And that did something for me. Like the primal reptilian part of my brain was saying "yesss, now there's a female you can go and hunt mammoths with"
It surely didn't hurt that she is otherwise very conventionally attractive, but in that moment it wasn't the great tits, ass, pretty face, blue eyes, long blonde hair, etc. that caught my eye, it was those carnivore teeth.
She's also been an on-again/off-again vegetarian as long as I've known her, and has expressed some interest in hunting, so I think her own lizard-brain also seems to have some strong thoughts on the matter.
somewhat more prominent than average canine teeth
this is definitely a "thing"
on the opposite end of the scale, ive always found buckteeth super adorable. Like, cmon little beaver creature, let's find you a piece of wood to chew on and cuddle
"wood"
"chew"
Don't recommend that line of thought unless you enjoy your weenie being chewed off.
maybe just chewed on
I discovered this about myself fairly recently, but I'm never really attracted to a woman unless I'm also at least a little bit scared of her.
"Where's the baby!?"
"Gone. Reduced to atoms."
Still kinda wild to me that our preservation instincts can be overridden by something that doesn't resemble a human in any way outside of a few features.
It's because they evolved to hack our brains, and our brains evolved to be hacked by their smells / sounds / features. 'Natural selection for reproductive fitness' is a harsh mistress.
To be fair, our ancestors, evolutionary speaking, didnt resemble us that much if you go back far enough. A system that just considers a few key features a "child to be protected" is probably more adaptable than if every change in appearance had to be accompanied with a corresponding mutation to whatever gives us our mental picture of what our young should look like, for them to still get taken care of.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
We naturally find baby-like features cute, such as:
- chubbiness
- big eyes
- small size (this doesn't always apply ofc)
- cute noises (such as meowing in cats or babbling in babies)
- last but not least, fluffiness. Modern human babies are hairless, yes, but personally I think this is some kind of 'fossil trait' (yes I just made that term up) because we evolved from animals that used to be more fluffy. Besides, fluffiness often makes an animal more round, thus adding to the chubbiness factor.
Now, let's take a look at this pomerian:
This is a predator, yes, but way too small (and docile since this pom is a domesticated anomal) to pose a threat to a human, and who could be scared of that adorable little guy?
This has everything a cute animal needs: it's small, has round black eyes, and is very fluffy, which makes it look round and be a nice cuddle buddy. So your brain goes "ooh, little baby! I must protect and cherish it!", and boom, pet.
That being said, the human brain is a complex and really weird thing, lots of things we do don't make any sense.
we are configured to find child-like things cute, and they theyre appearance throws a lot of that at us.
owls have giant, child-like eyeballs. bears have roly-poly bodies..
If not friend, why friend shaped?
Ask Little Red Riding Hood.
"Why such big teeth?" "To better eat you."
I suspect that there's a relationship between cute and being eaten by the parents of cute.
game recognizes game
It depends on the predator. Very few people call snakes or spiders cute, them being the two animals with phobias topping every list of phobias (going so far as to inspire notions that fear of them are biologically imprinted in our psyche). Maybe it's the venom.
Those that don't think spiders are cute hasn't seen a jumping spider wearing a water droplet like a jaunty hat.
I feel like the whole danger noodle and whole puppy face love for pythons in the last tenish years has really changed a lot of opinions. Snek adorbs, as they say.
And spiders have also been getting better light with at least a lot of people finding jumping spiders adorable.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Jus wook at dem! ☺️
This is the exact response I'd expect from you lmfao
I used to be really squeamish about snakes, but we adopted a surrendered Columbian red-tailed boa and love her so much. She's incredibly sweet and very smart and curious. (Okay kinda dumb in many other ways lol)
The only time she's bitten us was if she got confused and missed her strike when we were trying to feed her (frozen) rats.
I think predators tend to require more smarts, and fat builds better brains, and prey tend to be rich in fat.
So naturally, I think we find things that problem solve and play and exhibit curiosity to be cute.
I dunno, lotsa "prey animals" are cute too but maybe it's in other ways? Haha
Brb getting killed by a weasel
You joke but a weasel could cause serious damage if it was determined enough. They're extremely agile and hard to hold onto because they can bite you no matter where you grab them.
