Morbid - Listener Tales 49 ft. Special Guest DREW!!

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Listener Tales 49 is pretty epic if you ask us. OH! And it is brought to you by you, from you, for you and all about you...even if Ash forgot to say so in the beginning. There's mentions of new kittens, there's a Drew, a bank robbery where the employee may have helped more than they meant to and EVEN a haunted home! What more could you ask for? If you have a listener tale please send it to [e-mail] and just put "Listener Tale" somewhere in the subject line :) Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is mini morbid. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini morbid. Mini morbid, mini morbid, mini morbid. It's probably not going to be a mini morbid, but we're going to call it a mini morbid. It's going to be called mini morbid, but it's going to actually be like a full-size morbid. Because this is an Elena episode.

Yeah, whatever. And I tend to have trouble confining myself to like 30 minutes. You do. I went a little over 30 last time as well. You did. You did. I was proud of you. It's like when you're researching something that's like super fun. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is not super fun. I will say that. That's not what I meant. I just super interesting to you. Yeah, this is fascinating. It becomes fun to research. It does. And you know what? I might be overshooting it. Maybe it looks like a lot and I'm going to get through it quick. Who knows? I don't see. You might get a full length episode right now. So who knows?

I have plans. So if you could just like move it along. Whoa. That'd be great. My plans are to go downstairs and eat the dinner. My husband is cooking for me right now. Mine are to go out and cry with one of my best friends because I'm going through a breakup right now. I'm sorry. It's okay. I'll live. Everybody said Nash virtual hugs.

She can use it. I want them. And that kind of leads nicely into my topic. Did you pick a breakup topic? No. Oh. No, my topic. is public executions.

Oh, okay. So kind of the same thing. Well, you know, essentially. Pretty much. I think my last episode that I did on the Paris Morg, I kind of started to go into why we're fascinated with death, why we can deal, why we can look at that stuff, why we can look at gruesome shit.

Your eyes look so creepy right now. Do they? You're like, why we can talk about shit. And you're like looking so deeply into my soul. I've narrowed my. eyes and I'm looking at her like why do we look at weird shit ash it's so creepy because the light of your iPad is like lighting up the bottom of your face that's really creepy can you stop I'm gonna stop now I'm opening your eyes I'm gonna stop now I'm opening my eyes so so

sorry I'm really intense what is happening this is gonna get intense so just so everybody knows like strapping so this is we're basically I'm gonna touch upon why you know how it how this kind of all started. I'm going to start us way back in ancient Rome. Okay. And I'm going to come all the way to now. So we're going to cover, you know, pretty big chunk of time. We're going to cover a minute or two. So we're going to talk about all the, basically all the kinds of public executions and the crowd reaction to them. Okay. And then at the end, I'm going to try to come up with reasons why we do this, but to be honest, I think we're all just sick fucks. We're all still trying to figure out why we do this, but there's various reasons.

So let's start off. So why, so the whole thing is why are humans, and seemingly normal humans, fascinated by traumatic death? I don't know. Tell me. I'm talking like public executions, car accidents, murder scenes. We're like drawn to them. And the thing is, why have we always been drawn to them?

Like, this is not new by any stretch. In fact, we've only, I mean, we've very slugly. slightly evolved from our Roman brethren. Brethren. Cheering everybody on in the Coliseum. Like we are very not, we're not that far removed from them. The Coliseum is a club that I once went to. There you go.

It's a pretty fun there. Wow. I was cheering my friend. Wow, everybody. Everybody dance now. In case you can't tell them which one's Ash, which one's Elena. Now you know. There you go.

So what's interesting to me is that we never truly evolved out of that. Like, you would think we would. evolved and people like to think we have because people like oh no we would never watch someone be drawn and quartered that's insane that's crazy but i'll totally get into a car accident trying to watch another car accident or i'll totally sit in the seclusion of my room and watch somebody be beheaded i wouldn't do that i don't but i'm saying i was like millions of people do really we are not judging here no i'm just saying really we neither one of us are judging. Neither one of us are saying any of this is right or wrong, by the way. I'm going to

repeat this several times because it can get murky. Because I myself have looked at weird, fucked up shit on the internet. I still do it. I can't handle beheadings. I will put that out there right now. But I totally, I understand why people seek them out. I understand why people feel the need to watch them because I've caught myself several times being like, do I want to see it? I'm curious? And then I'm like, no, no, no, no, I don't. Yeah. So I get it. I get it. It's like it's, everyone has it deep within them. It's just whether or not you go there. I don't get it, but I respect it. Yeah. Because I've never had to do that. Like, I've never. You get it, though, because you will look at a car accident. Yeah, no, no. And what are you looking for in that car accident?

