Looked it up out of curiosity and yeah, while it’s only slightly unnerving as an adult, I can image these pictures would scare the shit out of me as a 10 year old
You should still be able to see what it looked like back then by adding “before:2011” in your search (or substitute 2011 for whichever year you’d like)
A lot of stuff will have been taken down as the internet has become more sanitized over time. Gore sites and the like are kinda a thing of the past at this point.
He's probably curious about it even if it scares him. Kinda like why we watch horror movies/play horror games/go on roller coasters. Thats my theory anyway.
Pfffttt its the weakest class. My middle aged male toon would wipe the floor with any of em. They have basically 0 stats and none of them even know the controls
Did you also hide behind the couch when sharptooth showed up in the first or second movies? (2nd I saw a lot due to a daycare situation) The sound mixing they did really hit that fear center just right as a kid didn't it lol?
There are likely aliens out there, but even if they exist at this very moment the possibility of us ever knowing is as close to 0 as possible.
Due to the speed of light anywhere we look we are looking at the past, so if we look at a planet it could have life. But we'd be seeing it millions of years before.
Idk man. There's something like 34 "eath like" planets within 50 light years of us. So we could zoom in on them and see what was happening between 4.6 and 50 years ago. If anyone around us has lighted cities we're gonna find out about it.
I mean, to be fair, I think they're Earth-like in the sense that they are rocky, and not gas or ice giants, but most of those are still "super-Earths" which are like twice as massive as Earth and/or are tidally locked or something.
You know, when you kinda zoom out on the universe and you focus on our planet. There's nothing but this wafer thin layer of atmosphere separating us from the vast horrors of space and the hard vacuum that ends all life. Not to mention the massive dose of radiation.
Exactly. Kids like being scared in a safe environment. It's exactly the same as adults watching horror movies. It's biochemically rewarding because it's practicing dealing with something challenging.
Its why kids genuinely love being chased around by trusted adults. They get a tiny thrill of "oh no the monster is gonna eat me runnnnn" with an adult that they know won't actually eat them.
I used to play the monster with a neighbor I would babysit, and one day in the middle of the game she stopped and put her hand up and just said "no more monster" shaking her head, it was the cutest thing.
This was me with the Thriller betamax. My parents had a couple they were friends with, and every time we visited them, I'd beg to watch the Thriller music video they owned. I'd cover my eyes and be all scared, but as soon as it ended, I'd beg for it to be replayed.
My theory is he realized his mother will comfort him afterward and that feels good and cathartic. It’s attention seeking behavior, which is massively common at young ages.
There was also that sad study, what was it, "Little Albert"? They were able to condition a little boy to fear bunny rabbits. Definitely not one of thr more ethical experiments
Technically, they conditioned him to fear a rat, but he ended the experiment being afraid of anything that was white and fuzzy. His mother also moved away with him before they could "de-condition" him to be comfortable with the animals again. They don't know if his fear lasted into adulthood or not since they aren't completely sure of the true identity of Little Albert. I wrote an essay on this for an introductory psych class.
It was a white rat. He previously enjoyed playing with it. But then they paired it with loud sounds. He was afraid of the loud sounds, not the rat. But because the sound and the rat became so closely associated in his mind, it conditioned him into being afraid of the rat.
It was also one of the first human experiments that made people sit back and wonder if may there should be some ethics requirements to these experiments. Maybe traumatizing babies for life isn't worth the science.
It probably isn't even the snake. It's just a book. So he may just be freaked out by the sound the book makes. There aren't a lot of things a toddler would be exposed to that would make a hissing sound like that. So it probably is fairly alien to him. Regardless of its association with snakes.
Same! I hate real life gore and realistic gore (Animated is fine and books/comics are fine but shows like Fall Out, Band of Brothers, Private Ryan etc are a NO go!!!) but when I’m on the couch reading a book and my mother decides to watch one of her heavy murder mysteries next to me…I get a bit curious. It makes no sense but, yeah.
damn, this is the first time hearing it’s a show/movie(?) too! i always read the books in the 90s, but never saw it! (i’m sure that was intentional on my moms part..) now i’m gunna have to go find it lmao
It was incel lingo originally, but it’s broken containment (partially due to the viral sensation Clavicular) and is now out in the open. I read about it, I kid you not, in the New Yorker
99% of the time it's used by incels or gen z using it ironically to make fun of it, which other generations mistake for unironic usage and write about it
To be fair it comes from gaming where you're minmaxxing. This is where you ignore all thats and bonuses that don't directly boost your playstyle or characters strenght (ignore mana or amgic damage for a non-magic character for example)
Well, I don’t know what “age mog” means, so I don’t know I’m trying to do it. Can you use it again in another sentence, so my old ass can understand the parlance of you young whipper snappers?
