Thoughts on "Gore" Sites (Iraq, ethical, serial killers, regular)

[Frank_Carbonni]

There has been a fair amount of discussion about "gore" sites recently with the Luka Rocco Magnotta case. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term; a gore site is a website that specializes in pictures and video of graphic real life death and injury usually for "entertainment" purposes.

I am ethically and morally torn on the issue. The majority of these sites are in extremely bad taste. They generally receive most of their funding from advertisements for pornographic websites (which creates a creepy juxtaposition between graphic sex and gruesome death), some of them make jokes about the death in the photograph or video, and many of patrons of those sites are seriously disturbed (often debating which beheading video is the "funniest"). These sites are a testament to morbid curiosity and cater to some of the most ghoulish people alive.

But thing is virtually identical content can be accessed on more "legitimate" media; albeit in a much less concentrated. I remember having to watch several--I guess one wasn't good enough--drivers' ed videos that were basically 15 minutes each that seemed to consist of nothing but mangled bodies, crushed skulls, and human beings burnt to ash. I remember one image of a person literally reduced to a red paste with the voice over saying "As hard as it may be to believe. This was once a person." I remember an HBO documentary on former hitman and serial killer Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski that showed a clip of police removing a victim's body that was cut into several pieces. I also once watched an uncensored version of Rescue 911 that old show hosted by William Shatner that had a picture of a police officer who was shot in the face with shotgun and it literally obliterated his face. Although the cop survived and later received reconstructive surgery that has returned his appearance to normal; that picture was one of the goriest things I have ever seen. That point of these descriptions is to point out that it is possible to see content that equals much of the material that makes up these websites. It's not so much of matter of what they show, but rather an issue of taste.

I have shared my negative and ambivalent thoughts on gore sites; I'll admit to having a few positive thoughts as well. While there is definitely a sizable percentage of visitors who are seriously disturbed and quite possibly dangerous (a lot of recent serial killers are known to be big fans of these websites), I wouldn't say the majority are. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people have at least a pang of morbid curiosity. Why do you think that cars slow down whenever they pass a car accident? It's because they want to see if someone died or is seriously hurt and if someone did die or was seriously injured, they want to see it. One of the ironies of the Luka Rocco Magnotta case is that the community of a very well-known gore site actually identified him days before the police did and at least one member is known to have contacted the police to alert them that someone was murdered on video and give information on the likely perpetrator (which was promptly ignored). The irony is the members of a website that brags it shows the worst the world has to offer actually had better investigative skills and more concern with catching the killer than the police. Also, these sites have brought a number of newsworthy events to the attention of news media. Various massacres and war crimes which are often downplayed by government spokesmen or covered up by third world dictatorships are shown in their uncensored reality on these websites. For example the Syrian government has made states that most of the people being killed are militants that have been killed in fighting and civilian deaths are being inflated by the rebels. However, the Syrian resistance has been able to take pictures and videos of the aftermath of these massacres which reveal that many of the people killed are in fact woman and children and that from the condition of the bodies there is evidence of torture and rape. The regular news media wouldn't dare show many of those photos, so in a sense, those sites do have a redeeming quality to them.

[Fiddlehead]

I think you bring up a good point Frank.

Sometimes graphic images can indeed verify attrocities that would not occur otherwise, or scare the hell out of kids considering wreckless behavior (red asphalt,etc.).

But I do find them both disgusting and sick, and the people who find them "entertaining" are often dangerous freaks.

[Opsimathia]

I used this site to talk my brother out of joining the military. First I told him that the person trying to enlist him gets a financial kickback. Which he saw no problem with. But could see it as motivation to sell the idea as better than it actually is.

But then I sent him unedited war footage from this site. I told him that is what you are going to have to live with for the rest of your life. And if you think these pictures are bad imagine what it looks like in person. Imagine what it smells like. Imagine seeing the people around him survive things.

After the exposure he enrolled in school instead.

That is just my personal life changing experience.

I don't see the posting of the truth as bad and never will. The media twist the news and message boards these days are over moderated across the internet. A video like that would be up for a very small amount of time before it was pulled.
Before it had the chance to freak out the normal people into keeping their eyes open in looking for the dangerous suspect.

Another video that was shown on be-headings in the media was trumped up in a lie saying they cut some american's head off while he was alive. TOTAL LIE. If you watch the raw footage where it was the truth you can see and hear what it actually looks like when it happens. In the lie video spread by the media there was no choke noise, and the blood was brackish. I found that lie to spread hate to be VERY disturbing. It was like the same style of propaganda that hitler spread to make his people hate jews.

Normal people would never consider these actions to be part of anyone's life they know. Its just too...well...disturbing.
I always think myself about how these mentally ill people can go from doing something like that to normal everyday life things. How?

Dnepropetrovsk maniacs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"One of the suspects' girlfriends reported that they were planning to make forty videos of separate murders. This was corroborated by the suspects' former classmate, who claimed that he often heard Suprunyuck was in contact with an unknown "rich foreign website operator" who ordered forty snuff videos, and would pay a large sum of money once they were made.[14] Regional security chief Ivan Stupak rejected the claim that the murders had been committed to make Internet snuff videos, saying that no evidence had come to light during the investigation that supported the claim"

If there wasn't a market for it, it wouldn't be made.

People will blame sites but this type of thing has been around long before the internet even existed.
Now with it being more traceable and less underground...I say...post it. Flush em out. These people who do this or facilitate the action monetarily or verbally need to be held accountable.
Sweeping it under the rug in the name of good taste won't make it go away.

Looking at it for what it is and taking it head on will.

Imagine how many more LM would of taken out IF he didn't have that video linking him?

[gallowsCalibrator]

I'm indifferent to it. People will make websites for whatever they want.

Then again, I frequent the cesspool of the internet, so nothing fazes me anymore.

[pamelaBeurman]

When my middle son was trying to decide whether or not to become a Paramedic, I found these sites to be useful.

Having been an EMT, I wanted him to know what he would be facing and he needed to know if he could handle the sight of blood, guts and brains on the pavement.

He starts his training in August.

[workingclasshero]

is it something like the "faces of death" movies of 30 years ago...or the "1000 ways to die" tv series of today???

[Frank_Carbonni]

Originally Posted by workingclasshero

is it something like the "faces of death" movies of 30 years ago...or the "1000 ways to die" tv series of today???

Much more graphic. Do you remember those drivers' ed films that they used to show you? The ones that had the coroners picking body parts off the road? Yeah, like that level of graphic. The same sites that host those Iraqi and Pakistani beheading videos.

The first Faces of Death was mostly fake as far as human deaths were concerned. The second and third installments do have a lot of real footage and the fourth is almost entirely fake.

A more accurate comparison would be Traces of Death which was almost entirely real and in much worse taste than Faces of Death.