On the abuse of Yukkuris,
Jissousekis and Fluffies
Re-upload, this was posted somewhere else in the past.
During my time spent on the Internet, spanning and still drawing out the tender years of my life, one particular phenomenon with similar origins in fan communities all around the globe has come to my attention. These are creatures derived from cartoon or video game canon, designed to have mental disabilities and the ability to reproduce via spores, but unfortunately become the targets of trolls as guinea pigs for mistreatment. This study will focus on the likeness of the three cases and examine the roots of such developments.
The most notorious species known by the western fanbase are Fluffies. Inspired and related to the My Little Pony cartoon series, they're a race of miniature ponies much fluffier than their normal counterparts as the name suggests. Another instance adopted by otaku enthusiasts is the Yukkuri phenomena — smug-faced disembodied heads of various characters from the Touhou Project franchise. And lastly, a more obscure case would be Jissouseki, a bootleg clone of the Rozen Maiden anime's Suiseiseki. These memes were first based on humor and banter with callbacks to their original source material, created by fans to explore a new trend of discussion within their social circles (i.e. DeviantArt, Futaba Channel, 4chan). Though, their most important shared aspect and the subject of our discussion centers around their cuteness and helplessness. Those creatures present very limited cognitive and motor skills and could not live without someone tending to them, this then assumes a dichotomy between an able human master (the reader's self-insert) and the adorable yet decrepit pet.
Although the majority of their online following is of the same mind in the matter of their pet-like magnetism, there is a disturbingly high abundance of content depicting their abuse and harm. And it happens that their tiny, dependent and pitiful nature is the cause. This sinister reaction caused by their charm is referred to as "cute aggression" by a few neural scholars. Dr. Oriana R. Aragón defines cute aggression as hostile behaviour triggered by the sight of cute subjects, the likes of babies and small animals. And while such response to stimuli might be considered contradictory, some have speculated that mankind's evolutionary adaptations since the dawn of time brought about this mechanism. Parents who would constantly be overwhelmed by their feelings could not effectively ensure their offspring's survival. To this extent, it works as a regulating system to keep your emotions in check. The depiction of these little creatures' ill-treatment then acts as some kind of catharsis, a sublimation channeled by means of gory art and fanfiction, the expression "it's so cute, you could crush it" taken to its culmination. Yukkuris, Jissousekis and Fluffies turn to imaginary stress balls at your complete disposal.
The psychological explanation aside, enter trolls. The creation of such adorably silly critters and the massive following they gathered sparked the desire among a few users to indulge in some mischief. Trolls, in an attempt to disrupt the usual admiration these creatures receive, employed a tactic akin to "scorched earth" to permanently tarnish their reputation and spoil the enjoyment of fan communities. They aimed to deconstruct that positive reception into inflammatory content and caused chaos within the fan bases.
Ultimately, creators are themselves vulnerable to their appeal. Whether accidentally or deliberately as agents provocateurs, they warrant their creations' debasement by their own hands. That is not to say a cruel end is what awaits those creatures. If anything, the internet has progressively stepped away from those bloody depictions. Regardless, as lost relics of the past, Yukkuris, Jissousekis and Fluffies remain a witness to man's hubris.