Calm down, Elmyra.

February 1, 2013 11:53 AM

"You are so cute I could just eat you up!"

Cute Overload, and break out the bubble wrap.

posted by the man of twists and turns (17 comments total)

Cute Overload didn't post this photo of two lizards at Taronga Zoo in Sydney I submitted a few years back, and I'll never understand why because damn that's cute.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:59 AM on February 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

We'd be remiss if we failed to note that a small research team out of NYU did groundbreaking work on this topic 20 years ago. (Autoplay video link. The relevant segment follows the opening disclaimer). #emergencybear
posted by rmxwl at 12:22 PM on February 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Are we really talking about this without linking to this Key & Peele sketch?
posted by mhum at 12:24 PM on February 1, 2013 [9 favorites]

What are all these pictures of domesticated animals doing on the internet?
posted by obscurator at 12:43 PM on February 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

HEADLINE: WHY WE WANT TO SQUEEZE CUTE THINGS
Story: Research suggests we want to squeeze them. Scientists don't know why tho'.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:45 PM on February 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Are we really talking about this without linking to this Key & Peele sketch ?

This was my first thought as well.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:34 PM on February 1, 2013

This behavior evolved many thousands of years ago, when early humans first discovered cuteness. This extremely limited resource had to be protected, usually by biting or squeezing an adversary, so that they could not get their filthy hands all over the precious little snuggler. In extreme cases, the threat could be so great that it would warrant smooshing the entire cutie patootie into the mouth for safe keeping.
posted by orme at 1:47 PM on February 1, 2013

This is awesome. I have always wondered what the scientific and slash or psychological reasoning is for the tendancy of people to want to kill things to death when they find them so cute..

Though the title made me think it'd be an Animaniacs post. No threadjack intended, but titles are having to make an awkward transition from something often used as the delivery for a Meta-MeTa joke to something more title-y..
posted by mediocre at 2:23 PM on February 1, 2013

I'm going to speculate that it's because cuteness evolved as a signalling mechanism to keep us from killing our young. If we hadn't evolved to appreciate our young we'd treat them as the parasites they effectively are (and thus die out). But there has to be some countervailing mechanism for when their isn't enough food to go around to support young or when we need to murder cute prey animals, hence aggression.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:54 PM on February 1, 2013

I don't need sites like Cute Overload. I have my cat, and he's all the cute I need. Although I do sometimes maybe overhug him a bit (because hearing him purr makes me happy), but not past the point he tells me to stop. (And, no, not by biting.)

Although, a cute partner would be accepted.
posted by Samizdata at 4:08 PM on February 1, 2013

How do you think we discovered Veal?
posted by cacofonie at 5:11 PM on February 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:22 PM on February 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

See: the spanish expression nervio
posted by lalochezia at 6:06 PM on February 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Baby tapir.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:47 PM on February 2, 2013

George
posted by maggieb at 3:16 PM on February 2, 2013

George
posted by maggieb at 3:24 PM on February 2, 2013

Aren't cute animals easy prey?
posted by MangyCarface at 11:26 AM on February 4, 2013