Voyeurism

[GHoSToKeR]

I'm sure you guys have all heard of the Gladiators who used to fight to the death for the entertainment of the Romans. People look back on this and think "that's barbaric! Barbaric, I tell you", and I agree, it is. But how long do you think it's going to be before we have our own modern-day Gladiators appearing on our TV screens?

I recently read The Running Man by Richard Bachman (Stephen King's former alias) which is set in the not-too-distant future. The world (or at least the United States) is divided in to two halves - the rich and the poor, to put it simply. The people living in the poor areas are as poor as poor can get, and the rich are rich. There is no middle ground.

One of the only ways the poor people have of making money is to appear on reality television shows for the entertainment of the better-off citizens. The only difference between the reality shows of today and the ones in The Running Man is that the stakes are alot higher... one example is a show in which people with bad heart conditions have to run on a treadmill for as long as possible; the longer they survive the more money they earn, until they eventually have a stroke or heart attack or such. The most popular and most dangerous reality gameshow in The Running Man is the show that the book is named after. The Running Man (the show) is a game where a small number of contestants have to run, literally. They are given a head start and they have to just run as far away from the studio as possible, and then are chased by a team of highly trained mercenaries. If the mercenaries find them they kill them. If they don't find them after a certain amount of time the contestants win big $$. And throughout the whole thing people are having the action broadcast in to their homes all the time so that they can sit and enjoy.

This might seem really far fetched, and maybe it is, but I don't think we're as distant from that as we think. People, for whatever reason, seem to enjoy reality televisions shows - Big Brother, anyone? - and we all know that people like to see people being hurt - boxing, wrestling, Ogrish.com, horror movies, etc - so why not merge the two? What could be better than a reality show where we can actually watch people being hurt or killed, all in the safe confines of our livings rooms?

Discovering Ogrish.com, as you all probably know, has really affected me in some fundamental way. I'm not going to get in to it here, as i'd just be repeating myself, but Ogrish.com is the most extreme type of voyeurism I have heard of. People come up with excuses for watching that kind of stuff, but personally I feel that you would not watch anything like that unless you enjoyed it - I don't do stuff that I don't enjoy to some extent, and I imagine everybody else is the same. Even the adrenaline rush you get from being horrified is a type of enjoyment, and essentially a type of pleasure. Finding out that people can watch a man having his head hacked off or a woman being gang raped and murdered (or suicides, torture and executions, etc) has upset me more than I thought possible, and I don't know why, really. So i'm gonna get off that subject, or at least get back on to what I was saying.

The fact that sites like Ogrish.com exist suggests that a large number of people get some kind of gratification or pleasure out of seeing the pain and suffering of others. The fact that shows like Big Brother exist suggest that a large number of people get enjoyment or pleasure out of watching real people in real situations, all while sitting in their living room behind a locked door. As I said earlier, I honestly don't think it will be long before there is some kind of amalgamation of the two, and we'll be seeing reality shows in which people are put in life threatening situations for our entertainment... and i'm sure the majority of people will be rooting for them to lose.

I hope I don't live long enough to see things progress that far, though.

(I originally had alot more to say, alot more points to try and make, but I feel my words would be 'falling on deaf ears', so to speak. And I should really try and get this shit out of my head, it's done nothing but upset me.)

[ezjim]

did you read the long walkers yet ?? i think it was one of the bachman stories pretty good reading... that ogrish site is sick dude they had one of the beheadings from iraq on there last winter or spring.. people are getting more decadent every year.. it would be nice to see more sites like C.C.com and less sick ass depraved sites like ogrish.. but i doubt it's gonna go that way any time soon.. people who take pleasure in others suffering suck

[GHoSToKeR]

Glad someone agrees. :)

[RaoulDuke45]

my history teacher used to say that were like ancient rome and reality shows are gladitors

[GHoSToKeR]

Try getting high and watching Big Brother or some other reality TV show, you'll be saying exactly the same thing! lol

[potpimp]

I was hoping this was going to be about people who like seeing girls go wild and show their boobies. Thats my kind of Voyeurism, i dont want to see anyone get killed. Bumfights is kind of funny though.

[TasteTheRainbow]

Yeah, bumfights is funny. :rolleyes: Loser.

[GHoSToKeR]

lol TasteTheRainbow... hmm, there's gotta be something we can call you for short, being stoners and all! Any ideas? :)

[daZenfmeister]

Wow Ghost, I'm glad someone agrees with ME on that point. Back in like april or so all my friends started watching something I forgot what it was called but it was all executions and people getting hit by trains and sick shit like that and the sad thing is that its all real like people getting their dicks chopped off as punishment and captured us soldiers getting their throats ripped out by hunting knives. And all my friends are like COOL! I felt like taking then and chopping off their tiny little weiners and then laughing and clapping and saying COOL to them while they fucking sat their cry and bleeding in agony. I seriously have never hated anyone more than I hated my friends at that point.