The drama. Do you want to see a mangled body on the side of the road? Like, I don't, but like that's why you look. And that's the thing. So somewhere in you, you, you know, you're, You do get why people seek out this awful, awful event because they don't even know if they want to see what they're about to see. Yeah, it's just like, it's the same thing. You don't even like think about it. You just do it. Exactly. It's like involuntary.

It is. It's just, it's baser instincts. So it's actually, because a lot of people will say like, I don't get it. I don't understand why people look at that. No, you do. Everybody does. You just don't realize that you do. Because I don't know anybody who drives by a car accident and is like, oh, no, I don't want to look at that.

Yeah. And they don't want to look at it, but they do. And they're not looking at it to see with the damage to the car. They're looking at it to see if there's a body on the side of the road. Yeah. And they might not even want to see that body. Right. I don't even know if I want to see that body.

I don't want to. But I'm looking for it. Yeah. So it's like somewhere in there, we all get it. And that's what this is about. Is these people who are like, you're a sicko if you look at that? I'm not saying you. I'm not saying you.

I was going to say, I don't think that. No, I'm saying other people would be like, you're a sicko if you look at this and that. no like we're not we're all sickos like some of us just let it fly more than other people do we are the weirdos we are the weirdos we are the weirdos we are all weirdos i literally just got so excited for that to finally come up she just pursed her lips it was like let's do this we are the weirdest hey hi i got to tell you something i got to tell you we are the weirdos thank you for coming to my ted talk so basically we're not unlike the crowds in 17th century england who gathered to cheerfully watch a person hang by their neck from the gallows or have their limbs pulled off

in an extended show of torture. In fact, we are still these crowds. We just have a more secretive and safe way to view these things because da-da-da-da the internet. I would like to explore the various phases of humans gathering to watch other humans suffer. From ancient Roman times, Tudor England, beheading videos on the internet. Where we're going to start is way back in Roman times. So get in your time machine. Okay, I'm there. So the purpose of these events is always pretty much the same. They allow the convicted person, the condemned person, the opportunity to make a final speech.

They give the state or whatever this entity is that's doing this, the chance to display its power in front of its people. And it grants the public a show, a spectacle. It's a people love theater and they'll eat it up. Public executions also let the, you know, the state or the entity again show its superiority over political opponents, which happened a lot. Like, for example, Charles I of the First of England was beheaded, but the block that they beheaded him on was reduced in height. So it meant that he wouldn't assume the normal kneeling pose. He would have to like fly basically down and look really awkward and weird. supposed to be super humiliating. Oh, that's fucked up. To show power, like, to opponents. Like,

look what we'll do. Shit. And that's, like, a normal thing is to show, like, look what, and it's, I mean, it's what the Islamic State is doing right now, trying to show political power over, you know, whatever. It's so fucked up, though. Oh, it's awful. Starting in Rome, way back in the day, we all know people loved watching gladiators battle to the death, but everybody kind of knows about that. Right. Let's begin with a pretty, brutal public execution that was known to occur in ancient Rome. Now, these were solely for the purpose of entertaining the masses. There was really no...

Like nobody did anything wrong? They did, but not things wrong enough to get what they were getting. Okay. In some cases, the people that got these public executions, like Caligula, for example, didn't even look at the offenses that the people had committed. He just sent them all. He was like, all of them to death.

because we need entertainment. Jesus. So it could have been somebody like literally like stealing a loaf for bread. And they'd be like, they were like, okay, you need to die, a brutal death in front of a million people. Let's just have a ball. Yeah. Instead. They didn't do that.

Why? The people putting these things on in ancient Rome were like the game makers and the hunger games. They crafted the experience. They spent the money and they gave the people the most brutal fucking show they could possibly give them. And when something wasn't making the crowd go crazy, like if suddenly everybody looked kind of bored or just like, just indifferent to what was going on, they would ramp that shit up each time. Every time they would make it worse and worse because they were like, oh, they're bored of this awful thing. Let's make it even more awful. And it would happen.

People got bored of awful shit. Because you're just subjected to it over and over. Yeah. It's like the theater of human suffering pain and eventual death got more and more and more inventive each time. So in 167 BC, so like a minute ago. Yeah, not that long. Yeah, not too bad. No, it's fine.

Army deserters. So these are army deserters. They were rounded up in the Coliseum, and they were crushed one by one under an elephant's feet for a cheering crowd. What? The fuck up. Oh, yeah. I love elephants. How dare they make them do that?

So these elephants would just be crushing these people to death one by one in front of a cheering crowd. I bet they didn't want to because elephants are wicked-chill animals. They were just like, oh, God, fucking Caligula's making us do this shit again. And then again in 242 BC, during the infamous Roman games, which were basically like their Olympics. You know what I mean? I mean, that's how this could that idea kind of all started. And that was where like the chariot races were, the gladiators, you know, all that shit. They had like a halftime show to these games, kind of like the Super Bowl.

