Emma Patterson
Why We Watch
Graphic Design
2023
As the obscenity or inappropriate nature of a piece of media, be it a movie, song, game, or article increases, the number of views remains fixed or in some cases increases as well. Humans seem to be innately drawn to taboo subject matter. Aside from the obvious human curiosity for the unknown, my goal for this project was to look further into the cognitive processes which draw us to materials that modern media outlets deem unsuitable for all audiences. My intention is not to bring shame to those who view this content but to rationalize from a psychological and unbiased standpoint why there is a large demographic for this type of subject matter. Using standard North American media censorship rules as a basis for the levels of ‘inappropriate’, the grey area of morality and cultural influence is kept to a minimum. As the subject matter of this project becomes more explicit, I hoped that the reader will become increasingly captivated by the content, thus proving my point that the obscenity of a topic has a direct correlation to human interest. My research was driven by the psychological reasoning for enjoying these topics and the idea of ‘reactance: the need to do things we are told not to as a means of obtaining freedom and pleasure’. With the layout of this zine, a new subject about controversial media is introduced with each ‘level’ of obscenity. For example, PG-rated movies often have content warnings for profanity. This opens the discussion of why we as humans have a need to use profanity as a part of our vocabulary, and why there is such a taboo against children using swear words. I intended to end the book with the most obscene topics possible that are still known to be consumed on a mass scale. This includes forms of media that are banned by North American media censorship but are still consumed by the masses. For example, films depicting rape in graphic detail, porn insinuating incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and dark web videos of unspeakable crimes. There is, and will always be a large market for these forms of media, and I wanted to investigate why. The entire book serves as a commentary on human behaviour and discusses and highlights just how curious and ‘filthy’ humans can get.