Depressed South Africa Consuming Gore

Finding escapism and release in a mine field.

A peep into what lies hidden within

Not so long ago we were listed as one of the most depressed countries in the world. I honestly view our nation as a middle child- one who just happens to be girl in an black household. Sh*t gets very real, really quick. However, she remains strong and incredibly steadfast in her principals and beliefs. Seeing how, since we became a democratic nation ourselves, we have been running around fighting for justice in (mainly) other African countries. We were bound to step on some toes that benefitted from that oppression. And, like the middle child we are, stubbornness and eagerness to fight to death for our views and beliefs have landed us in some hot water with a certain leading nation. I shan't dwell, dear summer child! I want to introduce how dealing with all this and more has seemingly had a somewhat devastating effect on our people, myself included. Let me serve it you.

Since the COVID-19 Lockdowns, I have been lightly obsessed with gore and graphic scenes and stories. I am quite timid; I have never enjoyed graphic and cringe content. Yet, here I am enjoying it now. I cannot sleep, of course, but in the moment I feel so enraptured. Like body and soul are one. There needs to be an explanation, because it seems like I am not the only one experiencing this. From Murder Mystery and Makeup Mondays with Bailey, Rotten Mango with Stephanie, Soft White Underbelly, The Vice, etc. I am consuming it almost daily. As if ‘feel-good’ content has suddenly become fake and off putting. Which has been proven to be the case; many of these creators doctor situations. Often times, their handy work is potentially deadly and very influential. Which is alarming because in my head I am thinking there is no genuine kindness and good heartedness. Which has me feeling dumb and slow because how many people have been communicating this fact. Be that as it may, I still refuse to accept that the world is inherently evil and cold. There are good people in the world; however, before finding your community you will be dragged skin on a dirt road for kilometers.

The term Gore is said to have surfaced around the eighth century from Germany. In English it referrers to filthy slimy stuff, and around the fifteenth century it was commonly associated with blood. Today, Gore referrers to scary looking violent and bloody scenes that will turn your stomach over. It is very lucrative, and people cannot seems to get enough of it. However, it is often consumed in the form of horror. Gore and horror are synonymous with each other because they are horrific. Yet, horror does not need to be gory in order to terrify people. Horror relies on imagination and strong will. Gore, on the other hand, is visually horrific and often unsightly. In more extreme cases, it is far more real than horror, because the images are not CGI or makeup constructed. They are real-life cases concerning living human beings.

I imagine it being a problem when one enjoys gore and finds it relaxing. Perhaps they might be sadistic and unaware. In the past, sadists have turned out to be along the lines of murderers and torturers. A sadist is someone who finds pleasure in other people’s pain and hurt. With many of them finding it very arousing and addictive. They humiliate, hurt, and even kill others for pleasure. It is a psychological disease that is very present, and can be treated. There are four types of sadists, and they can even be psychopaths. Sadistic psychopathy is particularly terrifying to imagine because a sadist enjoys pain. They want to feel other people’s pain by inflicting it so that they may find pleasure. A psychopath is defined by words such as lack of empathy, egocentric, prone to criminal behaviour, and having antisocial personality traits. Making this combination scary. So, it is hard to imagine such a person not being drawn to gore. The most infamous names under such and similar titles include Kwazi Tiba, Moses Sethole, Daisy de Melker, Gacy, Dahmer, Saito Sakakibara, etc. Many of them allegedly began with small animals, and made their way up to humans. While others, I suppose you may say, had a moment of madness and continued with the acts well after the psychotic break. Though it is ill-advised to assume that their childhood had any effect, their MOs and victims seem to prove otherwise. Such instances are visible with names such as Luise Garavito. He took the lives of about 189 boys in the 1990s. The correlation with his childhood is rape from a ‘male family friends’, and brutal physical abuse from his father. He would go on to molest, torture and eventually take the lives of little boys.