But it was a little bit different. Well, the only difference was instead of having Adam Levine take his shirt off for no reason, people would be brutally eaten by starved animals for the Coliseum. So this show was called damnatio ad beastias, which literally means condemnation by beasts. What the fuck? Now what would happen was the condemned criminals would be placed. This is so weird. Just putting it like this is so fucked up.

They would be placed on huge seesaws in the middle of the Coliseum, naked with their hands bound. Oh, fuck. These seesaws would shoot them up like 15 feet in the air. Like, they were huge seesaws. They all had no idea what the fuck these things were because fucking seesaws were not something that was just hanging around back then. So they would all start, like, pushing off of them and like testing them, seeing like what the fuck is this? Like, what are we doing? Uh-huh.

And the crowd would just sit there and laugh because they didn't know what was going to happen, but they were like, oh, something bucked up's going to happen and look at them all bouncing around. That's so fucked up. They're out of nowhere. trap doors all around the arena would open and lions, bears, wild boars, and leopards would rush into the arena. All of them had been starved for a long period of time to be very hungry. The starved animals would bound towards the terrified criminals, who then would attempt to shoot themselves up in the seesaw to get away from the beast, but that would send the other poor guy down just to get mauled to bits.

So all these guys are naked with their hands bound, see-sawing as furiously and aggressively as they possibly can to get away from lions, bears, leopards, and wild boars. Dude, I wish you guys could all see my fucking face today now. Her jaw is like on the ground. They were all just sitting at round tables like, what could we do today? Well, and during all of this, which was brutal, obviously. Did people bring like kids and shit to them? Oh, yeah, the whole family's game. Oh, my God.

It was, and the crowd would go bonkers. They would literally be laughing hysterically at how funny, like, the seesaws looked and how scared the people were. And, like, they would be clapping and yelling. And then if there's one thing about Romans, Romans will bet on anything. Oh, my God. Or they would bet on anything. So they would start placing bets on which criminal would die first, which one would last the longest.

And this was Army deserters? No, these were just, like, any kind of. Army deserters were. dessert is were crushed by elephants. These were just any old. Any Joe Chappelle? Yeah. Just as many as they could line up.

And there was always like the largest, biggest lion in the place, just stalking the outside of the arena. And the biggest bet would be like, which one is that lion going to choose? And they were like, psyched to see it. They were there to see that. If those animals didn't attack, they would be pissed. Where did they even find all these animals? Well, these animals would actually be.

don't, they would be taken from like a, you know, they would go like take over a territory or land and they'd take exotic animals from that land. Holy cow. Yeah. So the people who train these animals would sometimes train them to act out like myths or legends for the crowd. Uh-huh. Like an eagle at one point was trained to pluck out a condemned man's organs one by one,

a la Prometheus. How do you train an eagle to do that? Very carefully. Because I guess also these trainers who train. the animals were like low on the totem pole and if they didn't deliver like if those animals because animals by nature don't want to eat humans even lions are not just going out there being like I want to eat humans so they would most of the time walking into a coliseum with his thousands of people screaming and yelling and there's like just all this chaos they would end up cowering and being like I don't want to

do this so they had to train them ahead of time to make sure they did this and they would even tell the condemned people things they could do to make it quicker for themselves. Like they would be like, do this and you'll die first. What would they do? I don't know what the things were, but it was like certain things that would attract the animals or make it easier for themselves. Because if these trainers didn't provide the entertainment, they would be put in the Coliseum.

Yeah. So that was just, those were just a couple of little things from ancient room. That just made my stomach hurt. So that starts us off with the human condition. right there. Oh. Let's pop over to a Tudor England around the 1500s. So we're just like jump it up a little bit.

The main methods of execution back then were hanging, beheading, and being hung, drawn, and quartered. We discussed that in our torture episode. We did. Now, hanging back then was usually not done from a great height like we know it to be. Like they wouldn't drop the person to have their, like through a trap door and have their neck broken. So it took longer. Yeah.

because so often the condemned were brought to the gallows in a horse-drawn cart. A noose was then placed around their neck and the horse was just encouraged to walk away. So the person hanging would just fall and strangle to death. Oh, shit. It was always long. It was always brutal. Always for like several minutes. Like these were long drawn-out situations.

I feel like I can't breathe. It's tough. So in fact, because it would take so damn long to strangle to death, Family members of the condemned were encouraged to sometimes pull down on their legs to hasten their death if it went on for too long. This is actually where the term pulling his leg come from. No way. Isn't that fun? I was just trying to pull your leg, which means make you laugh or tease you or like taunt you a little bit.

Yeah. Pulling his leg comes from that. They weren't making him laugh. Yeah. And this was all done sometimes in front of up to like 100,000 spectators. What? And these spectators came for a carnival. atmosphere. This was not a solemn occasion. This was not you stand there quietly and watch this happen.

