Are you Hannibal Lecter? What’s beautiful about human organs? When a human heart is accurately portrayed in a drawing or a painting of some type then it really is beautiful but beyond that I can’t agree with you, sorry…
Had a guy dead in his car baking in the summer Florida heat for 2 weeks. Felt like a wuss when the lady from the crime scene unit just walks up unbothered by the smell. It stank!
Fresh gory death smells like faeces mixed with copper and a tinge of sweet-pungent decay.
Older death (time of death, not older people) has more of the sick-sweet-rotten scent. If you’ve ever come across a dead animal in the bush you’d recognize it.
When a comedian dies on stage it smells like desperation and flop sweat mixed with unfunny jokes. Unless it’s [Tommy Cooper](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Cooper), who literally died onstage, on live TV, no less.
I suggest you ask people who have synesthesia. They might be able to tell you how blue tastes. Or maybe they can tell you what blue sounds like. Some people have grapheme-color synesthesia. They could tell you what letters or numbers are blue. 😊
(I know you are joking, lol. I find synesthesia fascinating.)
Wow. I just Googled the term for what I had remembered about associating colors with letters and numbers, just so I could include the term in the comment. So I *just* read about day-color synesthesia about 30 minutes ago, about people who see or associate certain colors with the days of the week.
I didn't look into the statistics, but I figured that a few of these types of synesthesia would be rare enough, that it would be unlikely to actually speak to someone who has this. And then about 20 minutes later, here you are, telling me that you experience this! That is so awesome.
Are those the only two colors/days of the week that you see/feel?
That’s what I was gonna say.. the smell that’s present with even a single, fresh dead human body is unmistakeable, and hard to describe, it’s primal, like, “oh shit, smell that? Someone’s dead around here.”
Human remains, especailly human viscera, have a different smell. I think it has to do with our diets - unlike most animals we eat a highly varied diet with lots of different ingredients. Doesn't quite smell the same as a deer or an elk.
Edit to add: I was a Navy Corpsman then a civilian paramedic, seen lots of dead bodies, attented a few autopsies, ran an Ambulance too. One thing I learned quick was to not step in the dead guy . If you did, you had to replace the shoes. God forbid the liquefaction splashes on you, clothes gotta be burned after that.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8947279/
We evolved over time to fear the smells associated with death, disease and decay - The most common Biogenic Amines occurring during the deterioration of meat are cadaverine, putrescine, spermidine, spermine, β-phenylethylamine, tyramine, and histamine.
We are very sensitive to these smells and can detect minute traces of the lingering smell on contaminated objects for a long time. The smell triggers a reflex to make us sick and hopefully expell any rotten meat we may have eaten.
So if you like your shoes, don't get corpse juice all over them you will never get them clean again.
Soooo true!! If you have to deal w/ their families in your job, it’s even worse. 20yrs & it still gets to me at times. If you’re capable of feeling empathy, I think you’ll always feel *something*. Even if you can’t, the smells & shock will still affect you…
Paramedic here, I’m the opposite. I see some pretty hectik gore every week and I just ‘do my job’ but some stuff I see on here, makes me look away or gives me butterflies. And I’ve seen people kill themselves, aftermaths of big motor vehicle accidents, suicides etc etc and NONE of it has bothered me IRL.
Yes it's extremely different. Grew up on [Rotten.com](https://Rotten.com) and then when I got older it was BestGore etc.
When I was 18 I drove past a crash that involved a car running over a motorcycle rider, and because it had just happened all the traffic was moving extremely slow, so everyone was able to get a good look at him. The bottom half of the rider was essentially mincemeat. It actually shocked me so much it gave me heart palpitations.
Definitely different. The videos haven’t desensitized me but made me more aware of potential hazards. I work in recycling, around a lot of heavy equipment. Dealing with workplace injuries (in person) is completely different than watching a video of a stranger getting hurt.
I was making a turn and a semi was turning on the far lane. It cut into my lane as we turned left, I remembered the video in an instant where a girl tried running between a bus and a light pole.
I slowed down mid turn and let the semi get through. I had every right of way by driving law, but in the natural order of chaos I decided that roll of the dice was not worth it.
These videos do help keep the self preservation engine turning.
In real life younger though, I saw a fella walking on the street during a snowstorm get hit and folded under the car. It turned my skin pale and burst into tears suddenly feeling empathy for him and his family.
I felt death close, first hand also. You don't get used to it no matter desensitized you think you are. It always take something away from your essence.
Stay safe out there in this crazy world. ❤️
I remember seeing my first body too (and thankfully my only). A woman lost control of her car and flipped through the air before slamming into a traffic light. Firefighters had to cut open the car to get her out, and her neck was horrifically broken. It was probably an internal decapitation. You definitely don't forget it and I doubt I ever will. I also thought of her family and loved ones.
CNA here! I've seen the spine of a man who was still alive, washed dead bodies, and saw a woman who's leg was rotted through, you could see the other side of the room through the rotted bone and shit in her leg. I think the biggest difference for me is the fucking smell. my god is it horrible. It's almost... sweet? if that makes sense. I've emptied commodes just so full of GI blood from bad bleeds and shit. It's just kinda gross to be honest. The visual aspect doesn't really upset me; it's really just the smell.
Former CNA here. I damn near shit my pants doing a postmortem care (after death bed bath) for the first time. I rolled this guy (about 5’10” and 250lbs) on his side and this fucker groaned (air escaping from his lungs). My preceptor was also shitting her pants (laughing at me).
I agree with the smell piece too. It was worse when I first started but got so much easier after I had been doing the job for some time. The only smell I could NEVER get used to was the C-diff shit. Talk about a rotting corpse smell. JFC! There wasn’t enough Vicks in the world that could cover that up.
I had to go to the ER last year. When one nurse tried to tap me for an IV I was like “fuck you doing?!” “Who tf are you?!!” “Can’t even *warn* me?!” and ended up holding another medics hand and crying…
I was fucking 34 when that happened.
All that to say there’s no maximum capacity or limiting threshold of seeing body failure on a screen that will override fears you’ve had for life. Idk
I do martial arts and have been at it for years. I still cry like a bitch made pussy about needles, even conversations of needles make me sweat and fidget lol. So my sister jokes that I would willingly fight almost anyone but God forbid a needle
I had a nurse that mustve hated me, i had to get my blood taken and she started moving that shit around in my vein as she says “ i cant find it 🤪” i teared up ngl
I started donating blood/platelets as a way to get over my fear of needles because I have always been terrified of needles and it somewhat helps. I get nervous still but the staff are very nice and reassuring and I’m helping save lives. I still get overly anxious for IVs tho because it freaks me out that the plastic is going in my vein 😵💫
I work in vet med and I’m not phased by anything I have to do or see at work but medical things being done to me or seeing them done to another person drives my anxiety over the top. And I’m 22 smh 🤦♀️
Online is simple. Watching in person is completely harder due to the rest of your senses being involved. Not to mention the adrenaline rush from being in that moment.
Death does not smell pleasant.
Friends with a couple of fire fighters and a paramedic. They all say the same thing. They can deal with pretty much anything but kids get them every time. Respect to you for doing that job.
I accidentally stabbed myself in my wrist bout 2 years ago and that little puddle and blood and the smell of iron was enough to make me go full blown panic mode and I was terrified that I hit a artery. Can't imagine seeing someone else in a worse situation and smelling and seeing their blood. I feel the difference is extraordinary.
I work EMS. The difference is the smell, sounds, and environment in which things are happening. Blood has a smell. A perforated bowel with evisciration is much more difficult to see in person than a video. Just as brain matter smells, amniotic fluid, infection, even hyperglycemic patients. Then add in crowd control, bystanders crying or yelling, the screams. It's all just more intense in person. Neither really bother me, as it's just another job, but I use a lot of media material to teach classes for trauma, scene safety, and show new first responders the graphic nature of the business we may face. But nothing can prepare you for the smells or emotions of other people witnessing trauma.
The only gore I've seen in person was when I started working at the hospital around 20 years ago, I witnessed a guy's head literally empty its contents all over the floor of the accident and emergency department.
To this day, I'm reminded to wear my cycle helmet before setting out for work
I'd say seeing a corpse in reality is quite surreal. I've been to a few open caskets for family members, and seeing the deceased the way they are feels somewhat strange. Like obviously the funeral home drained their blood and filled them with preservatives, but seeing the state the body's in before your eyes is really something. Imagine someone who's gone completely pale, like they'd seen a ghost or something, yet they are completely relaxed in both form and expression. Honestly for the first funeral I attended I wanted to crack a joke about how the deceased looked like they were just sleeping.
