EXACTLY at the beginning of the 21st century - year 2000 - comes a website that would become a go-to for adventurous teens and people with fetishes on violence.
This was in a time, from the 90s and early 2000s, when the Internet was relatively new for public consumption. Back when contents were not yet moderated, and even governments did not mind yet banning websites that show obscenities.
Other than pornography (even underage ones) contents on uncensored violence erupted the web space. At the height of the Taliban terror threat, photos and videos of beheadings were easier to watch than how the IS are doing it now.
For those who are into ghost stories, there was SFOGS, or the Singapore's First Online Ghost Stories, and while those who take the risk of watching real deaths, it was Ogrish.
Even before social media, these websites have created huge following and cult groups.
Eventually, it didn't stop migrating to social media.
The excess use of social media also drive users to produce more contents, to the point that groups and subcultures were created to cater different needs.
However, the problem is when these shared contents from private groups are exposed to public and eventually shared, causing a ripple of demands for views.
"Please send links."
Recently, a gory video of actual murder was shared in social media. It revived the horror and trauma from the videos seen in Ogrish website.
What's more harrowing was that many were asking for the full video for the killing of two women.
Seeing these videos unexpectedly can already cause distress and trauma; seeking (and also sharing) to watch these kinds of videos are somehow bordering between gratifying one's self on violence and mental disorder, worse, participating in the actual murder of people.
And this is why we ask: is it innate in us to look at killings like a form of entertainment like the time of the Greek Empire with their gladiators who fought to the death inside the Colosseum?
Likely than not, our own ancestral history somehow recorded tribal wars and inter-family feud which involves killings and decapitations.
And yet, we are supposed to be a society of "cultured" men and women. And then maybe, we remain to be feral in our deepest humanity.