Shadenfreude — BMX Props Crash, ouch
(I spelled that title correctly without having to look it up, go me. Schadenfreude is of course the German word for taking pleasure at someone else’s suffering.)
Quick, if you have a Series2 connected to broadband, download this episode of Union, fast forward to the 13 minute mark, and watch all the people crash their bikes. Grimace. Shudder. Feel revulsion. Then rewind and do it again.
What’s wrong with me that I love watching the pain, agony and humiliation of these bike riders in their most ignomious moments?
December 14th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
It is human nature – like rubbernecking at an accident scene or laughing at a friend who just hurt themselves. That’s why people like TV shows about police chases like ‘Hot Pursuit’ or ‘Most Extreme’. Or NASCAR.
I co-maintain the ‘disasterporn’ community over on LiveJournal, where we mostly discuss TV shows like Air Emergency, Seconds From Disaster, Failure Analysis, the ‘Engineering Disasters’ episodes of Modern Marvels, etc. Lot of people like that stuff.
I have a bunch of videos (videotape – had them since college I guess) of things like crashes, accidents, engineering failures. Tapes of rockets blowing up, prototype aircraft failing, etc. I like them best when no one is seriously hurt, then you don’t have to feel (too) guilty.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:16 am
I think you’re right, although for the record I never rubberneck, I don’t laugh when my friends get hurt, and I don’t watch police chase shows.
By comparison to bike crashes, failure analysis is much more highbrow. If I didn’t work for TiVo, that’s an area I would enjoy working in. I presume you read Risks?