What Do Horror Movies and Cable News Networks Have in Common? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
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Halloween is almost here, and 'tis the season for copious horror movie viewing!! Lots of awesome smart people have talked about the reasons we love horror films. But why do we like to watch horror films with others? There seems to be a social nature to horror viewing, way more than other genres. It's gotta be more than just safety in numbers, right? And does this apply just to movies, or does this social experience of horror seep into other aspects of culture?⌠Watch the episode and find out!
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Death Drive
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Mike...the day you posted your logical fallacies videos I immediately showed them to my students after I returned their midterms. I teach a logic and critical thinking class and it's standard practice for me to find informative supplementary videos for my students after I have taught them the material in a way I find necessary. Once your videos came out, I instantly jumped on the opportunity. And so I have to thank you, seriously, because though critical thinking is extremely important it is a constant struggle for teachers to try convincing students that it's important. Your posts simply added to the "coolness" factor of thinking well and being reasonable. Thank you.
~Kelby Peeler
I often feel the urge to share videos with my teachers which are related or directly in common with what we are studying, so as a teacher yourself, how would you feel about it?
I shared it with my FB debate group.
*****
I mean, it isn't a class exactly... but it often feels like one
Mariyan Zarev I would be completely fine with it. :-D
I want to memorise the URLs of each video to quote to friends/ interlocutors at will.
Hehe
There was a study which found that kids were more afraid when watching a horror movie if they watched it with their parents. They concluded that it was not the movie that made them scared, but the fact their parents, their guardians were afraid of it which subconsciously told them that they should be afraid of it too. I think it's a similar effect with news when politicians we look up to or reporters we trust talk about "scary" things and more often than not present them as possible dangers to the viewer. Maybe that is also the reason we like to watch scary movies in theaters, that way we amplify our fear with the fear of others and thus getting more out of the movie.
In my creative writing class this week, we were talking about how horror stories are often narratives centered around realistic, mundane settings (a house, a town, a campsite, etc.) wherein an abnormal entity of some kind (a ghost, a monster, a disease) intrudes upon the characters' everyday life, disrupting the security of mundanity. Maybe news networks, in a way, simulate the horror setting in each individual home by, in a sense, intruding on the viewer's everyday life (concerned with immediate, everyday experiences and problems) with foreign, more abstract, or grander threats (such as war, outbreaks of disease, terrorism, national crises, etc.) that the viewer doesn't directly or consciously experience in his/her everyday life.
Love u, Mike.
Love you Mikethony Miketano
Mike u, Fantandingo
more collabs more collabs more collabs more collabs
no. ilu fantano.
carlosg617
Because smart people like curly fries.... Google it
I think Idea Channel videos should be part of high school curriculum, I learned more about fallacies from those videos than I ever did in school.
I've been working in news media (newspapers) for 20 years and I can tell you it's quite common to prioritize news stories that in some way cause horror (panic, fear, etc) ... the age old question in this industry is... what came first? the human thirst for fear and gore or did the media impose this trend. Because the results are really clear, gore and fear sell even more than sex. It's quite tragic actually
The most horrifying stories to me are those that make me fear other people/society/the world around me. More than wanting to watch them with others, I want to know that everyone has seen them, so that we can meet on the grounds of agreement over how terrifying those thing are and how we all don't want them to be true, or hope to work to make them less true.
Additionally, would you say that shows like The Daily Show seek to "undercut the tension" of the horror genre tropes that the news uses, or do they only make the true horror underneath even more apparent?
The "Real threat" is different depending on ideological context, I think that's the tension the Daily Show tries to undercut. We don't know, what it is we don't know. From Gary Webb to Edward Snowden revealing information that changes the public narrative to address issues that jeopardize institutional authority, doesn't make you a lot of friends within mainstream corporate media. Dissent being suppressed by the media structure which we hold responsible for our political socialization is the true horror underneath which i don't think the Daily Show alone could make apparent.
Great comment with the Daily show--lampooning the news gives us power over the world around us, lessening our fears.
I would say programs like The Daily Show are like The Human Centipede of the news world. They play with the same horrific content as their peers but in a way so preposterous that all you can do is laugh.
Congrats on getting your comment responded to! You've upgraded from being merely horsefamous to PBSfamous
I guess that's why I found the movie Idiocracy more distressing than funny.