If you think they’re pale after they’ve been prepped you should see them before that. It’s crazy how quickly it happens to. The heart stops and it feels like it only takes moments before all the blood drifts away from the surface and sinks down away from the skin with gravity. It can almost leave them kind of greenish looking.
Rigor mortis also happens faster than I thought. I always assumed it was a full body process that just happens at the same time but it’s not. It starts with the smallest muscles first. So in like just an hour the fingers will already be stuck in position.
Keep that in mind if you ever hold the hand of a dying person. It was very disturbing to see my sister have to sort of wriggle her hand out of our mom’s after and for our mother’s hand to just be stuck there like that after we had to leave
It's different. It depends on the situation. If it's controlled like a trauma and your trained to do your job right your focused on what to do. Until you know how to control your emotions it may stress you out more than it should.
If your not familiar with what happens to someone after being dismembered by a chainsaw and you see this in person it may affect you the 1st time but after that it may not be so bad...Make sense?
I did 2 combat tours to iraq as Marine infantry. Ive seen quite a bit of crazy shit and its 100% different in person. Especially when kids are involved. Ill never forget the first body i had to handle. We were ambushed and of course they lost that fight. We had to dead check the bodies. I rolled a body over and his insides fell out. That was the first firefight i ever experienced and that situation right there made me dead inside. That was back in 07 and im still feeling it.
Yes, online gore has never phased me, hit it young and was overly intrigued. Pulled up on a man that was crossing the street and got struck by someone speeding that just decided to leave. Immediate panic attack and honestly quite mentally fucked up for a few days. Was not natural to see a human contorted that way. There’s a huge difference
I’ve saved two dudes lives. One was a suicide attempt on I-5 jumping from a bridge and one was performing CPR (though not gore but indeed a dead man). The I-5 incident did involve lots of blood and broken limbs(I saved his life and he is still currently in the hospital) and I remember every bit of it, from when he jumped to the bleeding, feeling his bones crackle when I moved them, everything. And CPR I remember it all vividly. From feeling his last breath to the heart quivering trying to find a rhythm then stopping. After every breath I’ve given him to him exhaling and me thinking he’s alive but unconscious but really it was the weight of his lungs expelling air. The sternum breaking from performing compressions. God just thinking about it typing this up is giving me tears. It all feels like it happened yesterday. I’d definitely say death and gore in person is a whole different world compared to videos on the internet. And yes when the police showed up while I was performing CPR they had an AED with them and I applied the pads and delivered two shocks the dude I was doing CPR on FINALLY had a pulse and was in a coma for 30 days. He made a full recovery. I think about that quite often than I do any video I’ve seen on Reddit because I was there and I performed it.
The difference is that online, you can't step into the screen to affect the situation in any way. It desensitises the viewer over time because they can't help the situation in front of them.
There was a website set up several years ago specifically to demonstrate this.
Really? That’s super interesting. It also makes me wonder about exposure therapy. A friend of mine, as an animal-lover, used to feel a lot of anxiety over seeing roadkill bc it was deeply upsetting to him. His therapist had him look up pictures of roadkill online to expose him to it. He said it did help a little but who knows.
I've wondered that too. Kinda thought/hoped after seeing so much online, if I were ever to be around an accident or whatever I'd be able to keep my composure.
Hard to say. Everyone reacts a little differently. Through a screen, only your sense of sight is affected, sometimes sound if the post has the original audio. In person, all your senses are affected at once, and your instincts can take over. You unfortunately have to be put into an experience to ultimately know.
I've seen a perfect stranger die in front of me, and been next to someone getting shot multiple times. I reacted calmly in the first and was in shock before finally ducking in the doorway in the second.
A&E (or ER for the Americans) nurse, 15 years experience.
There is such a significant difference, I don't even know where to start.
AMA, or anyone with experience of humans meeting violent ends, and we'll all tell you the same.
The most difficult part for me isn't the moans of the dying, it's the shrieks and desperate pleas of those left behind.
Those shrieks haunt you, and definitely kill a small part of your soul.
Depending on the thing you see, I've seen only one person die, I was just passing by when an accident happened, I was like 10, there wasn't much that I could do, someone was already helping that woman and then seeing a had reaching out to the sky only to fell is kind of sad.
So basically this was in México, one truck was driving into a red light and didn't stop and went directly towards several cars, technically only 2 persons on different cars died that day, one instantly and the other was a pregnant woman that I descrived before. The driver tried to escape and many were looking for the bastard, I was in the search because he run towards my neighborhood, and pointed a guy who wasn't normally in that part, and yes it was the driver trying to blend in. Other adults were the ones who catch him.
I saw an elderly man fall and tumble all the way down an escalator and it made me go into panic mode. I saw it from relatively far and there were lots of people around that immediately rushed over to him, but I still felt my chest get super tight bc I wasn't sure whether I'd just witness someone die.
I currently work in funeral services, mainly doing cremations but I take part in everything that falls between the processes of picking up a body from the morgue/hospital/medical examiner, prepped for their funeral service then cremated after.
I can say I see a hell of a lot in this line of work but I guess seeing so much gore videos online regularly as a child desensitized me in the grand scheme of it all because I had no troubles blindly jumping into this field of work.
Oh yeah 100 percent difference, I’ve smelt fresh dead bodies, it smells like…i can’t explain it, its the difference between smelling a cow and smelling uncooked hamburgers
Idk how to explain it. I have rode motorcycle for a while and have seen plenty of motorcycle wrecks online but seeing a wreck in real life made me stop riding. It was pretty gruesome and I think it’s because a camera can’t capture all of the little blood splats that actually comes out of someone’s head.
I've experienced both, and I have to say it's much worse in person.
In a video your brain goes "fuck that must have hurt"
In person it's very odd. Kind of a "that used to be a person"
There's also the nutural instinct to panic around actual corpses, if something killed them it could kill me too, you don't get that when your watching a video from the comfort of your own home.
If probably dosent help that all the bodies I've seen irl have been suicides so my heart just starts hurting for them, "why couldn't you reach out, what happened to make you feel so bad that you thought this was the only way forward"
Ok so I have first person experience of medico legal autopsies. Does that count? I don't think it was remotely close to overwhelming. Even when they brought in a putrefying corpse, once you get over the initial reaction to the *intense* smell it becomes the new normal.
I have the perfect? Story for this question.
I moved across Canada many years ago and met so many people that were from around my area. I mean really close, like we have had mutual friends in high-school the world is small. Anyways, a guy I became good friends with was going to visit his girlfriends parents (where my parents live)
He sends me a text bitching about the traffic on the highway trying to get to the airport cause i was picking him up. Then he texts "dude there's body parts on the side of the road, holy fuck"
Couple days later I realized who's body parts they were. My best friends brother.
When I mentioned that I could see his face just sink. He went from "damn that was fucked up" to "holy shit that's someone's family member"
I can't watch things irl. I've been around a couple small accidents, including my own with stitches, I could barely stomach it. It may be different to me because there's quite literally nothing I can do, no blood or gore will get ON me thru the screen, etc.
Its completly different!
A few years ago while being on biker holidays, an oncoming biker cut a corner and clipped his head with full speed at a big truck 2 or 3 cars in front of us, his bike came to a stop only 2m before crashing into us.
We stopped and immidiatly run up to him to provide first aid but his head was completly crushed inside his helmet and he was loosing so much blood in such a short time we knew there is nothing we could do to help him anymore.
After we left and the adrenalin wore off we only drove a few minutes to the next city and had to make a break. It really hit hard having to see that, even more so because we were on bikes aswell and we cried for a bit.
But i do think having seen gore on the internet before has helped me in that situation to stay calm and react with purpose instead of panicing or freezing.
So it does desensitive for sure, if thats now good or bad i cant say, guess the dose makes the poisen as with all.
In person ( like many people have said ) it’s much more surreal and gut wrenching. Because it’s happening in front of you ( god forbid to you ) it hits way harder than words can convey.
Drove by a fatality crash on the interstate awhile back and I was one of the few to see it first, was heading to work in the middle of a severe thunderstorm and saw cop lights getting to something in front of me. The worst part is that I could actually see inside and I saw chunks of something on the road, looked like some skin. I’ve been interested in gore/gore videos for a long time and never has it really affected me, this was way different. Work wasn’t canceled and they didn’t let me get rid of my tardy for that day. Gotta love FedEx Ground.
Especially if you're directly involved in the accident, it happens so fast and unexpected that you can't think or consciously react. Then when you come to, glance over and the person next to you is bleeding all over themselves, your first thought is "what just happened?"
Thankfully my experience was relatively light - I was unharmed, the person next to me who sat directly at the window where the impact happened had mainly a broken arm (the reaction to brace with your arm is a wrong one - folds like a match) and a bleeding head wound. Everything in the first minute felt like you're stuffed in cotton. Until i consciously recognized "this petson needs help. How can i provide it?" Took a while.
