Previous Subchapter → Chapter 8 Summary
Another thing is that the appearance of such trash content - even staged content - should not be allowed to go unchecked. Because it provokes the psychosocial disorder of those around us. And this leads to an even greater embitterment of the population and a new round of violence. Violence begets violence.
The lynching footage - no matter which side - is aimed at destabilizing the psyche and provoking unsystematic violence.
Shock media is nothing new and this war is far from the only source of violent trash content. With social media, image boards and websites specially made for the distribution of violent and distasteful media, warring factions now possess the tools to cultivate fear in order to control, amateur propagandists can shock and most certainly mock to sadden or aggravate the viewer and since shock content is mostly spread through closed communities of people, this kind of media has a profound memetic effect, as observers may turn into consumers and distributors for entertainment. The entertainment derives from speculation:
Maybe the victim deserved the violence, as they stole from the perpetrators, making the violent act an act of vigilantism. Maybe the victim themselves was a brutal Warlord and they got a taste of their own medicine. Maybe a violent action happened through the breaking of an unwritten rule, making the victim complicit in the crimes of the tormentors in the eyes of the consumers.
While all of these “Maybes” may be, those are guesses, projections or even fantasies; Most of the time a happening depicted in a shock video is forever unresolved. The tormentors just like the victims are anonymous and while we know for sure that something happened, it is almost impossible to attain the full context surrounding a piece of violent media. While videos depicting brutal events like industrial accidents, war crimes and cartel violence may have different stories attached to the happenings, the purpose of this media is not to inform, it is to leave a lasting impression, leaving the viewer guessing just how painful the last moments of a victims life might have been, it depicts violence that is beyond our imagination and acts as a great tool for propaganda. But that propaganda comes with a cost, violence begets violence.
But how does this relate to the war in Ukraine? Well, the fight for the integrity of Ukraine is able to be followed live, and the actors of this conflict want to leave a lasting impression too.
Every minute updates flood an array of Telegram channels, many times depicting a recorded event that just happened. If the content is violent, that happening might be accompanied with messages of patriotism, sadistic mockery and intense dehumanising hatred.
With a never ending stream of unverified albeit dramatic information, following malicious content aggregators comes with an addictive quality. Now you can finally see what a war really looks like, courtesy of soldiers with GoPros or cameras strapped onto their uniforms, you do not have to imagine the unimaginable anymore, the answers are right there on your phone or computer.