You bought your popcorn, you drank your beer. You say that? That's literally what happened. Oh my God. There would be vendors selling food and fucking souvenirs as well. Like what the fuck were the souvenirs? Well, and we'll get more into that in a bit. So that was just a gist of hanging. Beheadings in Tudor England were normally saved for the nobility. They didn't just behead anybody. Because beheading is a, is supposed to beheading. to be a quicker way. It's not that entertaining, apparently. You know, except there was a couple of botched ones that provided a lot of entertainment, I think. I believe Mary, Queen of Scots, it took three blows to take her head off, and one of them just

hit her in the head. Not in the movie. Yeah. That's what happened. But, and then Thomas Cromwell, I believe his name was, he had the most botched of all of them. He had several blows, because it was just a really inexperienced executioner. Oh, my God. Imagine. And one of them hit him the head and he had to like, they had to like hack at him for a while. Oh. Yeah. So I'm sure a lot of people probably know at least like the bare minimum of who Anne Boleyn was.

Possibly that King Henry the 8th was not only a fat slob, but also like a true sociopathic asshole of the highest order. Totally. Like people probably know at least the name Anne Boleyn and, you know. So this King Henry the 8th reigned during the years of 1509 to 1547. During that time, an estimated 72,000 people lost to their heads. That's a lot of heads. One might say too many heads to be removed.

So this all kind of began just to give a little bit of a background to why his reign was so fucking bloody. Henry went and married his older brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine suffered several miscarriages through their marriage and had stillbirths. after all of it, she, in his eyes, she had failed to bore him a son. Now, this is funny now, and I mean funny as in like how that's interesting and not funny. Like, wow, idiotic patriarchs with a pension for beheadings are so funny. It's funny now because science has taught us that the man actually provides the stuff that determines the sex of an area. So it was legit his fault.

Yes, exactly. So yes, sperm is what carries that Y or X chromosome. and whatever sperm gets to the egg first gets to determine the sex. There's even a theory to explain why more boys are born each year than girls. And the theory says that the Y chromosome, it's much smaller than the X. So the sperm carrying it are quicker and have a better chance of getting to the waiting egg first. So it's just kind of interesting. That is interesting.

Science. So Henry was just killing wives and everyone in a like thousand mile radius because he wasn't getting a male air. and it was his own dumb-ass spunk that was failing to produce him that boy that he wanted. The word spunk is so fucking gross. Like the big fucking dumb-dum. So Harry went bonkers after this and declared himself head of the Church of England, and that's when shit really went down.

He divorced Catherine and he married his mistress and Berlin, because apparently she looked like she could attract some Y chromosomes. I don't know. It was this goal of having a male heir that led to Henry beheading a ton of people, very important people, including two of his six. six wives. Yikes. Like, you don't want to be one of his wives.

That and his desire to make sure no one ever had a legitimate claim to the throne. Like, if you had any blood that was royal, he was going to fucking kill your ass. So when he eventually had Anne Boleyn beheaded, there were over a thousand people present. And it was considered a private execution. A thousand people was considered a private execution. Can you imagine a public execution? Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's hundreds of thousands for a public one.

Catherine Howard was his other unfortunate wife to be dispatched this way. And her execution was really sad, first of all. Why? Like she asked to, because he killed, he had her killed because he claimed to find out that she had had sex before marrying him. And that was just not allowed. He was going to deflower you because he was a disgusting pig. And so he said he found that out. So that was it.

You get your head chopped off because you had sex before marriage. And she was so concerned with, like, not looking humiliated and, like, you know, ridiculous that she asked for the block to be brought to her cell the night before her beheading so that she could figure out how to lay her head to not. Oh. Yeah. Isn't that sad? Oh. Did they let her? They did.

They gave it to her. And, like, she practiced so she could feel comfortable, which is, like, I can't even, how do you even? Going through all this, you also are thinking not just of the crowd and why we are that way, but you're like, holy shit. What's it like for the person up there? That is just too much to handle. Yeah. And her execution was witnessed by a shit ton of dignitaries and ambassadors. Like it was also a pretty big affair.

So the sites where these kinds of events took place back then were Tyburn, the Tower of London, Tower Hill, Smithfield, Charing Cross, and Westminster. They are tourist attractions, but now. But back then, Londoners knew the Gallo sites as well as they knew, any other landmark. Like Gallosites were like, everybody knew where they were. Because if it's an execution was happening at one of these, you wanted to get your ass there. It was like Wendy's.

That's exactly what it was like. You're welcome. Wendy's, do you want to sponsor us now? It was like, it was just these things would pop up. It's like a pop-up shop. Like when a pop-up shot comes up that you like, like cupcakes or something, you're like, I've got to get to that shit. That's what public executions were.