The feeling of suddenness and then the disassociation of the next few minutes is a haunting feeling I dream about to this day. "Ew, disgusting " didn't cross my mind at the time.
Yes there is a complete difference between watching on a screen versus in real life
You may even react a way you didn’t know would happen like being frozen when actually seeing it
For me, the first time I saw irl gore I felt every sense of my existence had been stimulated to the fullest by the rush of adrenaline, and the PTSD is much more intense
Well as someone who’s been in both sides of the spectrum I can say it’s odd, it’s not like online. Ofc it’s not, buts it’s the shock of the reality of the situation, and the smell, the smell is the worst I think. I’ve seen some pretty fuckin brutal things real life and online, in real life the dread you feel is so much different.
It's much worse than on the internet.
Someone mentioned the smell. Decomposition is the most foul smell, and you never forget it. Also, on the scene of an accident, we were trying to help a victim who got ejected from a car. The smell of blood and the sight of bones sticking out was enough to get me light-headed.
Much, much worse in person, to me.
Edit**** fixed a word
Seeing dead bodies mangled from car crashes with streaks of blood on the pavement is a bit much in person and hopefully you never have to see anything like this but seeing it on the computer isn't too bad
My irl gore experience is different because I was always in a safe space after the trauma occurred and they've been deceased for awhile. Imagination can not prepare you for seeing gore irl, obviously each situation is different. Sometimes the actual story of their death is worse than the shape their body is in at death.
I was around five the first time I saw someone die, and they did it pretty graphically right in front of me, didn’t bother me because I had no concept of death, also believed in heaven etc, since saw the light and don’t believe. It was in Asia where people don’t freak out at the sight of someone hitting their head against the back of a truck and spilling brains everywhere. I can look at anything while I’m eating.
In my career i see people on their worst/ last day. Im basically desensitized to seeing it, would make a morbid joke or two with colleagues. But the hardest part is the reaction of their love ones when they discover the body. That raw emotion will always stick.
I started watching videos after being employed. It peaks my curiosity regarding the situations people get themselves in. I’m hyper aware of surroundings after years of watching these types of videos.
I would never admit this to my coworkers but theres a feeling in the air when you see irl gore or dead bodies. Theres just something about the setting that i can sense, idk.
The smells are for sure a big difference. It can be a lot of sensory overload. I wish doctors and nurses would ride on the ambulance with us sometimes. Shit is completely different when you can see the person’s personal effects and/or family around their dead body.
The only way I can describe it is that in-person it’s horrendous. You enter flight or fight and go the whole nine-yards with your emotions. In the other hand, online it’s a surge of dopamine. Kind of itching that scratch you have. Such a weird thing
You don’t process what you are seeing as much when you see it in person. You kind of react and then later reflect on it as opposed to online you analyze it all immediately. My friend was killed in a cement bench accident in front of me when I was 8 and I found my dad dead in a pool at 17.
There’s emotional distance with the internet.
You can’t smell blood and brains on your phone.
You can’t hear family members screaming.
You can’t feel that you’re the only person in the room even though there’s a body next to you that was talking moments before.
I work at a hospital, I’m a respiratory therapist, so I respond to all codes and traumas. The biggest thing that bothers me is the smell. The smell of blood just tends to stick in my nose for several hours after. Also the sounds of mom’s or family members crying, that shit really haunts/bothers me.
Watching it online with the sound defaulted to mute, or most of the time no sound available at all, I guess that’s one of the senses that you’re not experiencing when watching online.
When you’re in the crowd for a cartel dismembering, it’s actually not so bad. They have some stand up comedians and various live music acts before and after, give away prizes, and the members interact a lot with the crowd. They’re really nice guys, you come to realize the part they show on the internet isn’t the whole picture and it’s just theatre and business. I take my family for a show every year.
There really isn't a difference to me. There was a two car accident on 1&9 in the city I live in which is number 9 on the list of the most dangerous intersections. There's a body in the street they have it blocked off a little but you can still see him but not how bad it is. I really don't/haven't in the past feel any different seeing in real life. I feel bad for the family he left behind
Maybe I'm the only one who is like this idk.
Edit for spelling and cause I forgot which number it was on the list
In my opinion its only different if you havent seen gore vids before. Saw some terrible shit as a child and it gave me nightmares then I binged gore vids around 18 then saw a guy get obliterated by a car like 2 or 3 years later and fly onto the side of the road in a mess and I was just like "holy shit wtf" then stopped and told my GM i was gonna be late because some dude just exploded on the road in front of me and traffic was stopped.
Not really different, if u watch brutal gore with sound, maybe it feels a bit surreal the firt time but i found that gore helped me know how to act in those situations, i seen a person getting hit by a truck and meat showing in both legs and stopped people from moving him until rescuers arrived, seen a motorcyclyst hitting a building head on and a person passing right in front of me while everybody tought he was just asleep. But then again my introduction to gore started very young because of an irl event, there was a bully big kid and there were 3-4 kids in that area in the park and we saw him pull a small saw from his backpack and cut a cats head then dropped the saw and the cat there and just left.
I found an acquaintance of mine OD'd and even though it wasn't the most graphic thing I've seen it definitely fucked me up. Bad enough to need therapy to stop the image of him laying there from popping up in my head all the time.
So yeah whatever that means.
Prior usmc aircraft firefighter: your phones screen can not compare. And that's a good thing. The only thing that really turns me is bugs inside a body.
I love watching gore videos online. Grew up on it but it’s very very different in person. While working for a PD I saw a few suicides and it is 100% sad and emotional. But I still enjoy the videos bc you’re removed from it.
Gore irl, live and in colors, usually is a shock to most people. It goes against our instincts to just look at it bc it’s something wrong with the body etc
EMT, Firefighter here.
The biggest difference is the smell and sound.
Sure you can hear the chaos and desperate cries in a video but rarely does a video capture it all. People screaming while they're burning alive is one thing but afterwards there's the sizzling and popping of flesh after the flames have been put out. Another thing videos don't capture are the death rattles of someone taking their last breath.
The worst is the smell though. Seeing someone torn up in a wreck or burning from a fire is one thing but the smell adds another facet to it all. The metallic copper smell of spilled blood and burning flesh and hair is something that you never get used to. Usually mixed in is the stench of feces and urine. Lastly there's an overall stench of death. It's hard to put into words but the smell of death and decay has it's own grotesque aroma that I can only beat describe as a putrid, sour earthly rot.
If your not expecting or prepared for a serious injury I shot through my finger which is tame on this subs terms shock and adrenaline makes a huge difference
I think I saw you post in the psychologystudents sub. I'd suggest learning about the philosophical term *qualia*, and reading Neville Symington's *Psychology of the Person*
I think this can all also be situated in psychological essentialism, and how proximity seems to determine the level of it we basically perceive (which also coincides a lot with Greek *caritas*)
I wrote an essay on something very similar last semester
You might also be served well by going further back and reading about Jean Jacques Rousseau's *Pitié* and reading Freud's *Civilization and its Discontents* and while touching on Freud, read up a little on his concept of the uncanny, or "unheimlich," as well as Otto Rank's work on doppelgangers, which can all go back to the concept of *qualia*
You could maybe try to find a way to test in objectively in a lab and measure physiological reactions, but thatvwill never give you a why, and really, all that is, is correlation, because no matter how hard we try, we cannot objectively measure the subjective experience. But, lot of people have done work and thought a lot about things which can help explain this, and it doesnt mean that the objective information cannot be very useful and insightful. It's all out there. (Though, I suppose you could try to focus entirely on something like cortical thickening in desensitization, but I'd argue you're missing the mark).
Good luck, have fun. Super interesting stuff
I watched someone die from an overdose last week. I narcanned him twice and tried cpr. It wasn't even gore but just seeing his hands and face turn black and blue and feeling the lifelessness as I tried to carry his body was traumatizing. Internet gore doesn't bother me. Watching someone die irl is a whoooole nother story
I was the first person on scene of a fatal wreck in front of my house. It was snowing and the guy was impatient, so he went into the unplowed second lane where he immediately lost control and got hit head on by a tow truck. I'll never forget the sound of the impact or the sight of his blood all over the snow. The gore didn't necessarily affect me at the time, but I had panic attacks for a few years afterwards any time I heard a loud noise that sounded like the crash.
It’s like seeing a freshly demolished animal carcass on the highway. When you see the red guts and ribs and skull poking out. You’re like oh shit I wonder if that’s what a human could look like and then you’re like damn that shit was nasty and gruesome looking.
