Macabre Content, and Why We Can’t Get Enough of It

Horror movies, crime shows and the nightly news make you feel better about your life

There is a reason why our media covers unsettling content. And don’t worry—liking it does not make you a weirdo.

Have you ever wondered why you or someone you know enjoys horror movies? Or why news channels incessantly reports on major accidents, such as the recent crane accident in Mecca? Graphic content is churned out week after week and people continue to watch it. It excites us, and has a lot to do with the fact that humans are extremely curious creatures.

Most people dislike uncertainty—even if the possibility of a negative outcome is high, they’d still rather know for sure. A teacher who tells his students that the class average for a test was low, yet doesn’t hand out the marks for a very long time, creates a very stressful environment in the classroom. The Claremont Graduate University published an article that focuses on this very issue, and they based their journal on the concept of Terror Management Theory.

The study tested the effects of TMT on groups of people by manipulating both their “mortality salience”—which involves making an individual aware of the fact that their death is inevitable—and their views on whether or not there is an afterlife. They found that those who had been uncertain about the existence of an afterlife were more likely to sway towards believing that there is one after their mortality salience was tested. This could help explain why people watch fights on YouTube, or why “creepy” television channels that claim to have footage of the paranormal exist. Plain and simple, we just want to know there’s an outcome. We want to confirm, or disprove, what we know.

It may not come as a surprise that the society we live in makes us feel guilty for liking a little bit too much of the macabre. There’s a difference between catching a news report that shows the bloody scene of a shooting, and watching this type of content ad nauseam. Interestingly, the fact that we keep watching these sorts of images and programs has a lot more to do with the fact that it’s considered “taboo” than because we enjoy someone’s pain.

Researchers call this the “Boomerang Effect” and a few years ago it was the focus of the Stanford Research Center. The study exposed youth ranging from 14 to 17 years-old to anti-smoking ads by famous tobacco companies such as Phillip Morris, and then recorded their attitudes or their degree of curiosity towards smoking. As hypothesized, youth exposed to ads sponsored by tobacco companies actually promoted curiosity in them, and it was found that corporate-sponsored ads did more to enhance their own image than really preventing youths to engage in smoking.

On Sept. 12 of this year, someone posted a video on the alternative news channel World Star Hip Hop of two pitbulls attacking a person walking down the street. Only two days later the video had more than 7,000 comments and 861,812 views, which is impressive for a video that so clearly shows someone having a rather unfortunate day. There is a reason for this, and way back in 1954 social psychologist Leon Festinger came up with a theory called “The Social Comparison Theory” to explain it. Her theory states that we measure our own social and personal growth based on how successful or unsuccessful we are against others. To put it simply, you may or may not believe that you are satisfied with the way your life is going—however, unless you were attacked by vicious dogs this past Saturday, like that person in the video you just watched, your life was pretty good.

So what does all this mean? Well, at a ground level, it means that you now have justification for when you beg your friends to see that horror movie you wanted. At a more societal level, however, it means that perhaps our actions, likes and dislikes are guided more by morbid curiosity than we’d like to admit.