They were like, oh shit, someone's being beheaded at noon. We've got to get down there. That stresses me out like a lot. Yeah. And like I said before, you would think these public executions would be kind of silent and somber. Right. I mean, someone's about to die, whether they deserve it in your eyes or not. But this is way far from the truth.

They were straight up theater mixed with a carnival. The crowds were loud, aggressive, boisterous. The locals referred to the events as, quote, hanging fair, stretching, or collar day. Ooh. Yeah. Stretching. Yeah. Because you're being dropped, you're going to stretch you.

The crowds would arrive early to get a place close to the quote stage. It's like a concert. Literally. Descriptions of that time say that people were leaning out of windows, hanging out on rooftops, and standing on each other's shoulders just to get better views. Special stands were set up for the occasion, like stadium seating. Yeah, like literally. Balconies and houses, like houses with balconies that overlooked the scaffolding would rent

out their balconies for the occasion. Yeah, that's a pretty solid idea. People would, like, you know how people rent out their, like, driveways for concerts or shit for people to park and they just make money? Totally. These people were renting out balconies so people could watch the hanging. Not going to lie, that's pretty business savvy. It is.

It's very savvy. Admission prices to these, to these kind of, like, places to advantage points were calculated with, like, how famous or infamous the felon was. So the more infamous, the more money you could get. And the worst, the execution, like if they were doing, like, you know, drawn and quartering, that shit was going to go for top dollar because people want to see that shit. I would hope that if I was executed, that mine would go for top dollar because I was so cool, but that it would happen really fast.

It would not go for top dollar for that then. No execution that went really fast was going to go for. You were only going there? Like, no. The whole point is not the person. The point, you're not a person to them. Oh. The more infamous the person and their crime was, you would get more because you knew that they were really going to give them the old college try with everything.

But it was about the suffering. Oh. Like, in fact, and I'll get into it later, people actively don't like methods that are quick. All right. Then I hope mine would be funny. Because it has to be drawn out. Like, that's the whole point of it. It has to be drawn out.

run out because they're gathering there. They've been staying there, sometimes overnight to get their spot. They don't want this shit over in a minute. It's like Black Friday. They want this shit to last for a little while because it's like you don't want to go to a concert and have them be like, Boston,

boom. Thank you, Boston. We'll see you next time. You know, like, you don't want to last. You don't want that. I don't want that. I also, did you like my half air guitar? It was like your guitar was very high

and very like, wide. Yeah. All right? That's one by guitarist. It's very high. It's like half of your body. Get off my back. So like we mentioned before, how you were saying like, yeah, just have a beer, have a hot dog. Vendors set up carts and booths hours before the execution time to sell food, drinks, souvenirs, even porn.

Whoa. Which you might as well at this point. Wasn't that like, like, frowned upon back then? No. Because they were just like, yeah, we're just like, yeah. We're all here. Let's well grab some. I'm sure it wasn't like out in the only. It's probably pretty like seedy and like shady. Do you think that it was just like wink, wink, nudge? You had to be like wink, wink, nudge. Portraits of people like banging. That's what I'm wondering. Because

they said like pornographic materials. Well, and also minstrels and jugglers would entertain the crowd before the event. Because you got to be entertained the whole time you're there. Yeah, totally. Pamphlets called broadsheets were printed and distributed, which detailed the, you know, the history, the crime of the person. And a lot of times the people printing them would create last words to put in there as well. Like they would lie. And these broad sheets sold like fucking hotcakes. It was like a program for the show.

The scene almost always dissolved into fucking chaos. Oh, I bet. People would be drunk. They'd be fighting in the mud. I mean, pickpockets would be out just to like pickpocketing the crowd, which is hilarious because the person up there was probably hanging for being a fucking thief. I know.

These people are just like, yeah. And even as these people, like, victims would, like, drop from the scaffold, they'd still be out there just partying. Shit. Then when the deed was done, barbers surgeons in the family of the deceased would sometimes clash in it, like, for who gets the corpse. Yeah. So it was like, it was never just like this very...

You say barber surgeons? Yeah, barber surgeons. What does that mean? Well, barbers used to be surgeons. That's where the poll comes from. The red on the pole is blood. What? Yeah.

It's like barbers used to like moonlight as surgeons. What? Yeah. If you look it up, that's where the pole, like the vision of that barber pole with the red. Yeah, the red is blue. Yeah. What the fuck? I never knew that.

Yeah. Interesting. Weird. Same. Go look that up. It's an interesting history. I believe you. Well, no, I'm saying anybody else.

It's really interesting. So, yeah, people would be fighting for who gets the corpse. And then Henry the 8th decreed that barber surgeons were entitled to four cadavers per year for anatomical dissection. So they would use that like the king said I get this. I get four. What is happening? Yeah. And it didn't end there.