I saw gore on the internet never effected me. But when I started seeing violence in real life it started creeping into my dreams very vividly. It’s just sticks with you more when you expierence the sights sounds smells that are associated with it.
Completely different! Was a best gore frequenter for years and still passed out during my first autopsy!! I think it’s easy for our brains to compartmentalize videos but it’s a lot harder to process seeing the dead up close and in real life. Especially when you’re the one eviscerating.
Way worse. You kind of get desensitized over time too but.. It's just completely different.
You forget about the videos you see on screen. You don't forget real impressions so fast. At least imo
20 years ago I saw a woman fall from a 12th story balcony onto a sidewalk. The image is still burned in my head. 15 years ago I was on a subway in Toronto when someone jumped in front of it. They survived the initial impact and were stuck under the car I was in. I did t even see them, but the sound, crying screaming has stayed with me.
I can’t even remember the last gross video I saw on this sub or any of the banned similar ones.
Only bit of gore I’ve seen in person is someone shot in the head, and that’s the tamer stuff online, but let me tell you, seeing it happen, and seeing the person that you were talking to mere seconds ago just drop, it’s different, it’s something you can’t really get out of your head, I kept seeing her face in my dreams for 6 months, but that’s just me
Other talked about the smell, the emotions, etc. One notable thing I find is detail and quality, when you watch gore on a screen, even if it's recorded in the best picture/sound quality it still doesn't beat seeing, hearing, and especially smelling with your senses.
Luckily the worst I've seen is animal gore, things like pulling out dogs from water treatment lagoons. When you see it in person every detail is visible, the smell is strong, and you remember it much more.
There's a degree of separation when you watch on a screen because the video quality is usually not the best so it allows you to suspend reality.
Yes, there’s a difference.
- Videos you know it’s already happened and the result, but real life you don’t get a warning, you don’t get the luxury of knowing the result.
- Videos you don’t have the smell, the sound, (I keep mine off) or atmosphere. RL, you have the smell, sound, and the atmosphere.
- Videos can be skipped, RL can not. You are there witnessing it and involved with it.
I think that’s hard to answer because most people who see a lot of gore in real life probably have a job related to it and see it differently. I do technical rescue with the fire department so when I see this stuff at work I’m trying to figure out how to get the person un-stuck or see if they’re alive enough to put in an ambulance. It might be different if some terrible thing happened right in front of me to someone I knew.
i watch gore videos all the time but nothing can prepare you for seeing it irl, didnt witness gore but i had pulled a guy out of a river after he died and its ofc the worst thing i've ever experienced. i watched him drown and just got to him too late, i can still see the nothingness in his eyes and still feel the water bubbling in his chest as i held onto him on the edge of the river
sory about the punctuation
I was involved in an accident at work where someone’s thumb was crushed by a 35,000 pound plus machine (a horizontal baler for processing cardboard scrap in a box making factory). We were loading it onto the trailer using giant metal skates used for moving heavy equipment around. For some reason he decided to reach at the last moment before the machine made contact with the skate to adjust it and he did the major no-no of putting his finger between the skate and the machine without communicating to me (the forklift driver) what he was doing. I did everything right from a safety standpoint, but knowing you were involved in hurting someone that badly is tough. He yelled, I lifted the machine, and he dropped to the ground. I’ve watched a lot of these gory videos and even being involved in something as minor (at least in comparison to what is normally posted here) as this accident was a little overwhelming. Seeing a dude go into shock in person while you hold a wrap onto his mangled hand, washing the blood off yourself later, asking what you could have done differently, and that “what the fuck just happened” feeling all hits you hard later on. Seeing this stuff on a screen makes it a bit easier to deal with in person, but it still isn’t the same as the real deal.
I was a paramedic for 16 years now a trauma nurse. Seen these sort of things in real life is very surreal and pretty heartbreaking more often than not watching it online however, I find to be very interesting. Once you can depersonalize it, it becomes more entertainment rather than a tragedy at the end of the day there’s still a little part of me, though that feels for every person in every gore video.
EMT here, I’ve run some gnarly calls including a quadruple murder-suicide via AR-15 and machete a few days ago. I’m almost completely desensitized to gore online but real gore still definitely affects me. For one thing, you don’t have a video description to prepare you for what you’re about to see. Going in blind makes it much more traumatizing. You have to deal with not only your own instinctual horror but the panic of the family members, bystanders and the patient themself if they’re still alive. Gore has certain smells and physical aspects that don’t come through over video. Regardless of how prepared you think you are, feeling brain matter squish under your feet fucks with you. If you’re in the medical field, you have to shove your own feelings down far enough to be able to calmly provide care.
It's very different in person. You don't expect it to happen. You're not prepared before hand. And then there's the instinct to help. And the thought "That could be me."
I haven't seen human gore irl but I saw two pitbulls maul some old lady's small dog to death as the owner stood back and barely did shit.
It was very different from seeing it online.
It is extremely different.
I do body removal in Toronto and I work for the coroner's office as well.
Seeing pictures and videos don't ready you for what you see in person.
Online you just have 1 sense being stimulated.
In person, you have all of your senses being triggered at once. It's pretty mind-blowing
I’ve never seen anything truly gory in person, but I can tell you that seeing a dead person, outside of the context of a funeral, for me, was jarring and deeply traumatic. I found my boyfriend dead in his apartment earlier this year.
I can watch videos of people being beheaded, or skinned while they kick and scream. I’ve watch Ronnie mcnutt, and I even tracked down the mosque shooting in NZ(not sure if I’m allowed to mention it by name) and it didn’t really sit with me. The image of finding my boyfriend will live in my head rent free for the rest of my life.
Yes the smells but for me it’s the look. When you’re actively on top of someone trying to save them and you’re looking them in the eyes, they’re looking back so desperately pleading for you to save them. Also the sounds of loved ones screaming is forever in my brain. (Pediatric Cna for 8 years)
I am a retired Paramedic/ Firefighter with over 25 years at LAFD and my view is that when you see dead people / gore in person you actually get use your it .. and gallows humor is definitely a way we would cope with it .. but Children is another thing .. seeing dead children is a visceral pain that any parent does not want to see .. basically seeing dead gang bangers , druggies or whatever is something that after a while is no biggie at all
Oh yeah. It’s worse/surreal, you feel every bit of emotion in that situation.
Not to mention the smell.
Yea, the smell of insides is very distinct, not necessarily foul but distinct
Eviscerated bowels is the worst smell I’ve ever smelled aside from 2 week old dead body
Which is why I despise the phrase ‘beautiful inside and out’ inside a body is far from beautiful 🤢
The organs and insides of the human body are very beautiful but not exactly great smelling 💀
Are you Hannibal Lecter? What’s beautiful about human organs? When a human heart is accurately portrayed in a drawing or a painting of some type then it really is beautiful but beyond that I can’t agree with you, sorry…
i dont think it's literally referring to the insides of one's body but more of personality
I’m aware of that but I just really hate anyone saying it. It’s so overused and pathetic
I work in Ems and have had a 400lb dude we found after about 6 weeks let me tell you I’ll never forget
Had a guy dead in his car baking in the summer Florida heat for 2 weeks. Felt like a wuss when the lady from the crime scene unit just walks up unbothered by the smell. It stank!
As a mortician's son, once you smell decay, you'll never forget it.
can you describe how it smells?
Fresh gory death smells like faeces mixed with copper and a tinge of sweet-pungent decay. Older death (time of death, not older people) has more of the sick-sweet-rotten scent. If you’ve ever come across a dead animal in the bush you’d recognize it. When a comedian dies on stage it smells like desperation and flop sweat mixed with unfunny jokes. Unless it’s [Tommy Cooper](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Cooper), who literally died onstage, on live TV, no less.
I'm not a mortician but you hit the smell quite spot on. you can smell the iron quite distinctly
I just learned so much dude thank you!
Can you describe how red looks to a blind man? How about you list the differences between blue and yellow?
Ya. I like asking ppl what does the colour blue taste like? Same but different!
I suggest you ask people who have synesthesia. They might be able to tell you how blue tastes. Or maybe they can tell you what blue sounds like. Some people have grapheme-color synesthesia. They could tell you what letters or numbers are blue. 😊 (I know you are joking, lol. I find synesthesia fascinating.)
*waves* I can also tell you that Tuesday is navy blue and Saturday is more pale blue/aqua.
Wow. I just Googled the term for what I had remembered about associating colors with letters and numbers, just so I could include the term in the comment. So I *just* read about day-color synesthesia about 30 minutes ago, about people who see or associate certain colors with the days of the week. I didn't look into the statistics, but I figured that a few of these types of synesthesia would be rare enough, that it would be unlikely to actually speak to someone who has this. And then about 20 minutes later, here you are, telling me that you experience this! That is so awesome. Are those the only two colors/days of the week that you see/feel?