Hey Mike. I'm a college student and when I was in the class "Sociology of Popular Culture," my professor played us 3 of your videos over the course of the semester which was pretty cool. It made sense since the class was about analyzing media, and popular culture (things that you discuss quite frequently here on idea channel) through a sociological lense.
Rant by Chuck Palahniuk covers our macabre fascination with horror when it happens to other people - car crashes in that case - and how we just can't seem to get enough of it. American 'news' outlets are simply information dealers: they offer you just enough to reel you in, but then you find that there's no substance to the story. The Malaysian Airline bit is a perfect example. They gave SO much coverage to that story, while truly horrific things were occurring in real-time - only covered in the scroll bar at the bottom. I don't even watch 'our' news channels anymore, just the Daily Show/Colbert Report and the news on BBC.
I am taking a college level political science course in my high school and we were studying argumentative fallacies. My class had to take a test on the fallacies provided in our text books and some others that were not mentioned (and required extensive amounts of Wikipedia exploring). Thanks to your impeccable timing with the publishing of this set of videos, I easily passed my test (I actually forwarded these videos to my professor). I knew watching idea channel would be a good life choice sooner or later. I really enjoy your videos and aim to think with a greater perspective on life as you do so well in each of your videos. Thanks for letting me watch, and for producing a great outlet for higher thinking.
Sorry for the length in advance.
You make an excellent point in saying that the news is packaged. I agree with that, and would like to inquire more deeply into that topic.
The thing that the news and the horror genre have in common, I think, is that they both capitalize on human suffering. However, there's a sweet spot in what kind of horror, what kind of suffering, is good capital - and that kind of horror is the 'pretty' kind, the kind that repulses us superficially (like you said). There's not a market for truly understanding, with nuance and impact, the horrors the world is capable of producing - there's only one for the horror that sparks your morbid fascination.
I find that what makes some horrible act 'fascinating' is how it's framed. Because we're not presented with this nuance through horror and the news, we get a very skewed idea of what 'horror' even is, and its impact.
The movie Funny Games made an excellent point about this - it was a horror film in which, simply, two psychopaths murder a family (which sounds very boring, but it focuses on the trauma the family suffers, their despair as they're slowly killed one by one, and in that way it's an overwhelmingly disturbing movie). It was a critique on how horror movies frame the suffering within them. A lot of the movies in the horror genre are voyeuristic - the point of the movie is not to understand the character and his suffering, but to see his guts spilled across the floor, to consume that violence.
This Halloween, I went to a party in which we watched a movie called 'Vile'. I had to leave halfway through, when the group (in the movie) had strapped a man to a table and had begin to torture him (the whole move was about everyone having to torture each other, you see). There was no theme to that movie. the purpose was the torture - and watching the faces of everyone else, they were entranced by it as if it was a shiny swinging thing in front of their faces.
I think the news suffers a lot from that. For instance, the Ebola crisis: going through news websites, I cannot find an article in which the sufferers speak for themselves. Rather, it is narrated by the newscaster, and the victims' vulnerability is exploited - for us to consume.
Vulnerability is an immensely significant part of the human condition. It can inform us of to whom we are close (shared vulnerability). It also informs us of who has power (unrequited vulnerability - the one in power, of course, being the invulnerable party). I think a great deal of the reason we frame that vulnerability in that way is because it (however artifically) 'empowers' the audience.
One thing I love about this channel is how much of a jumping off point it is for me. I always come away with a huge list of reading materials and videos that I just have to go find. Thanks for always linking to more cool stuff.
(Writing this after a blue screen ÂŹÂŹ). Other thing that both have in common is the need to define a victim and a victimizer. I am a journalism student in Colombia, and when Popeye, the right hand of Pablo Escobar, did his time in jail and came free, mainstream media were all over him doing profiles and stuff. Most of my teachers were outraged about how media didn't included the victims' perspectives on the situation and aided in the comprehension of the stillgoing conflict, especially since some of the people that Escobar's men dissapeared are still not found (and they haven't been the only ones making peolpe dissapear), so their families and friends are also victims. I agree with my teachers when they say that a coverage mainly focused on the victimizers is the least helpful to help society come through tragedy.
"I'm so curious⌠and a little terrified" is the episode in a nutshell. Congratulations on the symmetry!
I think a good example for why cable news and even radio stations are inherently social is how when something is happening on the news that's really important to the city you live in, you may call them and tell them to watch the news. I think that this paradigm clearly illustrates the "strength in numbers" philosophy that you spoke about, and how integral it is to news as a whole.
