Global InformationShock site information
A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive or disturbing to its viewers, though it can also contain elements of humor[1] or evoke (in some viewers) sexual arousal.[2] Shock-oriented websites generally contain material that is pornographic, scatological, racist, antisemitic, sexist, graphically violent, insulting, vulgar, profane, or otherwise some other provocative nature. Websites that are primarily fixated on real death and graphic violence are particularly referred to as gore sites.[3] Some shock sites display a single picture, animation, video clip or small gallery, and are circulated via email or disguised in posts to discussion sites as a prank. Steven Jones distinguishes these sites from those that collect galleries where users search for shocking content, such as Rotten.com.[4] Gallery sites can contain beheadings, execution, electrocution, suicide, murder, stoning, torching, police brutality, hangings, terrorism, cartel violence, drowning, vehicular accidents, war victims, rape, necrophilia, genital mutilation and other sexual crimes.[2]
Some shock sites have also gained their own subcultures and have become internet memes on their own. Goatse.cx featured a page devoted to fan-submitted artwork and tributes to the site's hello.jpg, and a parody of the image was unwittingly shown by a BBC newscast as an alternative for the then-recently unveiled logo for the 2012 Summer Olympics. A 2007 shock video known as 2 Girls 1 Cup also quickly became an Internet phenomenon, with videos of reactions, homages, and parodies widely posted on video sharing sites such as YouTube.
- ^ Attwood, Feona (November 2014). "Immersion: 'extreme' texts, animated bodies and the media". Media, Culture & Society. 36 (8): 1186–1195. doi:10.1177/0163443714544858. ISSN 0163-4437. S2CID 144857991.
- ^ a b Farmand, Musa K. Jr. (November 2016). "Who Watches this Stuff?: Videos Depicting Actual Murder and the Need for a Federal Criminal Murder-Video Statute" (PDF). Florida Law Review. 68: 1915–1941. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-11-18.
- ^ "Snuff: Murder and torture on the internet, and the people who watch it". 13 June 2012.
- ^ Jones, Steven (2010). "Horrorporn/Pornhorror". In Attwood, Feona (ed.). Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography. Peter Lang. p. 124. ISBN 9781433102073.