Should Real Deaths be on Youtube?

[Satchmo Distel]

On the music forum, there has been a side discussion about the deaths of Tommy Cooper and Vic Morrow (plus two kids he was holding) being on YouTube as if they were normal entertainment. While I realize we can't just pretend the footage does not exist, I think some kind of warning should be at the beginning of the clips. It might not stop me being tempted to sit through the utter grimness and desolation, as some kind of self-punishment ritual, but at least it gives me a few seconds to reflect on why I will keep watching and what that says about my masochism.

Plus, you know, the victims have surviving relatives and it's hugely distressing to them to know that people are grabbing popcorn and browsing this material on a mainstream platform.

[biggytitbo]

I don't think we should post clips like that on here at all. If theyre on YouTube people can find them themselves if thats their thing.

[gilbertharding]

Running the risk that this turns into a list thread, there's some awful film of 70s/80s Formula 1 on youtube I watched once for some reason I can't fully explain.

I don't think it did me any harm - perhaps I could even take the shocked feeling it gave me as a good sign, personally. But then I'm an adult, fairly well adjusted, and not related or especially connected to the people who are the subjects of the video.

So yeah probably oughtn't to be on youtube - but it's not the 'voyeuristic' thing I have a problem with - although I acknowledge there are some sick people out there - it's the loss of dignity of the victims and the people who actually knew them that's the problem.

[jobotic]

Yeah, I didn't watch the Moto GP race in which Simoncelli died for some reason but against my better judgement I watched the crash on youtube and then felt a bit sickened by myself. Why did I need to watch that? It's still there.

I was watching the race when Senna crashed so I saw it through no fault of my own but I actively looked for this one.

I don't know. Footage from war or events like 9/11 are one thing, and watching individual deaths another. What is there to be learned from watching someone die on a film set? And yes if someone close to me was killed it would sicken me that there were people watching it purely for entertainment. 

[BlodwynPig]

Would yoube happy if your own death was broadcast for the world to

[gilbertharding]

I don't know. Footage from war or events like 9/11 are one thing, and watching individual deaths another.

I was thinking about footage from war (etc) too. Would The World at War have the impact it did, if it didn't have the lingering black and white focus on corpses a couple of times every episode, while Lawrence Olivier intones over the top of it, pausing for impact?

The assassination of Nguyễn Văn Lém is a powerful image which can still shock, although the incorporation of the footage into the Monkees film Head was ill advised. I can see what they were trying to do, but it doesn't work - flies right over your head.

9/11 documentaries: I basically can't watch Channel 4 or 5 for the second week of September every year. I wasn't there, man - but I remember it too well the first time around. Would rather forget.

By the way, I think I told cookdandbombd ages ago about the time I was taken on a tour of Police HQ when I was a teenager... fucking hell.

[Wet Blanket]

I wouldn't in a million years watch that one-man two-hammers video or one of those Isis beheadings but for some reason I'm okay with freak accidents and celebrity deaths and have clicked on those videos out of morbid curiosity.   

Worse than blood and guts, the most disturbing thing I think I've seen online is that photo of a teenage girl in a barn, arms outstretched in fear, apparently a few minutes before she got murdered, which someone posted on here as a joke.

[biggytitbo]

Would yoube happy if your own death was broadcast for the world to

Wise words from Yoda as always.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I think things like Tommy Cooper and stuff that was televised to the nation are a bit different to brutal beheadings and snuff videos. They're already public domain anyway and of some historical significance (in the Cooper instance in the fact everyone thought it was a joke). No problem with warnings and that.

[Salty_fries]

Some of those those 'You've Been Framed'-style compilations up on YouTube are full of clips where people apparently ended up dying, but it cuts before you see it. (The famous Vine of the girl falling over the banister comes to mind.)

Even the thought of an off-screen death makes me squeamish. How anyone could feel entertained by snuff videos is beyond me...

[thenoise]

I think it's ok so long as they don't show naked breasts.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

That Tommy Cooper one is a pretty hard watch. You can tell he's in trouble right from the off because of his grey pallor.

[BlodwynPig]

I think things like Tommy Cooper and stuff that was televised to the nation are a bit different to brutal beheadings and snuff videos. They're already public domain anyway and of some historical significance (in the Cooper instance in the fact everyone thought it was a joke). No problem with warnings and that.

The death rattle and pallor are brutal enough

[Alberon]

I've seen a few over the years and I always berate myself after for looking them up. The Vic Morrow one is bad because you know who died but you don't see much. The death of Tommy Cooper and the suicide of American politician R. Budd Dwyer, who shot himself in front of reporters, is far grimmer. Another one I stupidly looked up was of a traffic reporter whose helicopter crashed lived on air. You don't see anything just hear her screaming as the helicopter goes down.

There have been three racing deaths in F1 since I started watching it and with the two that happened in the main race I knew each time it was very serious. I remember with Senna the BBC fairly quickly cut to a long shot, while RTL (a German Channel I could get on satellite) stayed closer to the crashed car.