A friend of mine wrote a paper based on the "Is Google Knowledge" video that caused quite a bit of discussion which we watched in class. In fact, I don't think a week goes by where we don't reference a new video in an argument or discussion. And we're from South Africa, so keep inspiring the world man.
Hi! Once a while back I used your video on Digital Natives. It was during my teaching practice - I am a student of the Teacher Training College, I'm going to be an English teacher... maybe XD anyways - you posted it just after we had textbook (=boring) class about technology and "digital native" was one of the terms the students (16-17years old) were learning.
I didn't have enough time to show them it twice (though I usually would, that helps them to understand) and I cautioned them that you speak REALLY fast (yes you do!) and asked to focus rather on what you are saying than on the funny pictures (oh, they loved them!). In the end, they managed to grasp the idea of your video (I asked them after viewing "what was it about") and they enjoyed it a lot, even though you speak really, really fast (faster than they are used to during lessons, but hey - life ain't all sunshine and rainbows XD )
I first found your channel two years ago BECAUSE we watched a couple of your videos in my high school philosophy class! I don't remember which video (because I then proceeded to binge watch ALL of them), but it was great :)
I think it's important to note that most horror movies have themes that give hope to the audience in the end, something that keeps you invested in the characters you're watching to keep the violence from feeling meaningless. News networks commonly pick stories that are relatable to their target demographic, or will follow up the stories involving real horror with something that's lighthearted despite whatever else they have to cover for that day (politics or mainstream media stories typically).
What makes the silent hills PT so effective for me was the initial setup -- a news broadcast coming from a nearby radio. The gruesome killings of two families by their respective fathers is more than unsettling. The fact that this information is audio only and not visual leaves much to the imagination and a perfect mental stimulation for the freakiness ahead.
I don't have my old Longman Reader on hand, so I'm going to try to do this from memory. I'm not sure about the connection between too, but I think Stephan King's perspective on horror in his essay "Why We Crave Horror" is especially relevant here. To over simplify a wonderful essay, King says, essentially, that one of the major reasons we enjoy Horror, and he speaks much of horror movies specifically, is because it satisfies an emotional need that, being more or less civilized, we suppress. King says that horror essentially lets us enjoy these things in a controlled manner to relieve the pressure of suppressing them. If King is right, then wouldn't, to some degree, seeing real horror from a place of safety serve even better to numb these emotions?
I'm not sure why but watching Mr.Mike get so excited about the Idea channel video in the classroom started to get me excited and curious too.
This reminds me of my Shakespeare class's discussion of Titus Andronicus. One thing we discussed in class was the idea that Andronicus and similar works are over the top to amplify the cathartic effect. And, of course, when people were originally seeing Andronicus, they had to see it socially because film adaptations weren't a thing in the late 1500s :P Part of the pleasure was also the understanding that the events of the play were almost entirely guaranteed not to happen to the audience and the feeling of the audience that goes along the lines of "At least it's not me". If we look at horror films similarly, that could be the mentality of modern day horror film viewers as well.
2:28 HOUSE OF LEAVES!!!! OH YEAH! One of my favorite books of all time.
Hey there, just thought I'd chime in and let you know that I use your videos to stoke discussion in the game design class I teach at a university (which I won't name here in the interest of protecting my students). I use your videos not to support a specific point but to help my students get vocal about the various game design related topics we discuss. I try to make sure I keep my class moving between the technical side of game design and the theoretical side. A light well phrased video like the ones you so masterfully host is a great way to deliver ideas to a room full of students struggling to stay awake at the end of their educational day.
I don't often comment on your videos as there is SOOOOOO much battle going on there and I tend to get drawn in, lol. Know that your videos are very useful, and I really appreciate your choice of topics and your support of all sides of an argument wherever possible.
Sometimes I watch some older episodes and, for those times, I would love if there was a link for the video where you discuss the feedback.
As a substitute teacher, idea channel, vsauce, and timeteam are often my go to plan if regular teachers don't leave a lesson plan for me. Because of this, many a middle school science class has seen your videos.
Dear Mike, you and all the good hard working people behind the scenes of Idea Channel do a fantastic job of providing thought provoking discussion material - this is exactly what educators should do, you should be proud that you've made it into probably more classrooms that you've imagined :) I hope you learn interesting things about how *our* (I figured since we're always engaged in conversation the ideas shown are not just yours, but ours) ideas are being used in the classroom.
