BMEZINE was people sharing their own body mods with other likeminded people, no mocking. I didn’t find it shocking because I was an adult and I already knew that world pretty well, albeit I’ve always been more involved with the tattoo side of it rather than the tongue splitting or modern fakir hook-hanging stuff.
Rotten wasn’t my personal idea of a good time but no, I didn’t find it particularly shocking (but then a lot of the material shared was historical, rather than happening in real time). Also, it was all still images back then and most of the material came from crime scene investigations or foreign press (I was shocked that images that I saw via Rotten were published on the front pages of mainstream tabloid news papers in various South American countries though, because obvs kids can see newsstands).
The problem with exposing minors to graphic or adult material is it shapes how their brains develop.