Social media is awash with disgusting medical-themed videos involving everything from doctors popping pimples to extracting ingrown hairs. But what can explain the popularity of these gut-churning clips and why do so many people love watching them so much? These videos can rack up thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of views. One of the most well-known channels, Dr. Pimple Popper, has more than 15 million followers on TikTok, and over 2 billion views on YouTube.
One clip posted to TikTok in June 2021, with the caption "Happy Sunday," shows a spot slowly being squeezed with an extractor tool. It has since been viewed almost 65 million times. This kind of footage regularly provokes a feeling of disgust, which is generally thought to be a negative emotion. According to Daniel Kelly, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University, and the author of Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust, this emotion evolved to primarily protect us from two things—potentially poisonous foods and contagious diseases.
According to Kelly, the emotion took on other functions on top of those as humans got more socially complex. It can be triggered by moral violations linked with 'purity' or by members of out-groups that are seen as far down the social hierarchy. The disgust that people feel after watching these kinds of videos is probably linked to the fact that the emotion evolved to help us avoid contracting a disease or becoming contaminated with an infection.
- Medical videos attract millions of views, showcasing human curiosity.
- Disgust, while negative, serves as an evolutionary protective mechanism.
- Social media platforms amplify the reach of these medical-themed videos.
It's a fascinating mix of human emotions that drives people to seek out such content. The appeal is complex, intertwining our innate responses to health risks and our curiosity about the human body. In this article, we will delve deeper into why these videos are so captivating and what they reveal about our emotional landscapes.
What You Will Learn
- The psychological reasons behind the attraction to disgusting medical videos.
- How social media platforms play a role in popularizing these videos.
- The evolutionary significance of disgust as an emotion.
- The impact of vicarious experiences on viewer engagement.
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