Just wanted to say how much this episode helped out my project in school. Thanks buddy.
Hi Idea Channel, letting you know we watch your videos in class!
I recommended to my Contextual Studies teacher that we watch the IKEA video as part of our study of the IKEA experience and to use as a reference in our ethical essays this semester, and he actually decided to use it. It was pretty spooky.
(This was in Melbourne Australia, as part of a Graphic Design course)
The reason that we share and like to experience scary things with a group of people can be related to one of my favorite quotes from the book Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion. In it Cialdini writes "In general, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct" (129). This ties in nicely with the thousands of reasons why we experience both our favorite news outlets and Horror media. While we watch Horror Movies we're confronted with images and situations that the average person can't immediately explain in a succinct manner so we then look to the reactions of others to reach a sort of "group consensus" about what we're seeing. The same can be said about News programs, however the difference being that often we equate the people we're watching to fill that "everyman" persona and tell us how to act or react to the events that we're viewing.
Personally I believe News outlets use the macabre to reinforce the driving agenda behind their own organizations (example: Fox news talks about Republican stories, or twists stories in a conservative light). I don't think they talk about bad things just to increase viewership. Which brings me to the differences in motivation between Horror and News, Horror movies, I feel, don't force you to have a bias one way or the other. There isn't a horror movie about saving the rain forest, or voting (that I know of). I think Horror movies should step up it's game and create "Evil Avatar: Save the Planet... Or Else"
The true horror is that Mike seems to like David Cage 'movies'.
Daily reminder: Zack the Cat is the Origami Killer.
It is valuable to note that cable news has become concerned primarily with drawing in viewers. Similar to many horror films, much is left up to the imagination. I often feel like some news programs intentionally under-inform the public because a state of concern makes viewer continue watching.
Here's an idea: Organize your playlists so they play in chronological order. I enjoy the response segments at the end of shows, but I'm usually watching at work, and am just letting the playlist do its job to "play all." Therefore I hear the responses before I watch the video the responses are for.
I could manually reverse the order of the videos by clicking on them, but that defeats half the reason of a playlist (the other half being that they're conveniently grouped together for me. Thank you for that!)
It would take some effort on your part, but I can't imagine much.
I'm a TA for an Intro to Middle Eastern Studies class at BYU and the professor that I work for has been showing the "Is Community A Postmodern Masterpiece?" video for the past year to help introduce the students to the application of postmodernism to the critique of Orientalist thought. Most of the students have no background in postmodernism, so we use the video to give a brief and visual presentation to get them started. I also recommend to some of the students to just subscribe, because it took me plenty of different videos to further understand concepts such as tropes. I usually suggest the "Are Bronies Changing the Definition of Masculinity?" video to help them understand the questioning of meta-narratives such as gender.
I'm in college now, but I did tell someone to show the Fallacy video to my old English teacher because Fallacies were one of the topics we had discussed in class my senior year, and I thought you did a really good job explaining them (I may have learned more here than I did in class)
This idea is really bright: it brings great insights about social dynamics. Especially, about consumptions of information by social groups, including reasons, why people unite in groups to consume information. Fascinating.
Horror movies don't scare me, watching them by myself mostly just bores me, but watching others get scared, because "this seems like a good time for a jump scare, lets see the reaction" moments are the best. In my case this is not to laugh at my friend, or to hold the girl or guy you like a little tighter, but watching the desired reaction from the third person. This is like when rewatching a favourite episode/show with a friend on their first time and seeing them react to the known twists is the fun part!
I love watching horror movies with friends, but I watch horror movies all the time often by myself. In fact a different way that it becomes social is the sharing of horror DVDs. I was an officer in my college horror film club, and so, had a lot of friends who were horror junkies as well. So we were always borrowing and lending DVDs to each other and then fangirling about them together when we would watch them. So its not always about watching it together, but sharing the experience when we got something really cool.
Great video in so many ways,from the (paraphrasing here) opening "horror demonizes isolations and by sharing it,destroys it" and the explanation on fascination via the appeal to fear . Liked the link btw horror movies and news networks.
What got me is how Mike said consuming horror stories is very social. It makes me think about how it's typical for when your little to be afraid of monsters,killer robots and certain animals but the fear is less justified when your an adult. Instead adults have "adult fears" like losing their job,not living up to expectations of their families and losing loved ones--the latter I put there is something little kids clearly have as well.
