Morbid Curiosity

[Zeostar]

Pulling this from google: "Though there is no formal definition, morbid curiosity is typically described as an interest in or curiosity about unpleasant things, especially death"

Do you ever/how often do you look into these things? (Even along the things of crime documentaries).

I find it interesting to look at interviews of famous criminals because it's interesting to see the psychology of how the interviews are conducted and body language of the criminal, yet I don't find reading about the crimes usually to be all that interesting. Many killers are romanticized by the media when the only strength they had came from picking weaker targets. Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most famous murderers, he didn't even survive the prison environment and was bludgeoned to death. Charles Manson was set on fire during his time in prison. There was a rumor Ted Bundy was molested by other inmates on death row, charles schimid was stabbed 40 times in prison. (notice a coloration, the list goes on with these kinds of people).

I do think the death penalty history has been an interesting topic which I've looked into from time to time, with the attempts to make it less barbaric. The spanish inquisition was likely the worst, but not sure how much of that is myth.

Then of course there was liveleak. That's where I drew my limit. It's draining enough to read these things, so no thanks to a visual.

 

[gimmepie]

Oh I get curious really easy and that curiosity is directed at pretty much anything I don't already know. So naturally, all that fascinatingly messed-up stuff isn't an exception.

 

[colours]

earlier at work, because i had nothing else to do, i was looking at the wiki page of unusual deaths.

i'm not linking it because a lot of stuff there is.... pretty messed up in how it describes people dying. but if you're curious, i'm sure you can look yourself. :x i do have limits to my curiosity though, and don't dig deep into messed up things at all.

 

[Zeostar]

earlier at work, because i had nothing else to do, i was looking at the wiki page of unusual deaths.

i'm not linking it because a lot of stuff there is.... pretty messed up in how it describes people dying. but if you're curious, i'm sure you can look yourself. :x i do have limits to my curiosity though, and don't dig deep into messed up things at all.

Isn't that murderpedia?

I remember searching up Dennis Rader on there and it showed the actual home invasion photos (like the kid being stuffed in the plastic bag). Viewing that was a huge mistake, it's an informative website but I don't remember being warned before seeing that gallery of images.

 

[colours]

Isn't that murderpedia?

I remember searching up Dennis Rader on there and it showed the actual home invasion photos (like the kid being stuffed in the plastic bag). Viewing that was a huge mistake, it's an informative website but I don't remember being warned before seeing that gallery of images.

no. there's a wikipedia article on unusual deaths you can look at that's pretty self-explanatory: it gives a list of each decade and the people who died weird (and graphic) deaths during that decade.

 

[Corrin]

I find myself looking into TC sometimes but when it comes to my own death, not really.

 

[Caite-chan]

I have done that in the past. WW2, Columbine and other school shootings. I have watched videos of people jumping from the towers on 9/11 and well its not like the cartoons I'll just say that. But it really is those odd curiosities that we have sometimes.

 

[Megan]

I occasionally watch videos about weird eastereggs in video games. Some people have some "interesting" ideas what to hide inside their games...

 

[colours]

oh, and do creepypastas count under morbid curiosity? i look at those sometimes :o

 

[ReKoil]

I prefer to avoid gruesome/gory things unless it's clearly fiction such as The Walking Dead.
I'm not interested in Death at all.

 

[VisionofMilotic]

Topics dealing with the occult might sometimes evoke that kind of interest from me. I like reading and learning about different beliefs regarding the supernatural. Watching a documentary about another culture's funerary rites or concept of the afterlife would intrigue me for instance, especially the further back in time or around the world you travel, something like the Egyptian Book of the Dead would pique my curiosity.

How the ancient Egyptians envisioned the underworld was pretty epic for instance. It was a place called Duat with all kinds of obstacles and roadblocks to overcome before your soul's journey was complete. They had a concept of heaven, but death didn't just transport you to paradise/Aaru, you had to first navigate your way through places that were more like Hell. They believed in dangerous creatures that would try to stop you, and thought you needed to come prepared to do battle with them and wield magical incantations to banish them. Your sarcophagus and tomb would have all sorts of tools and instructions buried with you to help you on this quest, and food provisions to survive. It was like trying to get to Mordor and back. The ancients also believed there would be many stop points in the afterlife with gateways and gods that you needed to know by name and give the password to, or you'd be stranded in limbo and never reach your final resting place. The last trial was the ordeal that I always remembered the most vividly, a heart-weighing test where the Goddess Maat would examine your heart and weigh it on her scale of justice against a feather. A pantheon of gods would judge you like a jury, and you made vows that you didn't commit certain acts of wrongdoing in your lifetime. If at the end of judgement your heart was light like the feather the God Osiris himself would welcome you to beautiful Island paradises covered in reeds where you would dwell in peace as your reward for a good life. If your heart was heavier than the weight of the feather on the scale then you had failed the test of the Gods, and wouldn't cross into the heavenly kingdom. Instead a female crocodile lion hippo monster called Ammit would eat your heart if you didn't pass this test, and you died a second death, but this time your soul itself ceased to exist altogether. It was a state of oblivion. There was a way to cheat the divine lie detector test in case you had done some things that might normally go against you at judgement. The Egyptians loved scarabs, and had a special heart scarab amulet for your coffin just in case. With the help of this mighty talisman your heart was supposed to not reveal anything to the Gods that might be damaging to you during this evaluation period.

In a context like this I think hearing about death is just really fascinating and thought-provoking. Everyone probably has their own standards of what morbid curiosity is, but if what I just described counts stories from urban legend and folklore about ghosts, demons, witches and otherworldly beings etc then I meddle a little in it. It's not surprising that the Pokedex entries that stick with me most are the ones that have connections to tales of Japanese yokai and other mythological creatures, particularly the ones that are darker in origin.

While I have largely talked about fantasy, there a situations where I might be curious about real events where people died from a scientific or historical perspective point of view, like the cities that were destroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. It's hard to look at the photographs of the plaster casts capturing the last moments of all those innocent people who lost their lives in Pompeii, or the actual skeletons from their remains in Herculaneum, and not be moved by what happened to these unfortunate human beings and how much pain and fear they suffered. As disturbing as it is to see, I would probably want to visit these sites if I ever made it as far as Naples and haf the opportunity. I would like to find out more about the people who lived there. I like uncovering what their world was like, seeing what they built, and the kind of laws they had and what they ate. It really sparks my curiosity, even though I know their story doesn't end well. It still fascinates me to see the pieces they left behind, a baby's cradle from someone's home, a charred bit of papyrus that came from the library, a necklace a woman was wearing, grafitti left on the street from lovers meeting secretly and carving each other's name. It's powerful to see all those little touches of humanity, especially during the eruption, when the archeological data shows us someone trying to hide from falling debris, or a family holding hands and comforting each other when they realize they can't get out, others trying to escape with their loved ones, even carrying their pets with them. It's something I can't help but reflect on.