[ezjim]

lol TasteTheRainbow... hmm, there's gotta be something we can call you for short, being stoners and all! Any ideas? :)
TaTeR

[GHoSToKeR]

Yeah, DaZenfmeister... It's really fucked up, eh? I actually feel angry towards the people who watch it... :eek:

Anyway, this ain't what the thread was about.. or was it? Aah, fuck it.

TaTeR... haha :D TasteTheRainbow, you mind if I call ya TaTeR from now on!? :) :p

[FunkyMonkey]

I have read the long walk and running man but Im not commenting specifically about them .
I just wanted to touch on your comments about the various sites that offer video that many others, yourself included, have a hard time with.
I frequent some sites that show the things you mention. Some of them do it in a more entertainment oriented way but the footage they have is generally the same. No matter where it is or who run the site , or whatever else might be posted there for entertainment, I get the same thing from it.
I get uncensored, unbiased raw news. I get to see and experience the things that they brush over on the nightly news shows. I get to look into the shadows and see what the world really looks like with my eyes, and not through someone elses verbal interperatation of the world.
Horrible shit happens everyday in every corner of the world. But when we turn on the news we see " murder...blah blah blah...crime...blah blah ablh...more murder....war....rape....etc" followed quickly by a light story about puppies or some equally irrelevant story to take our minds off how horrible that shit really is. I dont want some flash flash flash snippets of a story and video combined then ...lets look at the 7 day wether forecast.
A child was brutally raped in front of her parents today ....but first...over to Bill and the sports! That kind of shit desensitizes us faster than anything.
Here is a look at what the world is like, now back to your cozy safe home where all you need to worry about is what brand of detergent I am going to wash the stains outa my underwear with?
I can go to those sites and see what is real. I can watch the footage they spoke of on the news and get an entirely different story from it and have a longer lasting impact on me. Its not washed and sanitized and diluted until we can 'handle' it. Its raw, and real and horrible. And when I see this shit with my eyes, and hear it with my ears and can pause and replay it , it becomes real. Its not entertainment, its life. As long as you are fed your news by the mainstream media, you will never understand the stories they feed you... the substance is missing. I know graphic video is not to be stomached by all ( and I dont claim to be able to stomach all I have seen )
but it does have its merits. It shows us what we are and reminds us where we are. It shows us that society is not just what we see while we drive to work.
When I hear on the news about another car bomb going off I am not really that impressed by the story. I am not as shocked and horrified as I should be. Im not even snapped out of my own world long enough to register what that really means. But when I watch the footage of the bomb aftermath and see bodies littered about like scrap metal, and see scalps hanging from twisted frame of a bus, or the small hand of a child still gripping the doll she held to her chest when things got scary, or the sounds of uncontrolled cries, of people screaming in whatever language about the agaony they are in seeing their family mambers dead, when I watch the people running around in chaos or the emergency workers trying desperately to save the life of a woman trapped under a piece of a car....then I know it to be real, I cannot deny it. I see it, I feel it and it reaches into me further than any words on the news , and it hurts me.All this shit...ALL of it is real. It is my world and your world and the world of our children. It makes me cry sometimes when I see some especially disturbing video ,but it SHOULD make me cry. The fucking news SHOULD make us all cry but it doesnt.
That is more disgusting than anything. We shouldnt need to see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears but we do...I do....and it sickens me.
Im just trying to understand this world and the people in it and that is one tool I use.

[TasteTheRainbow]

Ya got me! You caught the tater. :p Man I love Ron White. :)

And I forgot to mention that yeah, I do agree with you. I just don't see how people can take pleasure in others suffering.

[GHoSToKeR]

FunkyMonkey, I really appreciate your honest reply.

I see where you're coming from, and your reply has partially helped me to see why i'm so effected by just the thought of these things, without even seeing the video. I'll try and explain.

As you probably know, a series of bombs exploded in London recently, and a number of people died and even more were injured. I first heard about it at work the next day. The radio was on and I heard "And now for a news update; a series of explosions in London........" and I was speechless. I asked the guys I work with if they knew anything about it and the reply I got was "Yeah, I heard.. sucks eh?", and then he went back to talking to someone else about what a good night he had last night. I looked around and noticed that everybody I worked with was completely ignoring the news or at least didn't show many signs or actual compassion or interest. It was the same next door, in a different department. People had died or were dying right this second and nobody seemed to give a shit. All day I felt sick and couldn't take my mind away from what had happened, but I seemed to be the only person at work who cared. Even one of my colleagues who was born in London only cared until he managed to contact his family in London, and then he didn't give a shit either.