Something could be said about horror and fear in the developmental process and how it changes as you grow up,what "stays" and why.
The comparison of horror and news here made something occur to me. That perhaps the source of the fascination is a need to "keep an eye on" things that are dangerous. It's horrifying to learn details about things like school shootings and virus outbreaks, but 24 hour coverage of something is better than knowing it is happening but being denied the details.
That's the difference. Horror teases you! It lets your imagination do all the work.
Horror has always been a massive part of storytelling. Sitting around the proverbial camp fire and telling cautionary tales helped to teach people about danger and consequence without needing to experience it first hand.
This tradition has in some ways carried on in different tangents through film and journalism - the lessons may be less explicit, but it's never too hard to find a perspective or agenda behind a film or news article.
An important tell as to what kind of message we're receiving from it is our response. We often respond to a horror film with a "Don't go in there!" or a "Behind you!", but despite the character doing something stupid, we want to learn the outcome. We want to see the consequence of their mistakes (mistakes we assure ourselves we'd never make in that situation..).
Journalism however, has much less immediate reactions, and arguably much more terrifying ones. Journalism tends to be an authority we believe - no matter how suspicious of the media we are, something will sink in. The response to journalism isn't necessarily a lesson learnt, but often an ideology adopted - or at least accepted.
On that note, Sean Hannity is scarier than any movie I have ever seen.. Just saying.
When we were descussing performative biographies in our Danish class (I'm from Denmark, and the class teaches on the subjects of Danish art, literature, films and media) I made a point related to your "Does Fiction Exist?" video and linked my class to it. I'm also going to recommend the fallacy video in my Rhetorics class when our teacher starts teaching argumentation. The videos are all relevant for a number of classes (and a bit more interesting than the normal curriculum)
Something else Carrol talks about is the idea of monstrosity in Horror. Something that is a hybrid between the recognisably human and the utterly alien. This could be seen in the more bleedy-leady news stories; it's presented as reality and is recognisable as such and yet shows types of event that are far far removed from what most people will have ever experienced first hand. Scary news is like a monster.
Horror movies are more realistic
I have never seen a horror movie that depicts anything resembling reality. The closest thing I've ever seen to a horror resembling reality would be Saving Private Ryan, in that it has hyper realistic depictions of war, and its psychological effects.
There are three primary elements to horror that are more or less complete opposites to what occurs in reality, and all of which are essential to the genre:
1) Characters/Psychology: All characters are one dimensional traits raised to be struck down by the killer. The Jock because he's meatheaded, pompous and stubborn; the cheerleader, because writers of these films never see any action, and see pretty woman as brainless; the token black guy, because someone has to die first; the hero who eventually comes out the victor in the end because 'murica. The virgin, who gets together with the hero (read: writer) because they're better than the cheerleader anyways etc etc. There has grown to be character archetypes in the genre, that grew so prevalent that the genre itself made fun of it (Jamie Kennedy's monologue in Scream) They all behave irrationally, and rather unintelligently. I mean, who would ever say "lets split up!" in that sort of situation?
2) Biology/Physics: There just isn't that much blood readily available in the human body. There just isn't. People who have been hit by both barrels worth of buckshot generally aren't able to get up and keep coming at you. Cars don't explode; not that easily at any rate. Hollywood. 'Nuf said.
3) Plot/Happenstance: I'm tired, and don't really want to go into this in depth, but how often do you think all the crazy random events, all the deus ex machina that occur in horror films actually transpire to create the circumstances the retarded teenagers find themselves in?
Many of my favorite horror films find ways to circumvent this, but ultimately aren't believable because they exist in fantasy worlds. Identity for example, the whole film taking place in a man's head. Silent Hill, Darkness Falls, or Bless the Child, because they all exist in a supernatural/preternatural reality, and so on.
Chris McCartney Hey, I get to try and reuse this now.
===The Joke
O
My bad. Inflection is lost in text only communication, and youtube comments are so flooded with utter retards who would post this, I assumed the worst.
I retract my statement! lol
Yeah. I don't actually think Horror films are more real than news. That would be dumb. Sorry for wasting your time making you write that essay
No joke. Before I graduated we would watch your videos in my Soc of Media class.... Which makes sense because that's pretty much your approach. The videos would always lead to good talking points.
