I hate to admit, but I have stumbled upon "Best Gore" before while searching for information on suicide. I was kind of vicariously exploring suicide through stories and videos at the time, kind of like having a suicide fantasy. I found the videos soothing in a terrifying way -- As in, the videos were so awful, they banished my serious consideration of suicide for the time being.

As for whether or not a suicidal person should be accessing information on suicide in that way.....well, that might be a topic for another day!

I think people like gorey videos for the same reason why like gore and horror in movies. It's a vicarious thrill, or a fascination with our mortality. It's like getting trapped in the "wrong end" of Youtube -- the part of youtube where all your "related vids" are videos of babies born without brains, conjoined twins, and boys with skin that breaks like glass. Fascinating and yet so.....so disturbing!

I think I could argue both ways on whether or not sites like BestGore should exist. Ideally, the internet should be a free resource for all of us -- I'm pretty sure I had read a research article about the very same hanging video the OP mentioned. But just as ideally, people would view all of this as merely factual information to be used that way -- not an outlet for sick fantasies, homicidal or suicidal. And absolutely not a way to dehumanize the lives of the victims.

As for Lynn's Comment: I originally read her "insult to others with mental illness" comment as more along the lines of saying "It's a shame that we have to be associated with such terrible people." That guy is definitely mentally ill, but I agree that I don't want to have to apply the same terminology to describe him as I would people here. We may consider ourselves F-d Up at times, but we're not murderous.