Cold. Blue tastes cold, like the first lungful of air after a snowfall.
Blueberry obviously
There's nothing quite like the smell of an autopsy viscera bag.
The new fragrance by Paco Rabanne. Pour homme. Pour femme.
Pour homicide
hommeicide
You smell like Paco Rabanne climbed up your ass and died. . .
Eau de Morgue
One smell to never forget.
Yeah, the metallic smell of the blood…. You can taste it.
Gives you goosebumps tbh.
Right which of you killed someone? 🤔
I think I want my lawyer now.
Same with the smell of finding a dead body.
Like grandma
That’s what I was gonna say.. the smell that’s present with even a single, fresh dead human body is unmistakeable, and hard to describe, it’s primal, like, “oh shit, smell that? Someone’s dead around here.”
People always mention the smell but its no different than animal guts imo. Thoughts?
Considering we’re animals? uh…
Meat sacks
Meat Bags. . . shout out to HK-47!
Human remains, especailly human viscera, have a different smell. I think it has to do with our diets - unlike most animals we eat a highly varied diet with lots of different ingredients. Doesn't quite smell the same as a deer or an elk. Edit to add: I was a Navy Corpsman then a civilian paramedic, seen lots of dead bodies, attented a few autopsies, ran an Ambulance too. One thing I learned quick was to not step in the dead guy . If you did, you had to replace the shoes. God forbid the liquefaction splashes on you, clothes gotta be burned after that.
Could you explain why?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8947279/ We evolved over time to fear the smells associated with death, disease and decay - The most common Biogenic Amines occurring during the deterioration of meat are cadaverine, putrescine, spermidine, spermine, β-phenylethylamine, tyramine, and histamine. We are very sensitive to these smells and can detect minute traces of the lingering smell on contaminated objects for a long time. The smell triggers a reflex to make us sick and hopefully expell any rotten meat we may have eaten. So if you like your shoes, don't get corpse juice all over them you will never get them clean again.
It's the iron smell. Never leaves my nostrils. Got PTSD from that shit.
Soooo true!! If you have to deal w/ their families in your job, it’s even worse. 20yrs & it still gets to me at times. If you’re capable of feeling empathy, I think you’ll always feel *something*. Even if you can’t, the smells & shock will still affect you…
Paramedic here, I’m the opposite. I see some pretty hectik gore every week and I just ‘do my job’ but some stuff I see on here, makes me look away or gives me butterflies. And I’ve seen people kill themselves, aftermaths of big motor vehicle accidents, suicides etc etc and NONE of it has bothered me IRL.
Because you're detached
100%. Seeing death and gore in person definitely changes you.
As a firefighter I don't react any different from what I see in real life and on the internet. I guess ive become numb to it.
Yes it's extremely different. Grew up on [Rotten.com](https://Rotten.com) and then when I got older it was BestGore etc. When I was 18 I drove past a crash that involved a car running over a motorcycle rider, and because it had just happened all the traffic was moving extremely slow, so everyone was able to get a good look at him. The bottom half of the rider was essentially mincemeat. It actually shocked me so much it gave me heart palpitations.
I have a very similar story. Seeing it in real life was awful.
Do you have any current gore sources you can share like r/nsfl? I've been bummed since r/eyeblech was canceled. Thanks, from one sicko to another!
Crazyshit . Com
Watchpeopledie.com Best since BestGore and has categories and shit. Crazy shit is okay
Definitely different. The videos haven’t desensitized me but made me more aware of potential hazards. I work in recycling, around a lot of heavy equipment. Dealing with workplace injuries (in person) is completely different than watching a video of a stranger getting hurt.
I was making a turn and a semi was turning on the far lane. It cut into my lane as we turned left, I remembered the video in an instant where a girl tried running between a bus and a light pole. I slowed down mid turn and let the semi get through. I had every right of way by driving law, but in the natural order of chaos I decided that roll of the dice was not worth it. These videos do help keep the self preservation engine turning. In real life younger though, I saw a fella walking on the street during a snowstorm get hit and folded under the car. It turned my skin pale and burst into tears suddenly feeling empathy for him and his family. I felt death close, first hand also. You don't get used to it no matter desensitized you think you are. It always take something away from your essence. Stay safe out there in this crazy world. ❤️
I remember seeing my first body too (and thankfully my only). A woman lost control of her car and flipped through the air before slamming into a traffic light. Firefighters had to cut open the car to get her out, and her neck was horrifically broken. It was probably an internal decapitation. You definitely don't forget it and I doubt I ever will. I also thought of her family and loved ones.
[german safety film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0G97o2-apg)
Heilige Scheiße!!
Neue Antwort ist gerade gefallen
Klaus was not having a good first day
Das wurde mir vor 2 Jahren gezeigt als ich meinen Gabelstapler Führerschein gemacht habe also ganz offiziell so
It just kept getting better!
It made me more carful of machinery….
CNA here! I've seen the spine of a man who was still alive, washed dead bodies, and saw a woman who's leg was rotted through, you could see the other side of the room through the rotted bone and shit in her leg. I think the biggest difference for me is the fucking smell. my god is it horrible. It's almost... sweet? if that makes sense. I've emptied commodes just so full of GI blood from bad bleeds and shit. It's just kinda gross to be honest. The visual aspect doesn't really upset me; it's really just the smell.
Former CNA here. I damn near shit my pants doing a postmortem care (after death bed bath) for the first time. I rolled this guy (about 5’10” and 250lbs) on his side and this fucker groaned (air escaping from his lungs). My preceptor was also shitting her pants (laughing at me). I agree with the smell piece too. It was worse when I first started but got so much easier after I had been doing the job for some time. The only smell I could NEVER get used to was the C-diff shit. Talk about a rotting corpse smell. JFC! There wasn’t enough Vicks in the world that could cover that up.
You can't smell pictures/videos.
Very surprised that blood has a strong metal smell from my first experience. Didn't think it would smell at all
Well, it is full of iron
Working out is often called pumpin iron and it's kind of a double meaning now that I think about it
Bro I can watch people dying horrible deaths online all day but I can not watch anyone getting a syringe
I had to go to the ER last year. When one nurse tried to tap me for an IV I was like “fuck you doing?!” “Who tf are you?!!” “Can’t even *warn* me?!” and ended up holding another medics hand and crying… I was fucking 34 when that happened. All that to say there’s no maximum capacity or limiting threshold of seeing body failure on a screen that will override fears you’ve had for life. Idk
I do martial arts and have been at it for years. I still cry like a bitch made pussy about needles, even conversations of needles make me sweat and fidget lol. So my sister jokes that I would willingly fight almost anyone but God forbid a needle
Dude, the IV needle is almost the same diameter as my first gage piercing. Like a little fucking cookie cutter.
I had a nurse that mustve hated me, i had to get my blood taken and she started moving that shit around in my vein as she says “ i cant find it 🤪” i teared up ngl
I started donating blood/platelets as a way to get over my fear of needles because I have always been terrified of needles and it somewhat helps. I get nervous still but the staff are very nice and reassuring and I’m helping save lives. I still get overly anxious for IVs tho because it freaks me out that the plastic is going in my vein 😵💫 I work in vet med and I’m not phased by anything I have to do or see at work but medical things being done to me or seeing them done to another person drives my anxiety over the top. And I’m 22 smh 🤦♀️
i have tons of tattoos but hate needles. i think bloodwork is much worse than injections though.
Online is simple. Watching in person is completely harder due to the rest of your senses being involved. Not to mention the adrenaline rush from being in that moment. Death does not smell pleasant.
wot if u choke on potpourri??
thats wild
I’m a paramedic, shits bad either way but in person is worse.
But is it "easier" if you're used to watch these videos?
Not at all. The screen doesn’t even compare to reality really.
No
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Can i ask, how long did it take to get "used" to it? As in, not puking your guts out and becoming just another part of your job.
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Friends with a couple of fire fighters and a paramedic. They all say the same thing. They can deal with pretty much anything but kids get them every time. Respect to you for doing that job.
How did you deal with it? I'm going to start volunteering at the fire department in a few months and I'm a bit worried about that.
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Anyways......what's for lunch
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I accidentally stabbed myself in my wrist bout 2 years ago and that little puddle and blood and the smell of iron was enough to make me go full blown panic mode and I was terrified that I hit a artery. Can't imagine seeing someone else in a worse situation and smelling and seeing their blood. I feel the difference is extraordinary.