I just watched The Cabin in the Woods before watching this episode..... so good timing you!
Oh geez, check out Charlie Brooker's "Newswipe". The show is almost entirely dedicated to showing how cable news outlets try to find narrative in anything they are able to report on, predominately "________ and why you should be afraid of it."
About experiencing something with an audience, what about horror games that demand you to be isolated in a dark room at night with headphones on? I mean, not everyone follows this rule but this isolation is definitely a vital part in the horror experience.
I'm studying Games Development taking a HND on the second year of the course, we watched your Night Vale video in our audio class as we are currently working on a Horror Video Game, although we're far past the planning stages we're always out looking for more research
In response to your asking if your videos are being used elsewhere, I'm part of a group that runs a weekly nerd night at a bar in Columbus, OH. With the recent League of Legends world championships and MLG opening an arena there, we focused on doing a night dedicated to esports. I used your video Can Video Games Become the next Great Spectator Sport in the showing. It went over well and I thank you for your work.
Idk how often you go back and read comments, but we talked briefly about your video on the relationship between surveillance and reality tv in class while reading Foucault's "Panopticism." The class was an introduction to postmodernism in the context of challenges to capitalism.
In the International Baccalaureate programme, one subject all students have to take is called Theory of Knowledge. It's a sort of intro-to-philosophy, where you learn about how we know what we know.
One segment of that includes formal reasoning, and how to construct arguments, and in particular, it covers a number of different fallacies.
I have no doubt that many, many ToK classes around the world will be showing your videos when they come to teach that area. Similar classes in other curriculae are probably the majority of classroom views of those videos, though it could concievably also be in Literature classes.
In Australia, one news channel takes the premise of using horror in news and goes wild with it. With advertisements saying stuff like "Indoor trampoline facilities. Harmless fun or BONE BREAKING FACTORIES?"
I'm a big watcher of movies, and like to get into the details about the production. Cinematography, pacing, ambiance and whatnot all fascinate me, and usually my enjoyment of horror movies comes from how well they work technically. From that perspective I can definitely see a connection between cable news and horror movies. Both successful horror movies and cable leaves a lot to the imagination. Often news crews wont have the best camera angle of a situation, you'll see a door or some cops standing around and suddenly start moving quickly, and your imagination runs away with what could be happening in the places you can't see, and the news commentator's narration gives you cues the same way horror tropes do and have you guessing and predicting what will happen next. Both cable news and horror leave the viewer with an imperfect idea of what's happening in similar ways.
I believe that the difference between horror movies and news networks is related to an argument that I always make : Being scared Vs Being shocked/surprised. The difference really is that horror movies supply not only the tried-and-true ''jump scare'' but also a supportive atmosphere to get the viewer into the mood. On the other hand, news networks provide only the 'big surprise' without any sort of build-up or suspense.
It's like when your sibling jumps out at you to scare you in your house : When they say ''Ha Ha, I scared you'', you're not actually properly scared, you were just surprised because you weren't expecting that. It is the same argument that I make with 'Five Nights at Freddy's'. Five nights at Freddy's is one of the few games that I would truly call a ''Horror'' game because it builds up an atmosphere as well as the jump scare if you fail: The constant threat of failure is always there, and the jump scare merely serves as a tool to deliver the fear with one final push.
On the other hand, 'Outlast' (keep in mind I haven't played either of these games) seems to rely entirely on the jump scares to ''frighten'' you. Really though, you are just being surprised by something you didn't expect. The fear dissipates a few minutes after the scare happens, similar to cable news stories: You don't lie in bed scared at night after seeing a story about Ebola or ISIS. However, I would call the feeling of fear from horror movies and atmospheric games like 'Five Nights at Freddy's' ''true horror'' because the feeling of fear stays with the viewer/player long after the experience is over.
Although, I don't really play horror games or watch horror movies, so I don't really know first hand.
I feel thoroughly spooked right now and I have no idea why...
oh wait... it's 4:30 am
Excellent video, professor.
This was really interesting, actually.
As a scaredy-cat who dislikes horror movies (and other horror media), yet draws great inspiration from it towards my own work, it's easy to understand it from an outside perspective: it's the information presented.