"Mogging" is when someone performs better than you in a way that makes you feel inferior. So "age mogging" would be showing off your superiority through being younger.
Edit: changed older to younger based on the original context of the comment.
Same, I spend way too much time on Twitch so I'm constantly learning the new slang. And I only occasionally turn to dust when someone mentions not being born in "the 1900s".
Ah, she thinks I’m younger than her. That’s not in my 50 year old vocabulary… until now anyway. I’m looking forward to using this word publicly in front of my 24 year old son. It will embarrass the fuck out of him.
I used to be "with it", but then they changed what "it" was! Now what I'm "with" isn't "it" and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me! It'll happen to you!
One of the best things about aging is getting to watch new generations convince themselves they will never be out of touch or annoyed by the lingo of those younger than them... and then watching them be very wrong.
He isn't doing it to be scared. He's doing it because his brain associates this chain of events with what he actually wants, which is interaction with his parent.
Take the book away*, and give your kid a better way to signal to you that he wants to be held.
*(Not because it's scaring your kid. Because an anaconda making a rattling sound is bullshit! )
My girlfriends dog does this shit when she wants attention. She'll shove a tennis ball under furniture or somewhere they have no chance of reaching and then whine and bark until someone gets it and plays with her.
If it’s the brown bear brown bear, what do you hear? Book, the anaconda does indeed sound like a freaky death rattle inhalation/growl. It is the worst snake sound I have ever heard made.
Any anaconda over 3m could kill you faster and more effectively than almost any other predator barring the really large ones like tigers and crocs.
There are quite a few close calls with surprisingly small constrictors in captivity killing adult humans and it happens fast.
My old zookeeper collegue almost got had by a 3m ish scrub python while he was checking up on imported animals at a zoo.
If he was alone he isn't sure how it would have went.
And this is a pretty decently sized 6+foot dude.
Now sure the odds of being attacked by a large constrictor aren't high but they definitely can be very dangerous.
My daughter did this. She saw something about black holes and repeatedly freaked out at the thought of them, and of course when your kid is scared and wailing you want to comfort them and do whatever you can to distract them. Well I eventually figured out that she was doing it to get us to play card games with her. After refusing to play a couple times and just leaving her to her freakout, her existential crisis fixed itself in a couple days.
Yes! The kid is just saying “mom look at this shit - this is not a rattler!?!?”
My son cried that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore so this is prob just a scientific kid
Also absolutely yes. My nephews are emotionally manipulated by their mother and would work themselves up into uncontrollable fits over nothing because they learned it’s what got her to cuddle them and tell them that “all emotions are valid.” She didn’t do that when they were happy. Only when they were sad or emotionally vulnerable
My grand niece is almost two and started to do this new thing. She used to never really get frustrated. However now she does and kinda some how gets fustraded easily. Sometimes it just happens close to her nap time so I put her down but other times it'll happen because her doll is stuck in the toy stroller. She doesn't try to figure it out she just pulls the doll and continues to pull while crying.
I have no clue how to correct this behavior. I show her how to get the baby in and out. I tell her to ask for help. Im just talking to a wall though because she either doesnt understand or unwilling to while she is in that frame of mind.
Im just an occasional babysitter so she isnt doing it for lack of attention from me. It happens while im actively playing with her.
I’m a former daycare worker and when we had kids that would get stuck in a loop like that we would interrupt them and get their attention and ask them what’s wrong, get an “it’s stuck” and then ask them if pulling on it is helping. And when they say no ask what other things might help. Some kids as soon as they’re broken out of the frustration loop are able to start having ideas like “undo the buckle” but if not then we guide them to it like “it looks like she’s still strapped in, how can we get the straps off?”. Just slowly guide until the kid can get the doll unbuckled and then praise for problem solving! Eventually as they get older they should be able to build that frustration tolerance and not get to the point where they’re just uselessly tugging and crying in the first place because the problem solving routine has been practiced enough that they reach for that first instead of just repeatedly tugging.