So maybe (and i'm not trying to be concieted or anything) I just value life more than the average person.. Alot of people hear stuff and it goes in one ear and out the other, and all they want to hear about is the sports they watch or the latest reality tv show (you were right when you said this desensitizes us more than anything). They don't value human life, not really, so watching a video of a guy having his head pinned down and cut off doesn't effect them as much as it would effect me. I don't need to see it to know it's happening all over the world.... that might sound selfish in some way, but it's not. I know the world is a shitty place alot of the time, but forcing myself to watch something that would bring me to tears and make me physically sick won't help anyone or anything. All the negativity and brutality I see effects me enough as it is.

[FunkyMonkey]

Ghost, I appreciate what you have said.
I have a better understanding of what you are saying. The video you mentioned about the guy being held down with a foot on his head while he is executed by knife is STUCK in my head. I saw that one a few years ago and it hasnt left me. I hear the gurgles he made and see the knife, the spreading pool of blood its all still up there. That one was one of the first I ever saw and I 'forced' myself to watch it to completion even after a voice in my head screamed at me to look away because what I was seeing was WRONG.
I sat through it and sat stunned, with goosebumps ( the same goosebumps I got when you reminded me of the video) wondering if it was real. I couldnt believe that I had just seen a man killed right before my eyes! KILLED ! FUCKING DEAD! My god what did I just see? My god do peole really do this shit and tape it to see it a few more times?
Was this a sanctioned killing? Why were there spectators?
My mind was filled with questions that I couldnt answer.It showed me that in other corners of the world there is a reality so different than my own that it appears to be from another planet. I started to educate myself more on what people do to people daily and I have had my eyes opened. I would hear on the radio about something horrible and it woudlnt register. Now I hear it and in my mind I see the scene and feel the gravity of it. They may be from some other country, some other culture and some other world but its like it just happened down the street. It brings the real world closer to me than I like sometimes but its a world we cannot escape, only change. And we need to be aware before we can change. Im not saying I can change anything myself. Im just saying that it is a tool that can contribute to the movement to change the world. One mind at a time.
And btw, I cannot even for a second watch anything to do with children, or rape. I have tried but I cant do it. We all have our limits. That is mine. I know that shit happens and I know I will never get it outa my head if I watch. My point is , I understand your limits and respect them.

[daZenfmeister]

Yeah, for some reason it seems SO strange to me how these middle aged housewives (no offence to anyone here) can just gossip about the latest hit TV show like American Idol or the Michael Jackson trial when theres so much more thats more important that that bullshit. I guess they've just taken the cowards way out and they don't want to deal with real life anymore.

Here's an interesting story: A few weeks ago when I got my new job I was waiting with about 4 other people waiting to go into training and we were all waiting for this one lady. Well she comes in almost 30 min late for training (we were all waiting for like an hour cause we were all early) and she says Oh sorry I'm late I was watching the Michael Jackson trial and oh my gosh can you believe it he got off on all counts! *she then blathers on for ten minutes about mindless brainwashing bullshit* and then we get into training and we work mainly with computers and shes too stupid to learn how to use the computer and well I'll cut the story short she got dropped from training the second day which was very satisfying to me because she was holding up the whole training group.

[potpimp]

Yeah, bumfights is funny. :rolleyes: Loser.


No beavis and butt head is the picture of comedy, how old are you, 12?

[ezjim]

Ghost, I appreciate what you have said.
I have a better understanding of what you are saying. The video you mentioned about the guy being held down with a foot on his head while he is executed by knife is STUCK in my head. I saw that one a few years ago and it hasnt left me. I hear the gurgles he made and see the knife, the spreading pool of blood its all still up there. That one was one of the first I ever saw and I 'forced' myself to watch it to completion even after a voice in my head screamed at me to look away because what I was seeing was WRONG.
I sat through it and sat stunned, with goosebumps ( the same goosebumps I got when you reminded me of the video) wondering if it was real. I couldnt believe that I had just seen a man killed right before my eyes! KILLED ! FUCKING DEAD! My god what did I just see? My god do peole really do this shit and tape it to see it a few more times?
Was this a sanctioned killing? Why were there spectators?
My mind was filled with questions that I couldnt answer.It showed me that in other corners of the world there is a reality so different than my own that it appears to be from another planet. I started to educate myself more on what people do to people daily and I have had my eyes opened. I would hear on the radio about something horrible and it woudlnt register. Now I hear it and in my mind I see the scene and feel the gravity of it. They may be from some other country, some other culture and some other world but its like it just happened down the street. It brings the real world closer to me than I like sometimes but its a world we cannot escape, only change. And we need to be aware before we can change. Im not saying I can change anything myself. Im just saying that it is a tool that can contribute to the movement to change the world. One mind at a time.
And btw, I cannot even for a second watch anything to do with children, or rape. I have tried but I cant do it. We all have our limits. That is mine. I know that shit happens and I know I will never get it outa my head if I watch. My point is , I understand your limits and respect them.
i havent seen my 2 youngest kids in almost 10 yrs and every time i see one of those storys about some predatory scum killing or raping a child it scares the shit out of me im sure i'll catch shit from 1 or 2 people for sayin it but when they found the girl in idaho last week i was so happy i started to cry but that happy feeling turned awfuly quick to anger when they said her brother prob wasnt going to be found alive.. i will never be able to understand people who enjoy seeing a person or animal suffer... no more than i will ever understand why these people who intentionaly harm others are allowed to leave prison and go right back out and do it again after they recieve sentances for hurting a kid that are less severe than many people get for growing pot