What's somehow worse than seeking these videos out is when you stumble over one without warning. Just the other day I was watching a video of crane, ship and car accidents and they generally stick with ones where no one gets, obviously, seriously hurt. Then one popped up where a car raised on a lift above head height fell off and onto several mechanics. What's even worse is that I've no idea how badly they were hurt.

[Flatulent Fox]

Nope.
          Unless it's the death of 'YT celebrity' cnuts being thrown into the deep expanse and icy waters of the artic ocean.Big viewing figures they can monetize for the last time.
Could catch on like that popular and down right outrageous ice water in a bucket challenge,but with a jolly twist!


I think some of the popular channels with the younger generation are currently:

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Funny pranks gone wrong:12 years in jail
Give me stuff,and I'll film it.Thanks!
Arthurs allotment*
We bought a ....
My opinion is important,hit the subscribe button for more

*Gone too mainstream

[thenoise]

Compilation of funny pictures from google, in a generic slideshow video with some obnoxious music over the top, many of which are illegible or move on too slowly/quickly to read properly, are terrible resolution, or barely fit int the category stated in the flick air video title. Don't forget to like and subscribe!!1

[batwings]

Gervais at the concert for Diana. RIP.

[Twed]

It's important to document this stuff to see what really happens in parts of the world we don't understand. Everybody should watch this, at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT31ZBcb_kg

[Better Midlands]

Logan Paul leaves chat

[Better Midlands]

Bird Box on Netflix used stock footage of a 2013 train crash in Canada which killed 47 people

www.thisisinsider.com/netflix-used-lac-megantic-disaster-images-in-bird-box-canadians-outraged-2019-1

[Alberon]

Bird Box on Netflix used stock footage of a 2013 train crash in Canada which killed 47 people

www.thisisinsider.com/netflix-used-lac-megantic-disaster-images-in-bird-box-canadians-outraged-2019-1

Brass Eye used footage from mission control when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up killing seven astronauts. Never liked that to be honest.

[Buelligan]

Quick. Quick, they got Jacob Rees Mogg on.

[Flatulent Fox]

Quick. Quick, they got Jacob Rees Mogg on.

Hurrah for Mogg!

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Budd Dwyer's last two minutes, before shooting himself in the press conference, are utterly gripping.

[Mister Six]

By the way, I think I told cookdandbombd ages ago about the time I was taken on a tour of Police HQ when I was a teenager... fucking hell.

Footage of Sting's cock?

[Mister Six]

The death of Tommy Cooper and the suicide of American politician R. Budd Dwyer, who shot himself in front of reporters, is far grimmer.

I watched the Dwyer one out of morbid curiosity when I was at uni and had access to internet speeds above 28.8k for the first time, and pretty much immediately got my comeuppance. That lingering shot of blood (and I assume brains) pouring out of his nose after he slumps back against the wall shook me for a good long while.

Incredibly, the whole thing was played repeatedly on US news for weeks after it first aired, in all its bloody horror, until people started complaining.

Have generally avoided that kind of thing since, although I remember being shown a video of about 10 Arab blokes leaning out the windows of a car that's belting it down a desert highway and suddenly overturns, flinging everyone out of it. The camera is some distance away, but at least one bloke does appear to be sheared in half, his torso sent flying from the wreckage.

Anyway, I'm unsure about whether the footage should be on YouTube, especially if it originally aired live. They're historical documents, so they have some intrinsic value, but perhaps that means they shouldn't be shorn of their context and slapped up on YouTube for people to gawp at. But then, what? A website dedicated to that kind of thing, putting in its historical context, like a highbrow Rotten.com?

[biggytitbo]

What about Piers Morgan getting mauled to death by a feral chimp? Would you watch that?

[BlodwynPig]

What about Piers Morgan getting mauled to death by a feral chimp? Would you watch that?

As long as the chimp gets its own chat show

[idunnosomename]

See I just watched the Dwyer one for the first time (but I knew about it of course) and it's not the blood rushing out of the exit wounds that bothers me. That's just a cadaver that he almost instantly changes into. It's seeing a human just about to destroy themselves that's most disturbing. Waving around the gun. Ugh.

But these are powerful things to see and I think that completely censoring them just denies reality.

[Beagle 2]

I did my time as a young idiot watching gruesome stuff on the internet, not beheadings and all that shite but gruesome accidents, Bud Dwyer etc. Usually very late at night when I was looking for something or other to distract me from my own mortality. It's never affected me at all to be honest, I was always struck by how unspectacular the dull thud of a life turning to heavy water and fat in an instant is, and how emotionless I am about it all. The human body looks more absurd than anything to me once it's carked. I've seen a death in real life and it was a great relief to me at the time, being a relative. Even underneath all the despair it was an interesting thing to witness. I think humans should be more willing to confront that stuff really, as it happens, every day - not naughty internet gore.

It's not something you should watch too often though, eh.