Like the spectacle was still going. By law, the executioner was entitled to the victim's clothing. What the fuck? Why would you want that? They would take it. Oh, that's a bad juju. And the way they would get it off is not like, it's a. It's not like they would like gingerly take his clothing off.

They would flog it off him, the dead body. They would just flog that dead body until all the clothes came off. What? Yeah. Can you just take it? Like piece-key? No, they got to flog it. You got to keep that show going.

You can't just end it there. What if, like, what? I can't. And sometimes the hangman's rope was cut up into sections and sold for pennies or like shillings to people who wanted to have it. What? Yeah. Yeah. It's like a, like a, um, at a baseball game if you catch the ball.

Yeah, it really is. It's a souvenir from the show. Wow. Yeah, it's like a set list at a concert. Shit. Or like a drumstick. That's when you get a drumstick. Or, um, or guitar pick. Yeah, exactly. And the, I mean, the behavior would change depending.

I mean, it was always chaos. But it would change slightly on, like, who was being executed because the crowd's reaction would sometimes be like slight sympathy and forget. forgiveness for who is going through this. Like, that wouldn't change them wanting to see it and then partying it up. Right. But it wouldn't be, it would mean that they weren't outright abusing the dead person. Right.

But if they didn't like this person and they believe they were guilty, which nine times out of ten they did, they would throw rotten vegetables at the person's stones while they were waiting to die and then after they died. Like they would, it was like abuse. And the crowd would respond. with like applause if comments for like their last words seemed heartfelt and like brave. Like they liked brave people who stood up there and were like, I'm ready to die. But if you were, if you went up there and were like, I'm innocent and this is bullshit, they would

be like, fuck off and that's when they'd start throwing shit at you. So in those people who did that, they would be interrupted by like mocking and people would be like, get on with it, hang him, hang him. like they would scream like get on with it why aren't we doing it yet i feel like it was nothing you probably would i'd be like shut the fuck just do it um i think i would just be crying eating a hot dog somewhere you'd still be eating a hot dog but crying you're like i'd be feeling things but i would buy a hot dog i'm an emotional leader um so i mean these crowds didn't just show up for public executions like we talked about in the torture episode they showed up to watch someone

be tortured ruthlessly. That's what they wanted. Now, this was Tudor England that I'm talking about in 1500s. We've evolved and grown from that, right? No. No, no, we have fucking not. I guessed right. You did. On August 14th, 1936 in Owensboro, Kentucky, the last officially sanctioned public execution took place. Was that lynching? In 1936, in Kentucky, that was. That was. the last that the state sanctioned. This wasn't a lynch mob. This was state sanctioned. State sanctioned. 1936. That's not that long ago. Say state sanctioned one more time. So shush, shush, shush, sure. Well, get that, like, think about it. I'm thinking about it. You're not seeming as concerned. No, I just want to know what happened.

The condemned here. The condemned here was a young 26-year-old black man. named Rainy Bethia, I want to say. I'm sorry if I got that wrong. He was convicted of raping and strangling to death an elderly white woman, 70-year-old Leisha Edwards. Did he actually do it? We don't know. It looks shaky.

Uh-oh. To be quite honest. In my opinion, it looks shaky. Aw. And during these times, it was very easy to condemn a black man, especially for a crime against a white woman. I fucking hate that. And honestly, how far have we come from that?

Right. Sheriff Florence Thompson was actually like a new sheriff at this time She was only on the job for like a little while And she was a woman obviously Oh wow she was the sheriff? Yeah she was a sheriff shit She was actually so the sheriff is the one who has to do the execution No

So she was supposed to become the first woman executioner in US history with this But it kind of became a media spectacle So she quietly started looking for someone else to actually do the deed Because she was like I really don't want to want to be part of this. Luckily, a former Louisville police officer stepped in to do the job because, honestly, it looked like he just wanted to be in the spotlight. He liked, like, he showed up in, like, a white linen suit and, like, a Panama hat. Like, he was just like, let's do this. As in, like, KFC style? Literally.

So, he was totally down for this, and she was like, cool, you do it. But for this hanging in 1939, the idea that it could be a woman tying the noose and dropping the trapdoor attracted thousands and thousands of people to Owensboro. But I bet they were disappointed. They were. But spectators came from Indiana, Illinois, like all surrounding places for this. And they camped out. Hotels were booked up completely. And people hosted all night hanging parties for the event.

What? Yep. The gallows. Now there's photos of this event. Oh, I don't want that. And it's, it's interesting. It's just, it's like, it's a lot. It's like so heavy to see these things.

Yeah. The gallows, because gallows always look, they always just give you like that hebe. Yeah, I don't like it. You can just smell the bad. It is. It's just like, oh. The gallows were located on a vacant lot. And hundreds of, hundreds of men, women, and children literally slept underneath them that night.