[chris420]

we can all see what tv and the entertainment industry has been doing to the vast majority that sit their ass off watching stupid ass goddamn tv shows all day long, leaving no productivity whatsoever in the character watching the idiot box. Ive seen people do it and I cant deny ive done it several times but its quite sad how stupid a mind can get and how brainwashed and rot it can leave them with all that bullshit found on the tv today, while the big guys in their 10 million dollar mansions laugh about how easy it was to earn all that money thanks to the couch potatoe..
anyways im just glad u have all agreed to turn off your tv's
this just reminded me of a song from system of a down's new album: "violent pornography" you guys should check it out if u havent heard it

[F L E S H]

Gladiator fights get a bad rap, they weren't as deadly as modern pop culture makes them out to be. A gladiator actually dieing in an arena was a relatively rare occurrance, and some of the better ones were revered the same way we look up to modern athletes today. However, it's still blood sport, and I get your point.

The fascination with death and suffering has been around, I think, since the dawn of humanity, and it's not about to go away. It must be some inherent need feel to actually want to see that kind of stuff, even if it revolts us. But I pretty much agree with FunkyMonkey on this, so I won't repeat everything he said.

[kevy cola]

this is some deep stuff here guys, you must've been smokin' some of that fuckin enstein weed

[GHoSToKeR]

Yeah, that was what E=MC2 was really all about... it was a formula for growing some bomb ass weed. lol

Thanks for the really cool replies, guys... I appreciate it...

FunkyMonkey, I can imagine how the scenes in that video are stuck in your head. I haven't even seen it and it's stuck it my mind too. Today I was talking to the drummer of my band and I mentioned the video of the Russian dude, and he just said "Dude, don't ever watch that..." (in a way that implied he had seen it and regreted it) and that was all he would say.

I've been trying to pinpoint exactly why I personally am so affected by even the thought of these videos, but I think I know what it is;

I'm generally a positive person. I find it hard to get depressed or angry (though it does happen...) and I find it even harder to be horrible or nasty to people. I like being nice to people, and I realise that in some way I like to imagine that everybody else is the same. If I didn't think that then maybe i'd find it alot harder to be polite, you know? So, here's me, happy little GHoSToKeR, wondering around in my own little world, where everyone is nice and nobody wishes harm on anybody. When somebody does act shitty to somebody my mind subconsciously dreams up some excuse for their actions, and then I can shrug it off and still believe that deep down everyone still likes to be nice.

Continuing from this, I guess I like to imagine that everybody around me would be as disgusted and upset by these kind of graphic, brutal videos and images as I am - I can't understand why anybody would watch them, so I fool myself in to thinking that they don't. But then to find that sites like Ogrish.com exist and are actually popular, and then to find that even people in my own personal circle of friends have watched these kind of stuff, well, it kinda shocked me a bit. I guess it brought me back down to earth, you know? Realising that people around me have seen these kinda forced me in to seeing that not everybody gives a shit about life as much as I do (agan, i'm not trying to be conceited, just trying to be honest).

I don't know if this made sense, i'm slightly very stoned... I just honestly want to know why I haven't felt the same since all this was brought to my attention.

[TasteTheRainbow]

No beavis and butt head is the picture of comedy, how old are you, 12?


Newsflash asswipe, cartoons are FUNNY. Homeless people (a large percentage of them are severely mentally ill, BTW) beating the shit out of each other is NOT . I stand by my "loser" comment, but thanks for your response anyways. :rolleyes:

[potpimp]

Newsflash asswipe, cartoons are FUNNY. Homeless people (a large percentage of them are severely mentally ill, BTW) beating the shit out of each other is NOT . I stand by my "loser" comment, but thanks for your response anyways. :rolleyes:



quit your whining, bum fights is bunch of actors, not that i care about crackheads anyway. Beavis and butthead are for children

[GHoSToKeR]

Stop arguing, please. There's no point and it makes you both look kinda stupid. Thanks :)

[potpimp]

You saw ogrish and it affected you? Suck it up faggot

[GHoSToKeR]

Wow, potpimp. Insulting me by use of a derogatory term for a male homosexual and telling me to "suck it up" has really shown me the error of my ways... I can now watch rapes and murders on the internet and it doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Thank you!

Hugs and Kisses,

GHoSToKeR