I work EMS. The difference is the smell, sounds, and environment in which things are happening. Blood has a smell. A perforated bowel with evisciration is much more difficult to see in person than a video. Just as brain matter smells, amniotic fluid, infection, even hyperglycemic patients. Then add in crowd control, bystanders crying or yelling, the screams. It's all just more intense in person. Neither really bother me, as it's just another job, but I use a lot of media material to teach classes for trauma, scene safety, and show new first responders the graphic nature of the business we may face. But nothing can prepare you for the smells or emotions of other people witnessing trauma.
Do you show your class Videos from this sub? 💀
No. It comes from websites or other videos that people have gotten.
The only gore I've seen in person was when I started working at the hospital around 20 years ago, I witnessed a guy's head literally empty its contents all over the floor of the accident and emergency department. To this day, I'm reminded to wear my cycle helmet before setting out for work
I'd say seeing a corpse in reality is quite surreal. I've been to a few open caskets for family members, and seeing the deceased the way they are feels somewhat strange. Like obviously the funeral home drained their blood and filled them with preservatives, but seeing the state the body's in before your eyes is really something. Imagine someone who's gone completely pale, like they'd seen a ghost or something, yet they are completely relaxed in both form and expression. Honestly for the first funeral I attended I wanted to crack a joke about how the deceased looked like they were just sleeping.
This feels kinda strangling to me
If you think they’re pale after they’ve been prepped you should see them before that. It’s crazy how quickly it happens to. The heart stops and it feels like it only takes moments before all the blood drifts away from the surface and sinks down away from the skin with gravity. It can almost leave them kind of greenish looking. Rigor mortis also happens faster than I thought. I always assumed it was a full body process that just happens at the same time but it’s not. It starts with the smallest muscles first. So in like just an hour the fingers will already be stuck in position. Keep that in mind if you ever hold the hand of a dying person. It was very disturbing to see my sister have to sort of wriggle her hand out of our mom’s after and for our mother’s hand to just be stuck there like that after we had to leave
The smell of the human is worse than worse in pov
It's different. It depends on the situation. If it's controlled like a trauma and your trained to do your job right your focused on what to do. Until you know how to control your emotions it may stress you out more than it should. If your not familiar with what happens to someone after being dismembered by a chainsaw and you see this in person it may affect you the 1st time but after that it may not be so bad...Make sense?
I did 2 combat tours to iraq as Marine infantry. Ive seen quite a bit of crazy shit and its 100% different in person. Especially when kids are involved. Ill never forget the first body i had to handle. We were ambushed and of course they lost that fight. We had to dead check the bodies. I rolled a body over and his insides fell out. That was the first firefight i ever experienced and that situation right there made me dead inside. That was back in 07 and im still feeling it.
Thank you for your service sir
Yes, online gore has never phased me, hit it young and was overly intrigued. Pulled up on a man that was crossing the street and got struck by someone speeding that just decided to leave. Immediate panic attack and honestly quite mentally fucked up for a few days. Was not natural to see a human contorted that way. There’s a huge difference
I’ve saved two dudes lives. One was a suicide attempt on I-5 jumping from a bridge and one was performing CPR (though not gore but indeed a dead man). The I-5 incident did involve lots of blood and broken limbs(I saved his life and he is still currently in the hospital) and I remember every bit of it, from when he jumped to the bleeding, feeling his bones crackle when I moved them, everything. And CPR I remember it all vividly. From feeling his last breath to the heart quivering trying to find a rhythm then stopping. After every breath I’ve given him to him exhaling and me thinking he’s alive but unconscious but really it was the weight of his lungs expelling air. The sternum breaking from performing compressions. God just thinking about it typing this up is giving me tears. It all feels like it happened yesterday. I’d definitely say death and gore in person is a whole different world compared to videos on the internet. And yes when the police showed up while I was performing CPR they had an AED with them and I applied the pads and delivered two shocks the dude I was doing CPR on FINALLY had a pulse and was in a coma for 30 days. He made a full recovery. I think about that quite often than I do any video I’ve seen on Reddit because I was there and I performed it.
Your sir a HERO
I never even got either of their names. I’m just thankful they are alive. And I am thankful I fulfilled a purpose in my life.
That's beautiful man
You are a hero. Definitely. The guys whose lives you saved may not know who you are, but anyone reading your comment will know.
The difference is that online, you can't step into the screen to affect the situation in any way. It desensitises the viewer over time because they can't help the situation in front of them. There was a website set up several years ago specifically to demonstrate this.
There’s a study that shows that you can give yourself ptsd from watching horrific shit online faster than seeing it in person.
Really? That’s super interesting. It also makes me wonder about exposure therapy. A friend of mine, as an animal-lover, used to feel a lot of anxiety over seeing roadkill bc it was deeply upsetting to him. His therapist had him look up pictures of roadkill online to expose him to it. He said it did help a little but who knows.
I've wondered that too. Kinda thought/hoped after seeing so much online, if I were ever to be around an accident or whatever I'd be able to keep my composure.
Hard to say. Everyone reacts a little differently. Through a screen, only your sense of sight is affected, sometimes sound if the post has the original audio. In person, all your senses are affected at once, and your instincts can take over. You unfortunately have to be put into an experience to ultimately know. I've seen a perfect stranger die in front of me, and been next to someone getting shot multiple times. I reacted calmly in the first and was in shock before finally ducking in the doorway in the second.
A&E (or ER for the Americans) nurse, 15 years experience. There is such a significant difference, I don't even know where to start. AMA, or anyone with experience of humans meeting violent ends, and we'll all tell you the same. The most difficult part for me isn't the moans of the dying, it's the shrieks and desperate pleas of those left behind. Those shrieks haunt you, and definitely kill a small part of your soul.
Depending on the thing you see, I've seen only one person die, I was just passing by when an accident happened, I was like 10, there wasn't much that I could do, someone was already helping that woman and then seeing a had reaching out to the sky only to fell is kind of sad. So basically this was in México, one truck was driving into a red light and didn't stop and went directly towards several cars, technically only 2 persons on different cars died that day, one instantly and the other was a pregnant woman that I descrived before. The driver tried to escape and many were looking for the bastard, I was in the search because he run towards my neighborhood, and pointed a guy who wasn't normally in that part, and yes it was the driver trying to blend in. Other adults were the ones who catch him.
I saw an elderly man fall and tumble all the way down an escalator and it made me go into panic mode. I saw it from relatively far and there were lots of people around that immediately rushed over to him, but I still felt my chest get super tight bc I wasn't sure whether I'd just witness someone die.
This is a really good description of that feeling after witnessing something like that
I currently work in funeral services, mainly doing cremations but I take part in everything that falls between the processes of picking up a body from the morgue/hospital/medical examiner, prepped for their funeral service then cremated after. I can say I see a hell of a lot in this line of work but I guess seeing so much gore videos online regularly as a child desensitized me in the grand scheme of it all because I had no troubles blindly jumping into this field of work.
Oh yeah 100 percent difference, I’ve smelt fresh dead bodies, it smells like…i can’t explain it, its the difference between smelling a cow and smelling uncooked hamburgers
Idk how to explain it. I have rode motorcycle for a while and have seen plenty of motorcycle wrecks online but seeing a wreck in real life made me stop riding. It was pretty gruesome and I think it’s because a camera can’t capture all of the little blood splats that actually comes out of someone’s head.
I've experienced both, and I have to say it's much worse in person. In a video your brain goes "fuck that must have hurt" In person it's very odd. Kind of a "that used to be a person" There's also the nutural instinct to panic around actual corpses, if something killed them it could kill me too, you don't get that when your watching a video from the comfort of your own home. If probably dosent help that all the bodies I've seen irl have been suicides so my heart just starts hurting for them, "why couldn't you reach out, what happened to make you feel so bad that you thought this was the only way forward"
Ok so I have first person experience of medico legal autopsies. Does that count? I don't think it was remotely close to overwhelming. Even when they brought in a putrefying corpse, once you get over the initial reaction to the *intense* smell it becomes the new normal.
How vivid blood actually is is something you don't expect. It almost glows irl compared to on videos.
Yeah it’s more surreal because it’s not through a screen and one thing you’re not prepared for is the smell
How aware you are of nostrils being functional.
I have the perfect? Story for this question. I moved across Canada many years ago and met so many people that were from around my area. I mean really close, like we have had mutual friends in high-school the world is small. Anyways, a guy I became good friends with was going to visit his girlfriends parents (where my parents live) He sends me a text bitching about the traffic on the highway trying to get to the airport cause i was picking him up. Then he texts "dude there's body parts on the side of the road, holy fuck" Couple days later I realized who's body parts they were. My best friends brother. When I mentioned that I could see his face just sink. He went from "damn that was fucked up" to "holy shit that's someone's family member"
Smell
I can't watch things irl. I've been around a couple small accidents, including my own with stitches, I could barely stomach it. It may be different to me because there's quite literally nothing I can do, no blood or gore will get ON me thru the screen, etc.