The night that it happened or the night before? The night before. To get their spot. Ew. Children. The crowd jeered and yelled hang him as it was happening. They screamed for it to start before it had begun. They were like, let's do this. Like, get it going. Newspapers from that day had headlines like, quote, people eat hot dogs as a man died on the gallows. And quote, children picnic as killer pays. Like those are the headlines. I felt personally attacked by the hot dog. Yeah, that was an attack on you.

It was recorded that 20,000 people saw the execution that day from like lunch. Yeah, $20,000. And if you see the pictures, it's unbelievable how many people are there. While he was still hanging beneath the trapdoor after they had done it, the crowd attacked the body. They quote, the crowd surged towards the gallows and people started tearing off pieces of the black cloth for souvenirs. Because they would put a black cloth over your face. Why? They started because your eyes sometimes pop out. So they just put it on just to save the real gruesome shit because, you know.

People would probably love to catch an eyeball. They sure would. And they just started ripping apart that black cloth for souvenirs. And they also booed when a minister gave him his last rights. Now, this was such a frenzy because of a mix of things. The woman hangman that was initially promised was a huge attraction. And it was going to be the dynamic of a white woman hanging a black man. That was something people were super into.

Remember this was the 1930s Kentucky. A black man hanging was not uncommon. unfortunately. Oh, I hate that. Racism was a huge part of this, whether he was guilty or not. And to be honest, his trial was nothing short of sketchy. He confessed, but under what circumstances we don't know. Right. And later, he recanted. Oh. But he was advised by shitty people to plead guilty and just begged for mercy. Even though Kentucky law says, said that the penalty for rape was always public hanging. So they advised him to plead guilty. In 1939. Yeah.

It was still. Yep. Whoa. And it was, so they advised him to plead guilty and they were like, yeah, just beg for mercy, knowing he wouldn't get it. If he pled guilty, he was hanging. It seemed very shaky to me. Where was his lawyer?

Yeah. I was going to say that it was unfortunate that he didn't choose to say any last words, so he wouldn't get his last plea of innocence, if that's what he could have done. But then again, it's probably better that he didn't because the crowd would have loved that. I think it was good that he was like, I'm not. I'm not giving you what you want. Like, I'm not giving you this last show. This also was going to be the last sanctioned public hanging.

So people wanted to be sure to catch one last public murder in the United States. Why did they decide that that was going to be the last one? That was just when it became. I think, honestly, I think it was the frenzies of crowds were starting to become an issue. And probably like destroy things. Well, and they were, they were starting to see that this is like an issue that we're having people come to do this. Like, we need to maybe become more civilized. In 1939, I don't think so.

Now, the guillotine, this goes back to you being like, I want it to be quick. Nobody wants it to be quick, except for the person that is going to happen to. The guillotine was actually in use until, like, the 80s when it was finally banned. Was it? Not publicly until the 80s, but they were using it until the 80s. In America? No, in France. Oh.

Oh, I think I knew that. But it made its debut in April 1792. in France. Now, according to a historian, Paul Friedland, the people of Paris loved public executions. When it was debuted for a huge excited crowd, because they were like, this is the new decapitation machine. Like, let's come and look at it. They were disappointed because it was so quick and relatively goarless compared to what they were used to. I mean, the head gets chopped off. It falls in a basket. You don't really see a lot. It's taken away. It's quick. And they were used to like an axe or something. Yeah, nobody's screaming. Nobody's having to chop you a couple of times. Like,

it's, that was it. Legit people were pissed because the person died quicker without much show to it. Whoa. Don't worry, though. People soon realized that seeing someone get their head chopped off remained pretty gnarly. It's pretty gruesome. They got, they got more into it later. So don't worry about it. The guillotine doesn't have to worry for long. They even came up with nicknames for it, like the National Razor, which I kind of think is funny. It is. The widow. windmill of silence. Wow, that's just poetic. It really is.

I'm like, whoa. I feel things. And Madame de Guillotine, which I kind of like. Very French. And being beheaded via this machine was known as, quote, sneezing in the sack, which was a reference to the bag that would sit under the guillotine to catch the head that fell. Hachoo. Like you were going to go, hachoo, and then sneezing into the sack.

But really, your head just fell off. Funny, but like, not. Funny, but like super hilarious, but no, but not all. But no, not at all. Soon they made it even cooler by distributing pamphlets that had beheadings of the day listed. So you can make sure to work at least one in your schedule between grocery shopping and the gym. I got to go to the beheading. Now, the last public execution by Gillotine happened June 17, 1939 in France.