Just like how I don't watch horror movies or consume horror media in their "raw/original" state, but will easily then search for the entirety of the information by after-the-fact methods (wikis, articles, bios, etc...), I do the same with news sources: I generally avoid these incendiary/shock-value/reactionary news sources, be it on the web or on TV, because I understand that I WOULD be victim to the emotions they're pulling at, but they're not presenting the big picture, and not the entire story; there is no time for the information to stew, and for every piece to be properly analysed and be coherently put together to show the big picture. Just like I would rather read up on horror icon wikis, and enrich the information regarding them, but not having the desire to experience that information raw and unfiltered.
Just a little note on Fluff/Crunch. That terminology dates back to, good lord, the early D&D newsgroups of the 90s, and its a debate we've been having for oh so long without a clear answer.
i dont see the link for campster's video
PBS Idea Channel *cough, cough*
maybe this, but i am not sure: Errant Signal - Violence In Games
Fixed! :D Sorry about that.
PBS Idea Channel I still dont see it :(
PBS Idea Channel still not there
Spectacle slinging story mongers. You just made my night. :D
Your adventure time videos were in a yale splash last year about adventure time and philosophy about the time you put up your BMO episode.
I was so glad to see House of Leaves. One of my favorite books ever :D
According to how you've described it, my fascination with horror has been destroyed. I can confirm this myself. I do not want it, I do not like it, and I want it away from me at all times, regardless of the situation. I have no interest in even being scared with others. It is solely repulsive to me.
I think you can do a whole epsiode (or three) on how mainstream news has become less about news and more about the idea of news. It puts focus on what you should fear as a way to pull you in, but then just keeps you on the end of the seat. Most cases, this end of the seat is usually then fizzled out when the reports the news focused on turned out to be different (or for the better term, propaganda).
Interesting video! Now, I'm not the kind of person to enjoy horror movies, partly because I hate being scared and partly because I'm spiritual sensitive so watching horrors makes me feel "weird". What strikes me though from listening to my my horror-loving friends is the fact that horror movies seem to rely heavily on the super natural to create a sense of fear. Quite unrealistic settings. If feels like people forget that the scariest thing is other people.
There are a lot of ways to create suspense using other elements than supernatural, disease or serial killers. By simply using the human psyche. What if someone created a story where the protagonist seemed crazy? A disorder or a syndrome that makes them interact with the world in different way then usual. But the creator wouldn't let the audience KNOW the protagonist has this disorder or syndrome. Making the audience accept the protagonists reality and slowly unravelling it, making the audience question what's reality and what's hallucinations. Made the right way, that could be really, really creepy.
I suspect I speak for most of the internet when I say that I would kill to be in a shadowrun game run by Mike Rugnetta
In lieu of running a million participant shadowrun game, you should consider making a roleplaying podcast. Like Nerd Poker except better.
+1 for the subtle jab at Transformers movies. :D
This is exactly how I felt as Ebola was breaking out in Dallas and Spain. A weird sense of uneasy excitement over how it would end, very much like when watching a horror or disaster movie.
I loved that Dango Unchained commenter. great parody name.
Im very happy you included more then 1 david tennant gif
Where did the graph at 6:41 come from?
Also, where's that link about the person's video discussing shooting mechanics in games?
Horror movies and movies in general use a newscast within the context of the narrative as a way to heighten drama and inform the viewer along with the protagonists what is going on.
OMG I was just so excited to hear you play Shadowrun! It's my friend's and my favorite tabletop game!
I used to play shadowrun!!
I now have so many nerdy Pen and paper RPG qeustions to ask you when i get back to the office!
Where's the link for the video about shooting in video games that you mentioned in response to Josh Closs's comment?
I wonder if your idea about why people gather together to experience horror (having an anchor point to reality) might have some connections to why people gather together to experience comedy. Having someone to look over at, read each other's body language, and reach a consensus that, "Yes, this is unexpected and out of the norm--and terrifying," or, "Yes, this is unexpected and out of the norm--and hilarious," can really heighten the experience. I can't watch sitcoms by myself - every joke falls flat. But when I watch them with friends, everything gets a lot funnier.
I first learned about this channel by watching a math related Idea Channel video in my college calculus class!
I've never drawn a correlation between the two, but those are two forms of media (horror movies and news programs) that I refuse to consume, and now that I think of it, for similar reasons.
You just became that much more awesome because you're running a Shadowrun game! I'd love to play in one with you; it's my favorite setting.
