The sick fascination with a death video

[seabeyond]

Our fascination with the macabre has always been there, but are we becoming desensitized to such violence when it transforms from fiction into the real thing? With every click of this video, it's as if we've gone from wanting to be a fly on the wall of a crime scene to being a fly on the corpse. Responsible journalists, who aim to find balance and sensitivity when reporting on serious crimes by adding context, holding back or blurring the most offensive parts, have been pushed aside by this crowd of gross-out seekers.

*

"If I wasn't completely ruined by the Internet I would be more shocked, but I've seen some stuff kinda like that," said one young person in response to watching the snuff video. "If you've seen the 'Saw' movies you should be fine. You could probably stomach that better than most people. The problem is that those who are watching don't realize how they have moved from being passive viewers in a true crime story to becoming participants. The video was obviously put out there to be seen by the widest possible audience, and the video's maker must be thrilled to know his handiwork has been promoted globally and seen by more than a million people.

But almost nothing can be done to fix this. Even if laws were changed or strengthened to charge webmasters for hosting obscene material, it could never be properly policed. And as the music industry learned, the only way to significantly reduce piracy is to provide the content itself at a cost. Clearly law enforcement agencies aren't about to start accepting cash from the public to download graphic videos they have obtained during their investigations. In essence, it's too late to go back and we're stuck with this awful content being a part of our culture.

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Some who have viewed the recent video in this new disturbing twist in social media crime may regret it. You can't unsee a video of a dismemberment, and I fear they could end up like some homicide detectives, haunted in retirement by what they have seen. But maybe that is the hope and comfort in this terrible story -- that many people are not so desensitized by violence that they laugh or shrug a shoulder upon watching a real man's horrific end put online. Maybe they can be a new wave online that warns others not to buy into it -- to deprive the killer of his audience might send this kind of material back into the sick underbelly from where it came.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/06/opinion/lillebuen-killing-video/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

_____________________________

this does not belong in the forum, but it does. when the first Ops started showing up on du about the man eating the other mans face.... there were threads on zombies and jokes everywhere. the whole thread was jokes. the news made jokes. it really did stop me in my tracks for a moment. a couple days in a row after that, seeing the story and the new video and then the eating brain, then the porn guy.... reading down cnn said a hell of a lot. so, i have been thinking about this for too many days in a row.

we also had a conversation in a thread in this forum how catching some porn pictures, what is done with girls and women, cannot be unseen. and our concern with the ugly disrespect of women/girls. that behind the camera, we do not know if the participant does it willingly.

i am not in anyway suggesting anyone watching any of this shit. not a chance in hell i am going to. but, what do you think about this. or do you.

[bananas]

1. About 1 in 25 are sociopaths

"According to Dr. Stout -- who is backed up by
quite a bit of research -- sociopaths make up
about 4% of the population. My mediocre math
skills suggest that if you're with twenty-four
other people, statistically, one of you would be a
sociopath. Maybe more, depending on who your
friends are. "

http://www.bookslut.com/scarlet_woman_of_selfhelp/2005_03_004676.php

[seabeyond]

5. that is sad statistics, but for me, that is a way to look at it i guess.

my oldest son and husband look at life this way. i tend to see more a creation by society, a feeding, the ripple turning into a wave.

[BlueIris]

11. Yep.

I think it's even higher than that.

Sociopathy is a cancer on this nation.

[redqueen]

2. I try not to think about it really.

At least not this crime stuff.

Porn is a multi billion dollar industry, so I still worry about and talk about it. But this obsession with crime stuff is just a whole other level. There have been other videos like this out out there, and sites like that rotten one.

Unlike porn, where there's the possibility that a user might not realize that many of the women are abused, being coerced, raped, etc, and might not find watching or looking at it so pleasurable once they do become aware, the people seeking this out know exactly what is going on. There's no effort to normalize it and make it seem cool and acceptable and hip.

[seabeyond]

6. user might not realize that many of the women are abused, being coerced, raped, etc,

people dont want to know. conscious might set in.

"There's no effort to normalize it and make it seem cool and acceptable and hip."

i strongly disagree. i think that is exactly what is happening with a 2:40 rape scene that runs so long it ends up being about titilation and entertainment in tattoo girl. or from what i am hearing games of throne. or 83% of hetro porn.

i think that is exactly what the attempt is.

[ailsagirl]

3. Dark, destructive, and deeply toxic

Last edited Wed Jun 6, 2012, 05:18 PM - Edit history (1)

For myself, I avoid anything graphic because, frankly, I don't want any such images living in my mind. I don't want to be a denizen of the dark side.

[seabeyond]

7. agreed. having kids though....

and seeing what is so quickly becoming a norm and society embracing, not repulsing this, has me concerned. mental health

[ailsagirl]

9. I can certainly understand

But how to combat it? Kids always have had that curiosity, but now everything is accessible. The people who allow this horrific content on their websites are mostly to blame. One guy says--get this--that he's doing it as "a public service to show that the world has bad stuff happening in it." What a load of devious, self-serving crap!!

[seabeyond]

10. my husband gave me a wonderful example when i was down one time, about all the crap on the net

i have to investigate everything. a curiosity to understand, kinda thing. now, i tell myself what he says. and good for him he has this type of brain.

we went to new orleans recently.

he told me the net is like new orleans. you can travel all the streets, royal, garden district, and see all the beauty and fun and really enjoy it. ignore burbon street, dirty, smelly, trashy. never go on it and never experience it. it is how we travel the net.

he said it much better.

with my boys, all their life, since little, i would discuss why they could not watch certain programs, why and how it effected them. ed ed and eddy, .... stupid. we dont do stupid. look at all the kids that honor stupid. power girls.... always angry, even when happy. not a way to walk life. dont want the conditioning that this is ok.

all their lives we have discussed, why they dont do my space, why they dont do facebook, the four reasons they dont get a cell phone (until 16). now that they are older, they really appreciate this. and were glad for the boundaries that gave them the excuse not to do these social networks.

the teenage boy movies of t and a.

porn.

even with that, there is enough out there it is not like they are not experiencing it, just not at the same level. but enough, they recognize what i am saying is true. they are smart, they think, and they recognize. i think it can be done with our kids, but i think it is very time consuming as a parent. having discussions previous parents never did, at a much younger age, and more in depth. that alone, i wonder what it does to the kids.

as i always reduce it to, a huge ass boiling vat of experiment on our kids.

[ailsagirl]

12. I don't have children but...

I've been around kids (I used to teach, plus many friends have kids), and I am deeply concerned. There needs to be a coalition for people to come together and work out some viable solutions. I'm sure there are many already in place. Until this problem is addressed, it will keep raising its ugly head. Good luck!

[laconicsax]

4. Will the usual suspects be chiming in to say that it's wrong to judge the video without seeing it?

There was probably a time earlier in my life when I could have stomached watching what the video is supposed to be about, but thankfully, I've somewhat recovered from my days going to weekly religious-school.

Our culture works to inoculate us from seeing violence for what it is and considering how torture porn (both euphemistically and literally) is increasingly mainstream, I'm not at all surprised that the video is something of a viral hit.

Am I supposed to fetch my smelling salts now?

[seabeyond]

8. at the beginning of the war

because it was our country doing the invading, i made myself watch the ugly, like the beheading and tortures. they so go against who i am and what i believe. but, i couldnt see cushioning the ugly to feel more comfortable all the way here in the u.s.

that was enough to allow me my position on the war and our behaviors and what we were guilty of. too many people were entertained and able to dehumanize. it is the point of having the ability to dehumanize another.