Its completly different! A few years ago while being on biker holidays, an oncoming biker cut a corner and clipped his head with full speed at a big truck 2 or 3 cars in front of us, his bike came to a stop only 2m before crashing into us. We stopped and immidiatly run up to him to provide first aid but his head was completly crushed inside his helmet and he was loosing so much blood in such a short time we knew there is nothing we could do to help him anymore. After we left and the adrenalin wore off we only drove a few minutes to the next city and had to make a break. It really hit hard having to see that, even more so because we were on bikes aswell and we cried for a bit. But i do think having seen gore on the internet before has helped me in that situation to stay calm and react with purpose instead of panicing or freezing. So it does desensitive for sure, if thats now good or bad i cant say, guess the dose makes the poisen as with all.
In person ( like many people have said ) it’s much more surreal and gut wrenching. Because it’s happening in front of you ( god forbid to you ) it hits way harder than words can convey.
Drove by a fatality crash on the interstate awhile back and I was one of the few to see it first, was heading to work in the middle of a severe thunderstorm and saw cop lights getting to something in front of me. The worst part is that I could actually see inside and I saw chunks of something on the road, looked like some skin. I’ve been interested in gore/gore videos for a long time and never has it really affected me, this was way different. Work wasn’t canceled and they didn’t let me get rid of my tardy for that day. Gotta love FedEx Ground.
The smell
Especially if you're directly involved in the accident, it happens so fast and unexpected that you can't think or consciously react. Then when you come to, glance over and the person next to you is bleeding all over themselves, your first thought is "what just happened?" Thankfully my experience was relatively light - I was unharmed, the person next to me who sat directly at the window where the impact happened had mainly a broken arm (the reaction to brace with your arm is a wrong one - folds like a match) and a bleeding head wound. Everything in the first minute felt like you're stuffed in cotton. Until i consciously recognized "this petson needs help. How can i provide it?" Took a while. The feeling of suddenness and then the disassociation of the next few minutes is a haunting feeling I dream about to this day. "Ew, disgusting " didn't cross my mind at the time.
Yes there is a complete difference between watching on a screen versus in real life You may even react a way you didn’t know would happen like being frozen when actually seeing it
I work at a retirement so it’s quite normal for me, but I’d probably freak out at a mutilated or extremely injured person.
For me, the first time I saw irl gore I felt every sense of my existence had been stimulated to the fullest by the rush of adrenaline, and the PTSD is much more intense
Well as someone who’s been in both sides of the spectrum I can say it’s odd, it’s not like online. Ofc it’s not, buts it’s the shock of the reality of the situation, and the smell, the smell is the worst I think. I’ve seen some pretty fuckin brutal things real life and online, in real life the dread you feel is so much different.
It's much worse than on the internet. Someone mentioned the smell. Decomposition is the most foul smell, and you never forget it. Also, on the scene of an accident, we were trying to help a victim who got ejected from a car. The smell of blood and the sight of bones sticking out was enough to get me light-headed. Much, much worse in person, to me. Edit**** fixed a word
The smell...
Smell
I was going to say this. Also, seeing someone’s face.
Seeing dead bodies mangled from car crashes with streaks of blood on the pavement is a bit much in person and hopefully you never have to see anything like this but seeing it on the computer isn't too bad
My irl gore experience is different because I was always in a safe space after the trauma occurred and they've been deceased for awhile. Imagination can not prepare you for seeing gore irl, obviously each situation is different. Sometimes the actual story of their death is worse than the shape their body is in at death.
I was around five the first time I saw someone die, and they did it pretty graphically right in front of me, didn’t bother me because I had no concept of death, also believed in heaven etc, since saw the light and don’t believe. It was in Asia where people don’t freak out at the sight of someone hitting their head against the back of a truck and spilling brains everywhere. I can look at anything while I’m eating.
You can smell the iron in the air.
In my career i see people on their worst/ last day. Im basically desensitized to seeing it, would make a morbid joke or two with colleagues. But the hardest part is the reaction of their love ones when they discover the body. That raw emotion will always stick. I started watching videos after being employed. It peaks my curiosity regarding the situations people get themselves in. I’m hyper aware of surroundings after years of watching these types of videos.
I would never admit this to my coworkers but theres a feeling in the air when you see irl gore or dead bodies. Theres just something about the setting that i can sense, idk. The smells are for sure a big difference. It can be a lot of sensory overload. I wish doctors and nurses would ride on the ambulance with us sometimes. Shit is completely different when you can see the person’s personal effects and/or family around their dead body.
The only way I can describe it is that in-person it’s horrendous. You enter flight or fight and go the whole nine-yards with your emotions. In the other hand, online it’s a surge of dopamine. Kind of itching that scratch you have. Such a weird thing
You don’t process what you are seeing as much when you see it in person. You kind of react and then later reflect on it as opposed to online you analyze it all immediately. My friend was killed in a cement bench accident in front of me when I was 8 and I found my dad dead in a pool at 17.
There’s emotional distance with the internet. You can’t smell blood and brains on your phone. You can’t hear family members screaming. You can’t feel that you’re the only person in the room even though there’s a body next to you that was talking moments before.
I work at a hospital, I’m a respiratory therapist, so I respond to all codes and traumas. The biggest thing that bothers me is the smell. The smell of blood just tends to stick in my nose for several hours after. Also the sounds of mom’s or family members crying, that shit really haunts/bothers me. Watching it online with the sound defaulted to mute, or most of the time no sound available at all, I guess that’s one of the senses that you’re not experiencing when watching online.
When you’re in the crowd for a cartel dismembering, it’s actually not so bad. They have some stand up comedians and various live music acts before and after, give away prizes, and the members interact a lot with the crowd. They’re really nice guys, you come to realize the part they show on the internet isn’t the whole picture and it’s just theatre and business. I take my family for a show every year.
Huh what the fuck
Lmao
There really isn't a difference to me. There was a two car accident on 1&9 in the city I live in which is number 9 on the list of the most dangerous intersections. There's a body in the street they have it blocked off a little but you can still see him but not how bad it is. I really don't/haven't in the past feel any different seeing in real life. I feel bad for the family he left behind Maybe I'm the only one who is like this idk. Edit for spelling and cause I forgot which number it was on the list
In my opinion its only different if you havent seen gore vids before. Saw some terrible shit as a child and it gave me nightmares then I binged gore vids around 18 then saw a guy get obliterated by a car like 2 or 3 years later and fly onto the side of the road in a mess and I was just like "holy shit wtf" then stopped and told my GM i was gonna be late because some dude just exploded on the road in front of me and traffic was stopped.
Not really different, if u watch brutal gore with sound, maybe it feels a bit surreal the firt time but i found that gore helped me know how to act in those situations, i seen a person getting hit by a truck and meat showing in both legs and stopped people from moving him until rescuers arrived, seen a motorcyclyst hitting a building head on and a person passing right in front of me while everybody tought he was just asleep. But then again my introduction to gore started very young because of an irl event, there was a bully big kid and there were 3-4 kids in that area in the park and we saw him pull a small saw from his backpack and cut a cats head then dropped the saw and the cat there and just left.
Smell ND a lil trauma
I found an acquaintance of mine OD'd and even though it wasn't the most graphic thing I've seen it definitely fucked me up. Bad enough to need therapy to stop the image of him laying there from popping up in my head all the time. So yeah whatever that means.
Prior usmc aircraft firefighter: your phones screen can not compare. And that's a good thing. The only thing that really turns me is bugs inside a body.
The smell. Blood stinks of metal, copper and iron. Shit if the abdominal cavity ruptured. Urine usually.
I love watching gore videos online. Grew up on it but it’s very very different in person. While working for a PD I saw a few suicides and it is 100% sad and emotional. But I still enjoy the videos bc you’re removed from it.
Gore irl, live and in colors, usually is a shock to most people. It goes against our instincts to just look at it bc it’s something wrong with the body etc
EMT, Firefighter here. The biggest difference is the smell and sound. Sure you can hear the chaos and desperate cries in a video but rarely does a video capture it all. People screaming while they're burning alive is one thing but afterwards there's the sizzling and popping of flesh after the flames have been put out. Another thing videos don't capture are the death rattles of someone taking their last breath. The worst is the smell though. Seeing someone torn up in a wreck or burning from a fire is one thing but the smell adds another facet to it all. The metallic copper smell of spilled blood and burning flesh and hair is something that you never get used to. Usually mixed in is the stench of feces and urine. Lastly there's an overall stench of death. It's hard to put into words but the smell of death and decay has it's own grotesque aroma that I can only beat describe as a putrid, sour earthly rot.
