Is it Normal to Like Gross Stuff?

Posted by on Jul 16th, 2018 in Lifestyle | 0 comments

Are you one of the thousands who watch pimple-popping videos on YouTube? Do you find earwax extraction videos just as satisfying? Or does watching people pull out ingrown hairs make you feel clean and all good inside?

It is easy to find these videos all over the Internet and maybe you’ve wondered a couple of times why you find them fascinating and mesmerizing. If you feel relaxed watching these kinds of videos even if most of your friends find them disgusting, don’t worry, because there is nothing wrong with you.

Feelings of Disgust
According to psychologists, this fascination for gross things both has biological and psychological imperatives. So, how are these two related to watching relaxing blackhead removal videos? Researchers claim that when our parents teach us disgust during early childhood, it is also a mechanism to protect us from harmful substances and bacteria that can make us sick. People associate physical symptoms like bumps, nasty odors, wounds, rashes, and others with sickness; and the first reaction we are taught to do is to avoid them.

Psychologists point out to the arousal value of disgusting things, but here arousal dos not just refer to intimate encounters with a partner. Arousal is just the term for exhibiting excitement such as a faster heartbeat or faster breathing. However, the feeling is not always negative, because there is also a positive side to arousal that our brains can read as reward or pleasure.

Add to that the natural human curiosity to know about things. If you’re not averse to the sight of blood on a nasty wound for example, that does not make you a sadist or a future serial killer. And with the ease of finding videos on almost any subject on the Internet, you will no longer feel the same disgust that you are supposed to feel when you see the object right in front of you because you’re safe from having contact with it.

Bile Fascination
Another term used in the Internet is bile fascination, which refers to the feeling of being repulsed and fascinated at the same time. Maybe you know some friends who are never grossed out with terrifying horror scenes and would even comment that it was not as bad as some equally gross scene from another movie.

For these people, they know they will be looking at some horrible stuff that most people have no stomach for, and yet they are also curious about why it was so gross in the first place. It’s like the opposite of wanting to know how brilliant a movie is after reading so many positive reviews. It turns out that bad publicity does work for a lot of people as well. There is a natural curiosity for some who want to know how bad a thing is.

And, hey, maybe you were guilty once of sharing a disgusting video on social media, knowing a lot of people are more interested in it, than say, videos showing altruism.