Why do holes horrify me?
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Why do holes horrify me?
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Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#2social contaigon is a weird, weird thing.
I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit...
and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#3social contaigon is a weird, weird thing. I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit... and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.
I don't think it's just that, though. I'd never heard of it, or the concept of it, when I first saw one of those "doctors hate this weird trick for getting rid of parasites" or whatever ads. It had a photoshop of some kind of a seed pod onto human skin, so it looked like a bunch of worm heads inside holes or something. I almost threw up the instant I looked at it. I later found out that lots of people have that reaction, and it had a name. I think sometimes just naming something gives it life, because then it's an actual thing that people can identify with or not. I'm sure there are lots of phobias or... I dunno, triggers?... that would affect me but I've never experienced or heard of them before so I have no awareness of them. A name might give me that awareness.
But yes, it's a weird, weird thing. No one ever talked about being afraid of clowns when I was a kid. Lots of people liked them, lots were indifferent, but I don't recall ever hearing anyone say they were frightened of them until much later in life. And I clearly remember the first time I heard of anyone disliking the word "moist", and thinking I was being trolled.
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#4social contaigon is a weird, weird thing. I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit... and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.
I don't think it's just that, though. I'd never heard of it, or the concept of it, when I first saw one of those "doctors hate this weird trick for getting rid of parasites" or whatever ads. It had a photoshop of some kind of a seed pod onto human skin, so it looked like a bunch of worm heads inside holes or something. I almost threw up the instant I looked at it. I later found out that lots of people have that react…
I was about to comment about the "moist" thing but you beat me to it. It's a very recent phenomenon and makes absolutely no sense. But I remember having the same sickened reaction to that lotus seed pod photo.
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#5Humans want to avoid disease and some diseases can causes holes or hole-like symptoms on victims, so it's human nature to be horrified of clusters of holes because it's abnormal.
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#6social contaigon is a weird, weird thing. I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit... and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.
It's not a joke for me! Google image searching "trypophobia" is terrifying!
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#7Humans want to avoid disease and some diseases can causes holes or hole-like symptoms on victims, so it's human nature to be horrified of clusters of holes because it's abnormal.
Probably not. Lots of abnormal things aren't viscerally horrifying and I'd expect something with a strong evolutionary basis like avoidance of disease to be much more widespread than trypophobia. Such as, for example, the nearly universal dislike of the taste and smell of rotting meat.
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#8Whoa! I have trypophobia and just never knew what it was - I thought it was just a quirk of my brain.
Sometimes it creeps into my dreams - can be very disturbing.
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#9social contaigon is a weird, weird thing. I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit... and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.
I don't think it's just that, though. I'd never heard of it, or the concept of it, when I first saw one of those "doctors hate this weird trick for getting rid of parasites" or whatever ads. It had a photoshop of some kind of a seed pod onto human skin, so it looked like a bunch of worm heads inside holes or something. I almost threw up the instant I looked at it. I later found out that lots of people have that react…
I definitely had a mild reaction to that sort of image, long, long before it was discussed anywhere. My first instance, as a teenager, was where I had found a lump of play-doh, and (for whatever reason) jabbed it repeatedly with a pencil. I was then disgusted by what I had created.
My second early incident was seeing the cover of the O'Reilly book "Windows Annoyances", which features an image of a Surinam toad with young embedded on its back. Yes, I wasn't a fan of Windows at the time, but I couldn't imagine what the editors were thinking when they chose that cover image.
Re: Why do holes horrify me?
#10social contaigon is a weird, weird thing. I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit... and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.
I don't think it's just that, though. I'd never heard of it, or the concept of it, when I first saw one of those "doctors hate this weird trick for getting rid of parasites" or whatever ads. It had a photoshop of some kind of a seed pod onto human skin, so it looked like a bunch of worm heads inside holes or something. I almost threw up the instant I looked at it. I later found out that lots of people have that react…
I agree that trypophobia is more than just a social contagion.
I personally had physical reactions of disgust and an unusual desire to destroy Lotus seed pods the first time I saw them. I wanted to put them on the cement and smash and grind them with my shoe until they were a fine paste. This was before I had ever heard the word "trypophobia".
The only thing in nature I've found to trigger me is Lotus seed pods. Unlike your example of the doctored images, there is nothing objectively gross about seed pods, they are a natural part of a healthy and harmless plant.
Call it morbid curiosity, but I will sometimes browse /r/trypophobia and I get the same feelings there, but never worse than simply viewing a seed pod.