The unexpected resurgence of gore on youtube
This was originally written for my website's blog a year or two ago, but somehow this topic is, ONCE AGAIN, relevant today! It's split in 2 parts, the first part is what you'll find on my former blog and the second part is an updated version.
Youtube is a strange place sometimes.
In 2022, there was a resurgence of gory horror content with new animations and even sloptubers reacting to them. It started with Little Deadly Thing's animation series in 2018~2021 which originated from newgrounds (that's not surprising on its own), then a fanmade clone with a similar artstyle and a maid mouse called Terrible Mouse was made in 2024 by Gutian. Despite both being taboo (what folks used to call stuff before "problematic" became overused) due to rumors that the dudes making them have a gore fetish, (thing I'll never understand btw) they are pretty fun to watch.
I do have a morbid fascination that's why medias like Saw that are overly gruesome are somewhat more interesting than regular games with lots of violence (like Doom, the one and only), but other than that I don't get dopamine out og gory content, only adrenaline, hey I may be a pervert degenerate toonophile, but come on now I really don't understand why would anyone find gore sexually titilating. I guess to some folks it makes no difference because fascination or sexual perversion leads to the same fixation I reckon transformation is the best example where you got many who are into it not sexually, but because they have a fascination for it. Anyway all of that just to say that if you actually unironically got a sexual gore fetish, you should probably speak to a therapist because imo that's messed up.
Now that may be an ironic thing to say coming from a bdsm, diaperfur, body horror and milking afficionado and enthusiast, but I like to think these are harmless weirdo fun while gore is horrible when brought irl and there are gore websites that show irl gore. I mean by this point I have a place to judge on my own blog, especially because it's not very harshly. I have the same ick for suicide fetishes, yes that exists and solarsands made a video about that on youtube!
Anyway, I've got a nice tip if you plan on watching either animation, go into with the premise in mind that the respective show's protagonist (or antagonist if you wanna think this way) who causes all the harm in the world has plot armor and will not die nor see any kind of retribution possibly ever.
That's the bulk of the most interesting stuff I wanted to talk about, there are also analog horror videos which are, I dunno exactly it's kinda like how "liminal horror" really don't mean anything. However, I reckon that "analog horror" as we've seen on youtube is uncanny valley creatures or scp-like anomalies targeting people or other living things. I don't care that much about it, but it's interesting nonetheless.
There are the "infection alternative universes" that have propagated no pun intended from a my little pony animation, the first of its kind aka patient zero. Creepy unknowable illnesses aren't exactly something new in horror fiction, but it's the first time folks got creative with it on youtube.
All that makes me nostalgic, this reminds me of good old smile.mov. That animation where Pinkie Pie beats the other ponies to death. This reminds me of Happy Tree Friends which was a violent parody of cartoon shows for kids long before learn with Pibby was a thing. This reminds me of early indie horror games like Corpse Party. This reminds of UGGH Sonic.exe by a fellow furry who got outed for being a pedophile.
How about today?
I got reminded of this topic once again thanks to uhyeah who made a video about Gubby ai gore. Gubby is a rabbit roblox thing I couldn't care less about.
There are also those Friday Night Funkin' mods I forgot to talk about in my original post, but the gist of it is that fnf modders for some reason are super fascinated by gore and horror, so you have a mod for every single horror project ever made. My favorite of the lot is Jeffy's Infinite irida, the song hits really hard when the lyrics pop right in.With all that being said, I recently learned of a brand new word yippee! Some internet weirdos who are obsessed with children have started using "early gore introduction" to describe this sort of content on youtube. I've seen it in passing on the transphobic stalking green bird site's brony thread and on a similar albeit different gossip forum, but it's picking up steam everywhere.
The thing I don't understand is that early porn introduction (what this neologism is a derivative of) is bad because there are studies that show how it affects children and usually groomers expose children to porn and make them addicted to it to get them closer so they [the pedophiles] can meet up with the kids. It's a well-known grooming tactic. Now take gore or "early gore introduction", what the hell does that do? What can groomers even do by subjecting it to kids? Literally all kids want to touch that taboo, that's why creppypastas like Sonic.exe and all those other gore series on youtube were so popular even if some were genuinely shit. I mentioned Saw earlier and I saw it before I was an adult, this didn't leave any scars. Hell the recent backrooms movie that is based on something POPULAR among children has allegedly gore in it. For crying out loud, what are you all smoking?!
Watch out for the slippery slope fallacy because at this rate you'll get called a predator for simply posting violent content to youtube just like folks have taken a liking to call cartoon tropes fetishistic or freaky and label furries predators. Again I know some people have a gore fetish, but if you enjoy Saw that one torture gore movie, by their logic you are a degenerate.
I'll say this though, despite everything I said, I don't think it's exactly eye candy that should be shared with everybody because that can be traumatizing to some. If you deliberately send gore (especially irl gore of dead animals or people) via discord, whatsapp or snapchat to kids, let alone anyone of any age, you are a huge fucking douchebag, but I know the folks who do that sort of thing are almost exclusively incels from 4chan, so these aforementioned douchebags are pretty rare.