So are Horror addicts and Cable News addicts the same sort of media but with the news not having a stigma against it. cause my Grandma is a HUGE Cable News addict. she talks about the latest scandals and horrible calamities whenever I stop at her house. Now I would never see her watching a Horror movie, but watching the news allows you to sort of have a badge that says "I am aware of the worlds problems and am therefore an educated and, with it, person" kinda like watching a scary movie gives you a gold star that says "yeah you're tough even enjoyed it a little and so what if you screamed a little you made it."
So when you watch the news it's giving the; you made it sticker to all of humanity. some died, might of lost your way a couple of times, have a few cuts and bruises, but we made it.
Oh my goodness, House of Leaves flashed up on the screen for an instant. Since you brought it up, IdeaChannel, please, please do an episode on House of Leaves. I don't care what it's about anymore; I've been waiting for a House of Leaves episode for quite some time. In the past, I thought you could do an episode on the audience's role in certain media, the nature of meta-narrative, or the relevancy of literary criticism, but I've waited too long to be picky. Please do a House of Leaves episode, and make it about whatever you want.
I watched The descend alone... ^-^ *so proud*
I'm a bit curious,..... and terrified too.
XD
this video = the best birthday present :D
I never thought about that. I remember almost seeing a horror movie in a theater on my own, but I just couldn't
Strangely enough this episode convinced me to watch more news. When Mike mentioned how cable news networks tend to congregate along party lines it made me realize why the news is troublesome for me. It isn't that it's fearmongering, showboaty nonsense a lot of the time, though it is, it's that it's not the fearmongering, showboaty nonsense of a group that I self identify with. I happily read news with a similar kind fear mongering editing bias if it's in a group that I identify with, like gamers. In fact I feel that the fear mongering is useful to some extent. It's the negative things that require the focus of the group to eliminate.
Watching this, I realized why I had been putting off watching so many scary movies and TV shows. Since no one I know also wants to see them, I'd be watching them alone which is fine for a comedy but not ideal for horror.
This made me think about Twitter and people who live tweet. A while back I saw someone live tweeting their experience on a plane that was having an ebola scare. Like an audience member of a horror movie finding comfort in a more stoic person's lack of fear, they too could feel better by connecting themselves to the world outside of the plane where I'd guess most people were terrified.
(I'm guessing the Tweeter's unconscious motives here, so who knows how accurate I am.)
i have comment once on a video and you SIR made me to commant again.
This "Chrismas-Deco-Halloween" joke cracked me up XD
I had to watch this for my film studies class in relation to Nightcrawler, and honestly I kind of understand the movie a bit better because of this video.
I think that the facination with horror is caused by the lust for stimulating certain fealings without any risk or harm to self.
Where is the link to that Campster Video you were talking about toward the end?
I sent the link of the fallacies video to my philosophy teacher, he then went and showed it to my class. Mind you this isn't the first time I've sent an idea channel video to him and he has shown it
You guys should talk in detail about an idea the vlogbrothers have talked about, the comparative values, and relationship between of the number of people who like something, and how passionate those people are about that thing. Ex. Avengers, (pop) vs. Sherlock (pass). Cat videos, (pop) vs. Idea Channel (pass). KFC (pop) vs. Franklin's Barbecue (pass).
It's a really interesting relationship and the lines are often blurred. I think it's a really important question for creators to ask and it would be an awesome idea to explore.
even on the movies the news are used to build the tension, like on zombie movies y pretty much a rule havin a reporter or on "Sings" one (if not the most) of the scaring scenes is when on the news they show a clip from the birthday party. i say the most terrifying thing is that they implied that those thing could happend to you. that a zombie outbreak , an alien invasion, a corpse founded with strange wounds on your town builds mystery of whats going to happend, and more important. if something is going to happend to YOU. like a good novel you can't stop reading cause "you just need to know what is going to happend".
One of the biggest problems I have with 24 hour news channels is how much is missed. I think a TV network could fill 24 hours with international and national news that is informative, interesting, thoughtful and engaging but don't. Lots of events are not covered, or given minimal coverage, because it wasn't sensational or happened in a place the producer/ program director thinks Americans don't care about.
Nice Community reference :D
I always knew there was a connection between my dislike of horror movies and my dislike of the cable news. I would love to get news that isn't specifically designed to scare the crap out of me....
This video is a part of my english class assignment and I must say, Iâm loving only this kind of homework
what was the video by by campster mentioned in the comment @ 7:30 ? i couldn't find it in the link-dump
Yeah I'd like to watch it too.