In spite of all these extremities. Not everyone who enjoys gore is suffering from psychological illnesses. It is said that women consume such content in order to know what to look out for. Whereas with men the line is not so clear cut. In Singapore a man simply identified as J, along with his internet friends faced jail time for drugging and raping each other’s wives. The origin story is very twisted. Regardless, it seems that after their case went to trial and went viral; traffic to the website they used for their acts spiked. Apparently, men visited the site hoping to find similar men. Maybe they wanted to also be involved in it. Despite witnessing the heavy sentences those men received. And the hurt and betrayal those women felt. So, the reason why men consume true-crime and gore content gets ominous, because it seems to be influenced by the need to find inspiration. Which feeds an alarmingly apparent pattern, which is: Sadists often draw inspiration from' fore-comers' of their likeness on how to best enact their intentions.(I am not ignorant to the fact that women probably visited that site, too. Though, I assume it was to see if similar acts had happened to them. Or, if they could find people they knew in there, participating either as offender or victim. Some men probably visited for the same reasons.) 

What does this mean for regular people?

I have a quick note before we get to this part. Imagine a guilty pleasure you have. Like, perhaps you enjoy seeing people get beat up; or even taking part in the act yourself. Perhaps you consider yourself a social hero when you, somehow, torment someone for reasons that keep bringing you back there. It has be an extreme thing that you simply enjoy, despite knowing how detrimental it is to you and everyone else. 

Catharsis theory is said to be an ancient Greek concept that suggests that consuming/witnessing/viewing violent or disturbing content can cleans and purify emotions and alleviate psychological suffering. Leading to a great sense of relief. Other studies explain it as venting out the pain to relieve yourself from struggles within. Freud suggested unexpressed anger and other emotions may lead to psychological harm. Regular South Africans probably find violent themes cathartic to an extent. We are surrounded by violence and abuse. So, we have reached an apparent point of desensitization. Many of us are bonded by trauma, and therefore create communities around this theme. So, implying that South Africans benefit emotionally and socially from gore is not too far fetched. In my most humble opinion. Be it the people from kasi or the North, we are all bonded by violent trauma. This kind of desensitization does lead to gore and horror being therapeutic to us, in a sense. It is not uncommon to find people addicted to the very thing they were victimised with. A nymphomaniac might have been raped as a child, or exposed to sexually scarring events and activities (An overly sexual child might a victim of rape! I REPEAT: An overly sexual child might be a victim of rape! Keep a watchful eye on the bambinos). A sadist might have been physically abused and embarrassed as a child, now they inflict pain to find release. And so forth. This kind of content is very easy to relate to. Which is what makes it more real and understandable to people. It gives a sense of hope and security; because if you know the common patterns you can save yourself if you notice them in time. Also, if you suspect them in yourself you can seek help and save others.

Still, it is safe to say that our global depression rank makes this entire thing unsettling. It would a disservice if I failed to express the impact COVID-19 and its lockdowns had on us with this regard. A question of mortality arose within the majority of the population. A fascination with death and the fragility of human beings became noticeable. Especially the mind and spirituality. Everyone was scared, and in the beginning we needed stories of people surviving what they should not have. Feel good stories were at their peak during the lockdowns. Nonetheless, more and more people started realising the true severity of the situation. A dark truth staring us right in the eye, because one by one we each lost a loved one. We lost the to flu. Surely humans are not that weak right? This question saw a spike in our internet use. Which would later give us the title of the most ‘online’ country. Slowly, our content became violent and aggressive, even with matters that are inherently soft and friendly. Both shared and consumed. Until South African X (Formally known as Twitter) became filled with bloodied black bodies, and eventually videos outright depicted violence and murder of every body. As sure as sunrise, such content grew and grew on every social media site. People could relate, it enraged people and evoked them to be audible about their truths. It is not always good, but it is not terrible either. It is a release which brought forth a new community which needed to be addressed by each of us. The more we spoke, the more liberated and empowered we began to feel. However, when one voices their pains and ills; there is bound to be another who feels targeted and wronged by those words.

So, there is some level of explanation to this phenomenon. It is not a terrible occurrence, but it is unsettling to witness. Especially because the things I found cathartic before COVID are an absolute snooze now. They lack the mental and emotional impact and provocation to actually relieve some of my stress.

I love you, stay safe.

M_D