Like a snake but with claws.
load more comments
(5 replies)
This is an evolved trait. Cute babies are less likely to be eaten. Over time, babies become more cute because they were selected for.
Excellent question! I was pondering exactly this conundrum just the other day while watching a snow leopard on BBC Earth. That thing would rip your face off but wow, what a gorgeous beast! I almost ache to pet it.
Actually my pondering went even further. Not only are cats and owls and bears cute, they are much cuter than than our cousins the primates. And it get worse! I for one find that monkeys are cuter than apes, and that our closest cousins the chimpanzees are really pretty fugly indeed. Even the babies. Maybe especially the babies.
What a weird world.
It’s a bit like how people closely related to you are not attractive.
Except in Alabama
I think it's more like an uncanny valley phenomenon. Or it could be that humans are largely neotenous and other primates haven't developed that trait, so they remind us of old, or diseased members of our own species at a unconscious level.
Or it could be both. Strange hairy men that live in the woods? Avoidance response activated.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Ha. Except, jokes aside, I'm not sure it's true. Obviously this is getting into dangerous territory but, as I understand it, people do tend to go for their own ethnic group disproportionately.
Then again, sexual attraction does seem to be qualitatively different. After all, that snow leopard would go straight to the friend zone if you know what I mean.
They are the end results of millions of years of evolution prioritizing speed, strength, and stealth.
They are simply elegant and have to be strongly assertive to survive.
They have a spark of danger while we're not living in competition with them, or for most of us, we're not in any danger from them.
They share a number of qualities of things most humans would be attracted to aesthetically.
They're the pro athletes of the animal world.
If you picked an animal to come back as if you were reincarnated, would you want to be a rabbit or a cow when you could be an eagle or a shark?
Most aren't killing for fun (looking at you, house cats!), they're just doing what is required of them to survive. It's a brutal world for all wild animals, from the single celled to a whale. A predator is no worse than anything else trying to make it to the next tomorrow.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Predators have forward facing eyes; prey animals usually have eyes that are wider apart. We have forward facing eyes, so predators look more 'human.'
I think part of it is that predators instinctively attract our attention—they fascinate us so we don’t get used to them and turn our backs on them.
I think this is a big part of it. Predators are stimulating and demand our attention. For most people spiders and snakes do so in a way that is upsetting, but because mammalian predators are less alien to us (and many resemble the cats and dogs we've domesticated) they're attractive rather than repellent. But while I might find a lion adorable in video, I'm sure if one walked into my garden I'd be extremely fucking attentive.
Also, mammalian and avian predators are perceptive enough that they could tell we were acting like prey if we reacted to them the way we do to snakes and spiders. Alert attention without fear or aggression is probably the safest way to interact with such predators without provoking them—natural selection doesn’t care why we behave that way, as long as we do it.
That's a very good point! So that crazy desire to try and give a bear a cuddlewuddle isn't just a crazy deathwish, it might actually confuse the beast so much that he doesn't try to eat you!
bears... are cute? 🤨
Also, I'm pretty sure my cat cannot eat me.
I always remind my cat "btw, I'm bigger than you, you can't eat me you know" just in case she gets hungry.
That's cute and all, but it's a far different thing to see one up close and personal, and trailing a couple of cubs. Like I did last week.
Scary! But a baby bear is cute. Because of mammal instincts to take care of baby
From behind a lens? Adorable and majestic, frankly!
My 170lbs dog could eat me if he decided to. He would get less cuddles then so he has high incentive not to
Oh my God I once saw a black bear get stressed out after wandering into the neighborhood. Truly had no idea what to do about all the people other than climb and try to hide in a tree that it then got stuck in.
Eventually it was tranqued and they caught it fireman style with a tarp held underneath it as it slipped out of the tree.
I'd probably have a less cute story if it was a Polar, Grizzly or Kodiak bear though.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Humans are relatively defenseless but specialize in child rearing.
This gives us an advantage in taking pets. If you’re gonna form a bond with an animal it’s better if that animal is a predator because they can fight more effectively.
It makes more sense to give scritchy-witchies to a grizzly-wizzly than to a bunny-wun.
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›