Why Do You Watch Death, Dismemberment, & Decapitation?

There is something I have been curious about for a while now so I figured I would just ask. Mom always said that was the best way to get an answer.

Not too long ago I ran up on a video clip that I clicked on not really knowing what it was going to show. I clicked play only to find that it was a real video of a woman being decapitated by her husband for being unfaithful. The title read "Husband Gets Revenge". I figured it was probably something like one of those YouTube videos where pranks are handed back and forth. I was sorely mistaken. The video in question only lasted about 30 seconds so it was pretty much over before I could logically grasp what I was actually seeing to turn it off.

The sight has been in my head ever since. I am not sure I will ever be able to get it out of my head at this point. I can not believe that stuff like that is just floating around out there and obviously it has a pretty large audience. I know it was naive of me to assume stuff like this was scrubbed from the internet and I had heard lots of rumors about stuff posted on Live Leak before... I just... I don't know.

I can not fathom why people would want to see something like that bad enough to actually seek it out.

So what say you? Is it like a car accident and you can't look away? If you watch it on purpose.... Why?

I am asking out of all sincerity. I can't imagine pulling up on a fatal car wreck, take time to film the bloody bodies with my cellphone camera, then rush home to upload it to the rest of the world. When I have run up on fatal car wrecks I usually try not to look so I don't see stuff like that. It stays in my mind too long.

So again... I ask why? Do you feel no empathy when you are watching it? Is it the same for you as watching a Hollywood horror film?

Why do you think sites like Live Leak and the death videos on them are so popular? Does that say anything about humanity as a whole?

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

I haven't watched a video like that since the nick berg video but i didn't come across that by accident i must admit.
It was also when i was in high school and didn't know any better. It was fuel for me to join up in the service.
This is a good question tho, interested in the replies you get.

a reply to: Sremmos80

One can understand the curiosity of teens I believe. I think it is hard to imagine actual death at such a young age if you haven't lost a family member or someone close before then.

I am hoping that maybe a few folks that do watch it regularly will come out and say why, but I am not sure that will happen. We'll see. I'm not personally looking to flame or bait anyone, I have just been curious about it for far too long.

ETA - I just realized I gave you my 5,000th post. Merry Christmas.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

I think we as people watch for several reasons, Intrigue for one. I'd say most people watch videos like the one you referred to purely because its different from the norm. To most people the idea of decapitating another human being on the grounds of infidelity is some what taboo and then you get the debate side of humans.... We like to bitch, moan and gossip. I barely know a single person who either by accident or by their own volition watches a video in graphic nature then does not mention about the detail or their feelings towards it to anyone else. Its always spoken always bringing up a discussion. 'Wow that's just sick, how could they do that' or even (and I have friends who speak like this) 'Well that would put a stop to her cheating'


I don't actively seek out any videos of this sort but nonetheless I still know it goes on so many times every single day. That's where for me it doesn't bother me too much and I do feel apathy for the person/s killed but then it hits me that I have but witnessed one brutal fatality.....Just in my typing now some bomb has gone off or some man taking his old dog to a field for pasture, someone deciding to take their life, others deciding to do that and take as many people with them. The times I get freaked out is when I realize what I just said most likely has all happened in the same instant and more like this will happen in the next 5 minutes and so forth day after day.

After all what we see online and TV is only snippets of the world and its gore.

But I remember all its beauty I'm sure there is more videos of Cute dogs and cats and laughing babies than the gore we seem to see more of lately.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Well I will admit to watching combat footage from an Apache gun camera, the interest for me there was more about modern weaponry. The images are quite grainy black and white. One of the terrorist beheadings was played on Australian tv news uncencored, SBS was the station.

I think people watch this stuff due to that primitive hunter/killer that is deep in all of us. Cage fighting is so popular because of this, people want to see blood and violence. We are animals, really.

a reply to: Maltese5Rhino

It takes an awful lot of beauty to get something like that out of your head for sure.

I suppose you are right. It does happen all day, every day. I just can't imagine wanting to watch it.

As much as I hate the "I blame the tv, video games, etc." excuse, I do wonder if some folks have just become accustomed to gory sights so when some see real ones maybe it just doesn't have the same impact that it should/used to. Their mind just registers it as it would a movie death scene. Somehow I find that almost as frightening as those who seek it out for some kind of sick thrill.

Thanks for replying! Any kind of insight is appreciated.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Actually I am of the same, I don't like the whole 'TV/Games are the cause of all evil' etc but there is something to it.

I believe it does desensitize us especially from a young age. So when we actually see something graphic its almost less graphic in our minds than it is. Such as some games where the gore factor is well too high for reality. Kind of like the kill bill effect....Get used to so much blood spouting left and right. Compared to reality its a stark contrast. In most cases anyway.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

I dunno, I've always liked flower shows I guess?

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

I have skipped all decapitation videos,that is just something I 'd like to leave this planet without having seen. I have seen the faces of death video series,but that was too much for me.I guess I'm a wuss when it comes to seeing people die in anything but a peaceful way.

And I believe that you tube said they were going to let that type of video back on after banning it before.But other types of videos less graphic are banned? I don't get it,this is one upside down country.

I watched a couple with regret

Witches being burned in Kenya or Nigeria and the one of the Ukraine protesters being picked off by a sniper

What we humans are capable to do to one another astoundes me

It was horrible to watch and still haunts me...

