Fascinated by catastrophic events?

[Gewurztraminer]

Just randomly thinking. I find myself being so fascinated with natural disasters or catastrophic events and disaster films are my favourite. Have read up on everything possible on the 2004 tsunami for example but also really interested in events like Chernobyl. I never learned a lot in history at school but I am now fascinated by the war and what happened in Auschwitz etc. I've visited the killing fields in Cambodia and found it so fascinating but also sombre. It's not like an enjoyment thing or anything as I really respect what happened, I just feel a weird urge to know everything about catastrophes like this. I have honestly spent hours as a teenager reading up on 9/11, tsunamis, earthquakes. Anyone else like this or am I just mad? 🙈

I think the pp who said we are people who are interested in gory films is completely wrong!! I love crime scenes but because I've seen them in real life, murders are horrific in real life, crime scenes are horrific in real life, but they serve a purpose as to help me and my colleagues figure out what happened. I love seeing them on tv because I know that that scene is going to help get the perpetrator

I’m similar OP. I go down rabbit holes about things like natural disasters, serial killers, cults… and obsessively read about/watch documentaries about whichever my current interest is. I usually have one topic I am obsessively interested in at any one time, not always dark stuff, but often. I don’t know why I’m like this.

I'm very interested in natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes etc. I have watched quite a few videos on tsunamis but I try to avoid the human side of it. I find that upsetting but I love the science of it all and the fact we are powerless to nature. Uk floods and uk storms I love researching too but I did do a environmental biology degree so it's all relevant.

As long as I don't "light up" when talking about massive chemical spills like my old biology teacher did, it's not a morbid fascination.

Maybe people like these things so they can make sense of them? Like when there is a child terrified of a theatre character, showing them how the make up is put on, showing them the green wig, letting them stroke it etc can help them realise it’s not a scary monster, it’s Steve who has an awesome tattoo. Or summat.

Titanic is an obvious one. It's fascinated people since 1912 and still claims lives. I don't get it and would never have any interest in seeing it but it's held people in thrall

Thanks for the replies! I think it is a bit of trying to comprehend tragedies and I hate horror films so that's quite funny. I did go through a bit of an obsession with true crime and I suppose that genre itself shows that I'm not alone haha. But yes it's really not in a disrespectful way and more trying to fathom the events - glad a few of you are the same! I am also quite obsessed with survival stories too so highly recommend the podcast "real survival stories" for anyone else out there like me. Was more of a light hearted question as I know there is an audience for everything ☺️

Also for pp, I'm the same. Have wanted to go to Pompeii to understand it. Plus Auschwitz, Chernobyl, etc 🙈

They are significant events in human history, so I think that it's perfectly normal for inquisitive people to be curious about them.

I'm the same with serial killers. I totally understand why some people find them repellent to the point whereby they'll deliberately avoid watching or reading anything about them, but I'm curious about all sorts of people, including the ones who are the outliers who behave in ways that normal people struggle to comprehend.

It's only because of inquisitive people studying serial killers that they've become a rarity in most developed societies. We understand them well enough now that the majority are detected and apprehended before they actually become serial, and that's down to people who were willing to confront the unpalatable and try to understand what makes these people tick.

Not a large scale catastrophe as such, but the Dyatlov Pass incident is pretty wild.

Ngl

I struggle with people like you

i lost friends in a terrorist attack.

the one person who was nasty enough to ask me questions about it got the full detail, including identification by body parts.

he had been very adamant that I’d have to get used to people asking about it. I’m pleased to say he wasn’t able to eat his lunch after I gave him a fraction of information about what I’d gone through - I’d only just started when he asked me to stop. And I have to live with what happened to my loved ones every day.

being a Londoner, as I was at the time, I had thought fellow Londoners would be more sensitive as we’d all grown up in the shadow of terror attacks.

anyway, I never liked disaster films even before, even the fictional ones. As a teen I used to puzzle over it.

obviously people who find this stuff entertaining are entitled to their feelings.

but I hope you will remember there are real people among you now, still deeply affected - parents who buried their children. I keep quiet now mostly.

i don’t think I’d be quite so damaged if this stuff wasn’t considered entertainment.

I have reported quite a few threads on MN when people start salivating over true crime but quickly realised no one cares.

I had one colleague leave town after the murder of a close friend was all over the media.

the damage inflicted by these people who are so excited about it is immense.

i would say I hope you never have these experiences - but frankly the words stick in my throat. Of course I don’t want to see anyone killed to change your personalities though.

I really sympathize with you and am so sorry for what you've suffered and are still suffering clearly.

I don't find it in the least bit fascinating either just horrific and upsetting when I imagine how the victims and their families must have felt or be feeling. If I allow my brain to even get close to victims like Sarah Everard I just can't bear it to think of what she went through, it's just awful. Even if it's victims from 100 years ago, again I find it unbearable.

I do apologise for any offence caused as that wasn't my intention and possibly should have kept this to myself if I had known it would cause offence. As I said above it's not that I am "excited" by that type of thing I'm just interested in the events. I appreciate I am lucky that I've never been impacted directly by any of these terrible events so can't sympathise with those who have. I also would never ever go up to someone and ask about what had happened to a loved one like has happened to you.

I hear you, @EmeraldRoulette. I think it’s an ethically indefensible, ghoulish fascination that battens on other people’s suffering.

Oh god. I am so sorry this happened to you and your friends.

I don't think it's anything to feel guilty about, obviously assuming people aren't asking survivors for gory details etc.

But having an interest in it myself, I think it's more about a fear of death and this turns itself into a fascination with morbid events.

I have a very healthy fear of crowds now due to Hillsborough and get panicky in the middle of a dense crowd.

We visited Pompei and found some people to be really awful. "Imagine what it felt like to be running down this road"... etc whereas others (us included) were looking at it as a time capsule of how things were. I guess people go to these places for different reasons. I personally cannot imagine going to Auschwitz, or a tour of the trenches etc.

Likewise the station nightclub fire.. if I'm ever on a crowded burning building I know I've minutes to gtfo and the front door/ exit will get jammed so side fire exits will probably be less crowded

I think it's natural curiosity although I think my interest was piqued by being in Savernake on the 19 August 1987 (Dad told us the shots were a car back firing) and travelling on a school trip on the Spirit of Free Enterprise on Friday the 13th 1987 - as kids we were running round telling the other passengers the bow doors were still open...

Not interested in natural disasters and don't obsess but I do check the quickest way onto the pitch at football stadia and always check the exits out of a hotel etc.

I have recently been looking into the 2004 tsunami. I had no idea how devastating it was. Wow! Its not entertaining or exciting but terrifying.

I was researching a holiday to Koh Lak and now will not go there. Id be scared of it happening again and could not relax and sip cocktails where so many were doing the same only 20 years ago, having a lovely time… until they weren't.
I guess my attention was on partying at the time, I’m still shocked so many perished. Its hardly mentioned now which is nuts as a quarter of a million died. I guess people want to forget or tourism must continue.

Generally though I consume a lot of true crime. Maybe because I have suffered much trauma in my life and it is somehow reassuring to scare myself silly that it could have been worse? I don’t know, just trying to wonder why its so addictive? Definitely an area of psychology that needs exploring. I am not saying it is healthy at all.

I am sorry for all those who have suffered as victims of crime and disasters.

I certainly abhor content that lauds or makes celebrities of perpetrators. I hate the cults around pathetic, sub human serial killers, they should not be mythicised.