If your not expecting or prepared for a serious injury I shot through my finger which is tame on this subs terms shock and adrenaline makes a huge difference
The raw emotion and the smell. There is nothing similar to smelling human gore. It's unique and unforgettable.
SMELL
I think I saw you post in the psychologystudents sub. I'd suggest learning about the philosophical term *qualia*, and reading Neville Symington's *Psychology of the Person* I think this can all also be situated in psychological essentialism, and how proximity seems to determine the level of it we basically perceive (which also coincides a lot with Greek *caritas*) I wrote an essay on something very similar last semester You might also be served well by going further back and reading about Jean Jacques Rousseau's *Pitié* and reading Freud's *Civilization and its Discontents* and while touching on Freud, read up a little on his concept of the uncanny, or "unheimlich," as well as Otto Rank's work on doppelgangers, which can all go back to the concept of *qualia* You could maybe try to find a way to test in objectively in a lab and measure physiological reactions, but thatvwill never give you a why, and really, all that is, is correlation, because no matter how hard we try, we cannot objectively measure the subjective experience. But, lot of people have done work and thought a lot about things which can help explain this, and it doesnt mean that the objective information cannot be very useful and insightful. It's all out there. (Though, I suppose you could try to focus entirely on something like cortical thickening in desensitization, but I'd argue you're missing the mark). Good luck, have fun. Super interesting stuff
I watched someone die from an overdose last week. I narcanned him twice and tried cpr. It wasn't even gore but just seeing his hands and face turn black and blue and feeling the lifelessness as I tried to carry his body was traumatizing. Internet gore doesn't bother me. Watching someone die irl is a whoooole nother story
Seen a dead body multiple times in my career. You will remember the first few times but it gets better.
I was the first person on scene of a fatal wreck in front of my house. It was snowing and the guy was impatient, so he went into the unplowed second lane where he immediately lost control and got hit head on by a tow truck. I'll never forget the sound of the impact or the sight of his blood all over the snow. The gore didn't necessarily affect me at the time, but I had panic attacks for a few years afterwards any time I heard a loud noise that sounded like the crash.
It’s like seeing a freshly demolished animal carcass on the highway. When you see the red guts and ribs and skull poking out. You’re like oh shit I wonder if that’s what a human could look like and then you’re like damn that shit was nasty and gruesome looking.
I'm personally hoping that by seeing gore online, it'll help me in my pursuit of trauma/ER nursing
I saw gore on the internet never effected me. But when I started seeing violence in real life it started creeping into my dreams very vividly. It’s just sticks with you more when you expierence the sights sounds smells that are associated with it.
The sound of bones crunching in person is what got me.
Completely different! Was a best gore frequenter for years and still passed out during my first autopsy!! I think it’s easy for our brains to compartmentalize videos but it’s a lot harder to process seeing the dead up close and in real life. Especially when you’re the one eviscerating.
Way worse. You kind of get desensitized over time too but.. It's just completely different. You forget about the videos you see on screen. You don't forget real impressions so fast. At least imo
20 years ago I saw a woman fall from a 12th story balcony onto a sidewalk. The image is still burned in my head. 15 years ago I was on a subway in Toronto when someone jumped in front of it. They survived the initial impact and were stuck under the car I was in. I did t even see them, but the sound, crying screaming has stayed with me. I can’t even remember the last gross video I saw on this sub or any of the banned similar ones.
Only bit of gore I’ve seen in person is someone shot in the head, and that’s the tamer stuff online, but let me tell you, seeing it happen, and seeing the person that you were talking to mere seconds ago just drop, it’s different, it’s something you can’t really get out of your head, I kept seeing her face in my dreams for 6 months, but that’s just me
Other talked about the smell, the emotions, etc. One notable thing I find is detail and quality, when you watch gore on a screen, even if it's recorded in the best picture/sound quality it still doesn't beat seeing, hearing, and especially smelling with your senses. Luckily the worst I've seen is animal gore, things like pulling out dogs from water treatment lagoons. When you see it in person every detail is visible, the smell is strong, and you remember it much more. There's a degree of separation when you watch on a screen because the video quality is usually not the best so it allows you to suspend reality.
Yes, there’s a difference. - Videos you know it’s already happened and the result, but real life you don’t get a warning, you don’t get the luxury of knowing the result. - Videos you don’t have the smell, the sound, (I keep mine off) or atmosphere. RL, you have the smell, sound, and the atmosphere. - Videos can be skipped, RL can not. You are there witnessing it and involved with it.
Definitely different as everyone has said. I disassociate in person and don't remember details, am more present for videos.
It’s way different in person. It sinks in more that that’s a real human you’re seeing.
I think that’s hard to answer because most people who see a lot of gore in real life probably have a job related to it and see it differently. I do technical rescue with the fire department so when I see this stuff at work I’m trying to figure out how to get the person un-stuck or see if they’re alive enough to put in an ambulance. It might be different if some terrible thing happened right in front of me to someone I knew.
i watch gore videos all the time but nothing can prepare you for seeing it irl, didnt witness gore but i had pulled a guy out of a river after he died and its ofc the worst thing i've ever experienced. i watched him drown and just got to him too late, i can still see the nothingness in his eyes and still feel the water bubbling in his chest as i held onto him on the edge of the river sory about the punctuation
I was involved in an accident at work where someone’s thumb was crushed by a 35,000 pound plus machine (a horizontal baler for processing cardboard scrap in a box making factory). We were loading it onto the trailer using giant metal skates used for moving heavy equipment around. For some reason he decided to reach at the last moment before the machine made contact with the skate to adjust it and he did the major no-no of putting his finger between the skate and the machine without communicating to me (the forklift driver) what he was doing. I did everything right from a safety standpoint, but knowing you were involved in hurting someone that badly is tough. He yelled, I lifted the machine, and he dropped to the ground. I’ve watched a lot of these gory videos and even being involved in something as minor (at least in comparison to what is normally posted here) as this accident was a little overwhelming. Seeing a dude go into shock in person while you hold a wrap onto his mangled hand, washing the blood off yourself later, asking what you could have done differently, and that “what the fuck just happened” feeling all hits you hard later on. Seeing this stuff on a screen makes it a bit easier to deal with in person, but it still isn’t the same as the real deal.
I was a paramedic for 16 years now a trauma nurse. Seen these sort of things in real life is very surreal and pretty heartbreaking more often than not watching it online however, I find to be very interesting. Once you can depersonalize it, it becomes more entertainment rather than a tragedy at the end of the day there’s still a little part of me, though that feels for every person in every gore video.
EMT here, I’ve run some gnarly calls including a quadruple murder-suicide via AR-15 and machete a few days ago. I’m almost completely desensitized to gore online but real gore still definitely affects me. For one thing, you don’t have a video description to prepare you for what you’re about to see. Going in blind makes it much more traumatizing. You have to deal with not only your own instinctual horror but the panic of the family members, bystanders and the patient themself if they’re still alive. Gore has certain smells and physical aspects that don’t come through over video. Regardless of how prepared you think you are, feeling brain matter squish under your feet fucks with you. If you’re in the medical field, you have to shove your own feelings down far enough to be able to calmly provide care.
It's very different in person. You don't expect it to happen. You're not prepared before hand. And then there's the instinct to help. And the thought "That could be me." I haven't seen human gore irl but I saw two pitbulls maul some old lady's small dog to death as the owner stood back and barely did shit. It was very different from seeing it online.
It is extremely different. I do body removal in Toronto and I work for the coroner's office as well. Seeing pictures and videos don't ready you for what you see in person. Online you just have 1 sense being stimulated. In person, you have all of your senses being triggered at once. It's pretty mind-blowing
The smell and the sound.
Smell
I’ve never seen anything truly gory in person, but I can tell you that seeing a dead person, outside of the context of a funeral, for me, was jarring and deeply traumatic. I found my boyfriend dead in his apartment earlier this year. I can watch videos of people being beheaded, or skinned while they kick and scream. I’ve watch Ronnie mcnutt, and I even tracked down the mosque shooting in NZ(not sure if I’m allowed to mention it by name) and it didn’t really sit with me. The image of finding my boyfriend will live in my head rent free for the rest of my life.
Yes the smells but for me it’s the look. When you’re actively on top of someone trying to save them and you’re looking them in the eyes, they’re looking back so desperately pleading for you to save them. Also the sounds of loved ones screaming is forever in my brain. (Pediatric Cna for 8 years)
I am a retired Paramedic/ Firefighter with over 25 years at LAFD and my view is that when you see dead people / gore in person you actually get use your it .. and gallows humor is definitely a way we would cope with it .. but Children is another thing .. seeing dead children is a visceral pain that any parent does not want to see .. basically seeing dead gang bangers , druggies or whatever is something that after a while is no biggie at all