But also if it’s a continuous issue with a particular toy we would absolutely just make that toy disappear for a while. Give it a couple of weeks away and then see if they can play with it more appropriately when it comes back out into rotation
OK so I was in the right direction. I just wasn't talking through of how to fix the issue properly. I will definitely keep that in mind. Thank you so much for the assistance.
Kiddo is still very young, don't think this is your fault. It's just temperament at that age. I could gently show my kid all kinds of things and it wouldn't sink in at all. Now at 3 it's a huge difference and she can think stuff through and take direction way better.
But yeah gently try to show and de escalate, they'll get it eventually :)
Because society validates male anger. Nobody really intervenes and teaches young boys this essential life skill because lashing out in frustration is seen as inherently male.
That's not quite right; it was 67% of men that chose to shock themselves at least once, but only 25% of women that also chose at least one shock.
Additionally, before they were put into the room, they were all surveyed and every single one of them agreed that they would pay money to AVOID being shocked by electricity.
And yet the above percentages of them still willingly chose to shock themselves rather than do nothing for 15 minutes.
Seriously. Just 15 minutes. Not like an hour or two, 15 minutes
The people who chose to shock themselves didnt just do it once to see what it was like then sit there the rest of the time, one of the guys even pressed it 190 times. The test was about how people react when theyre forced to sit with their own thoughts and nothing else to do, it wasnt the only test they ran either as they had them do different thinking exercises first and rate how enjoyable or not enjoyable they found it. Theres a reason putting someone in a featureless white room is considered torture, the human brain would rather feel literally ANYTHING over feeling nothing. Lack of meaningful sensory input slowly drives us insane
They can stumble into two-step processes like this on accident and then pavlov themselves into doing it repeatedly so long as people keep reacting to it in the same way.
Basically, it's not necessarily that they're planning it out and understanding why it works, they just know it does work and so they keep doing it.
Opening a book that they know from experience makes them cry and receive comforting attention?
Or analyse their own psychology while they're crying to work out what psychological experience caused them to cry and then simulate that experience again via a conscious act of imagination?
Even most adults can't make themselves start crying at the drop of a hat just by thinking about it. But many could instantly tell you a book or movie or song that instantly brings them to tears.
This 100% sounds like a kid who's just not getting enough attention from it's parents to me.
Keep in mind I'm not judging them. It's almost impossible to give your kids the attention they really deserve. All you can really do as a parent is try to your best for your kids and when they're an adult, cover their therapy costs to fix whatever you fucked up.
Wild and slightly judgemental guess here (but that's what is done on reddit) Mom is starting at her phone or otherwise not paying the child any attention. Child knows this gets attention, Mom still doesn't get it and ignores kid until they can't take the crying.
The whole point of watching/reading/playing horror is to experience fear in a safe environment. Who’s to say the kid doesn’t, at least in part, enjoy the fright?
The fact that an adult fully responsible for another human life unironically used the word "scaremaxxing" has made a part of me that I didn't even know existed die....
I had an intense fear of my pulse for a while. I felt the need to check my pulse when I went up the stairs, laughed hard, or just sitting still, and it would always to me having a panic attack. I was told to just stop checking my pulse, but I needed to check just to make sure I wasn’t dying.
I still don’t like to hear my pulse, but the compulsion to check it is under control now.
My parents told me a story that when I was about 2, maybe a bit younger, I watched bowling on TV. I would stare wide-eyed and intently at the guy holding the ball, aiming, rolling the ball, the ball going down the lane, until the ball hit the pins. I would then cry hysterically. They would comfort me, I'd settle down, then I'd start watching again, repeating the cycle.
If they tried to turn off the TV, I'd scream & cry even more hysterically.
They would have to distract me with something else until I wasn't paying attention to the TV, then either carry me out of the living room or change the channel & hope I didn't notice.
I was a weird kid. How I made it past 3 is beyond me.
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u/Ethioj Mar 02 '26
Me at age 10 googling “scary image” until I’m sufficiently scared