I don't know why we look at horrid stuff like that...I suppose it is the same as slowing down at an accident to have a look.
I have seen two vids on the net I wish I never saw..they still haunt me to this day .

I must be a sick Bxxxxxd

i like watching videos of people being killed /torn apart what ever

lol at mass shootings / deaths of tens of thousands of people just make me shrug my shoulder's and say what ever
i would not bat a eye lid if million's were killed in a natural disaster [ f them is my attitude]

I have watched video's of people being cut up /shot / blown up killed by accidents etc

but i would not or could not watch a animal being hurt / have never watched porn and think people that do are weird

but it takes all kinds to make a world i guess

Mornin',

I don't watch deathporn.
There's enough out there to hold my attention in the day without adding footage of gruesome, murders.
I make it a point to steer clear of those who do.

-Peace-

I'll say I'm of the type who watches these videos, I think it started with the nick berg video wich my first time seeing it left me as sickened and speechless as the op. I think over time it's just something I've watched out if curiosity.
This stuff is actually happening right now somewhere, so I've felt like it kinda keeps me and whoever else is willing to watch such videos a little more prepared for encountering such things in real life. If we ever must of corse wich I will do everything in my power to steer clear from.

Having been raised on a farm, there is a whole lot I can stomach. I've helped birth many a barnyard creature, from cats to cows. The sight of my own blood doesn't bother me, and most of the time I can handle the sight of someone else's blood.

I can clean an animal without batting an eye. I was gutting fish for supper by the age of eight.

I can watch movies with gore and violence so long as I know it isn't real. For example, I know vampires, werewolves and zombies aren't real, so it doesn't bother me to watch a good, gory creature feature.

But, humans hurting and/or killing other humans I cannot watch. I don't know what it is, but I can't face it, can't look at it, can't watch it. When 9/11 happened and they showed footage on the news of those people leaping to their deaths from windows and falling out of the buildings...those images will haunt me for the rest of my life. And it's not a "terrorist" thing or a patriotic thing, it's just that I can't watch such a display of death and pain and fright and loss of life.

Movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House of 1000 Corpses? No can do. No way, no how. I can't stand to watch the scene in Three Kings where they torture Mark Wahlberg, even.

I had a similar experience to the OP once, in which a clicked on an unsavory link and I still regret it. It was a video of a beautiful little young Asian lady, nicely dressed, wearing heels and holding a kitten. How seemingly innocent is that? I mean, how could that go wrong, right?

Well, she puts the kitten on the ground and stomps it to death.

I can handle an animal being killed for food. But viciously killing a baby domesticated animal for kicks? No thanks. Made me sick.

When we were kids and we were heading out into the woods, pastures or going to the pond, my mom would always remind us "if you kill it, you eat it."

And my brother and I both knew she meant it! I think this philosophy coupled with growing up on a farm where we were constantly surrounded by and aware of the circle of life (and death), instilled a deep respect for life in both of us. As far as I know, neither of us ever broke mom's rule.

Luckily, I have never stumbled across any links showing a beheading or burning anyone at the stake. But just watching the news can be disturbing.

If they are showing us stuff like the people dying on 9/11 on the nightly news, maybe some people become desensitized and it becomes a form of entertainment for them? Or at least I hope that's the only reason people would want to watch this sort of thing. Maybe most folks just have a thicker skin than I do...

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

I was interested in stuff like this until a few months ago there was a miss-labled clip online and it was of a small child being run over by a train. Since then i cannot bring myself to view anything like this again. I hav had nightmares about that clip.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe



I try to avoid any and all of that.

Added above is something to clear those mental images.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Generally people find what they want to find on the internet and a minority keep putting death videos out there. No problem as part of historical records - conflict deaths etc.

The unknown quantity is how *some* people can become disassociated from society by exposing themselves to the horror stuff. Back in the past, junior killers would mess with roadkill or pets; now they can get more bang for their buck by watching snuff videos.

On the bright side, 'faces of death' was watched by a lot of my friends and not one single one has become a serial killer!

originally posted by: pryed -eyed-one
I'll say I'm of the type who watches these videos, I think it started with the nick berg video wich my first time seeing it left me as sickened and speechless as the op. I think over time it's just something I've watched out if curiosity.
This stuff is actually happening right now somewhere, so I've felt like it kinda keeps me and whoever else is willing to watch such videos a little more prepared for encountering such things in real life. If we ever must of corse wich I will do everything in my power to steer clear from.

this is why i have watched these videos. it reminds you of the animals who have control in the world (you better believe that every gov't organization from the president on down to your local sheriff would do ANYTHING to stay in power.) and why we need to fight them. when it all comes crashing down, this kind of violence will be commonplace in the streets, and i believe it is best to become accustomed to it before it leaves you in a vulnerable state on the battlefield that this country (u.s.) will soon be.

i think its just a morbid curiosity that some people watch this stuff. i know in highschool me and my friends would go on ogrish and rotten . com i found it quite interesting but shocking at the same time.

i dont look at that stuff anymore, like i have never seen 2 guys 1 hammer or beheading videos. i pass on real people getting killed. but i do really like super gory movies like august underground cannibal holocaust (except the animal parts) etc. which reminds me of a clip i saw on the news years ago of terrorists testing some poison gas on the cutest golden retriever puppy and a kitten i think. just remember footage of it stumbling trying to stand up. wtf i cant handle animals being hurt. i hope i never see the lady crushing the kitten.

and for faces of death all the little skits are fake but its mixed in with real stock footage.