The condemned was Eugene Weidman, who was a German serial killer. Oh, I think I've heard of this. You probably have. Also, he was only 31 when he was executed, which I like blew my mind. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. He was convicted of killing six people, mostly by shooting them in the nape of the neck and robbing them. It seemed to be that his motive was not murder, but robbing. But he also didn't get a lot from each one, so it's hairy.

He was a dick, no matter what. Clearly. But like, he's a weird serial killer. On June 17, 1939, he was beheaded by guillotine outside the prison, Saint-Intyre, in Versailles. Unknown to authorities, someone was filming the execution because, like, film cameras were relatively new. Someone was filming it from a private apartment just like adjacent to the prison. And to this day, you can watch that online. It's not gory.

I think they might have played it in one of my psych classes. They played in one of my sight classes, yeah. Because it's not gory, it's not like, and you can't really see anything. The crowd behaved insanely for this one. They used handkerchiefs to dab up his blood as souvenirs. The crowd that day was described as, quote, disgusting, unruly, jostling, clamoring, whistling.

The unruly crowd actually delayed the execution beyond the usual twilight hour, because they usually did executions at dawn. That was what they did. but they were so crazy that this one got pushed further out and that's why the light started becoming better for pictures it's almost like they were doing it on purpose to get pictures definitely yeah so they got all these clear there's all these clear photos of it everything and it's because they pushed it into the hour when the sun was out how did they do that they just kept fucking they were

being so unruly that they couldn't even take him out of the prison yet like they just pushed it and pushed it and pushed it the authorities finally came to believe that quote far from serving as a deterrent and having salutary effects on the crowds, the public execution promoted baser instincts of human nature and encouraged general rowdiness and bad behavior. This hysterical behavior by the crowd was so insane that French President Albert LeBron immediately banned all public future executions. This was it.

Like once he saw how fucking nuts people were, he was like, nope, not doing it again. Yeah, bye. And the video and photos, like I said, are still online today. They show them in sight classes. They aren't gruesome. I definitely sought them out again because I was like, I feel like I remember seeing that. And it isn't.

It's not gruesome. It's not super. No, I think I remember. It's black and white. It's pretty clear, but it's like you really just see. It's far away, though. You see the blade fall, which is kind of like, ooh, his head just got chopped out. I mean, like, oh, damn.

I felt like, ooh, like, ooh. I was more like, ooh. And I was like, ooh. Oh, child. Who child? I mean, I'm a human and I accept myself as I am, so deal with it, everybody. Just do it with it. So moving on from that, I want to touch upon, like, I was talking about how in Kentucky in 1939, the last sanctioned public execution was the rainy Bethia one.

But that was just the last sanctioned one. That didn't mean that public executions did not take place in the United States. like lynching and shit and like all that awful things was not sanctioned officially but it was certainly one of the most brutal and horrifying forms of public execution that our country should be horrifically embarrassed they became widely practiced in the u.s. south from roughly 1877 like the end of post-s. war reconstruction through 1950 damn 1950 yeah yeah oh yeah it's if you look at you believe it it, but it's just so fucked up. That's almost an episode in itself because it's so horrifying, but it needs to be told

because a lot of people are so blind to it. Especially, I feel like a lot of people in the South don't want to believe that, you know, their family members or like ancestors could have done these things. But they did. Apparently it happened in Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, and Louisiana. They had the highest rates of lynching in the United States. Now, a typical lynching would involve criminal accusations, which were often bullshit. Uh-huh.

I mean, 99.999% of them were absolute bullshit against a black American. They would then arrest him, and then they would assemble a lynch mob, which would want to completely subvert normal constitutional judicial process. They were not looking for a trial. They were not looking for him to have any rights. They were just, he did this, I decided it. Let's kill him. That was it. That's how all of them happened.

And one of the main things that they would always claim that would always end up being, like a lot of the times would end up being caused to lynch a black man, would be any claim of sexual contact between a black man and a white woman. Oh, no. Like you think of awful lynching and murder and torture of Emmett Till from this time period. He was like a little boy, like a young kid. And a white woman claimed that he hit on, like, I think she claimed that he either, like, hit on her or, like, touched her in a store. Mm-hmm.

And her husband and his friend literally kidnapped him from his home and literally tortured him and murdered him and threw him in the water. Oh, my God. And I remember learning about this in school. I feel like they don't teach this stuff enough in school anymore because, like, you're looking at me. I was going to say, I never heard of it. And I learned about this in school. And I remember we saw the photos because they did an open casket funeral for him.

And his mother... No, I did. I did learn about this. His mother wanted to show, like, look what happened. Look what they did. And later, the woman came... Like, recently, recently, the woman came out and said,

it never happened, I lied. What the fuck is wrong with her? And it happened all the time. It's such bullshit. So historian Howard Smead in Blood Justice, the lynching of Mac Charles Parker, That's a really insane book. The mob, quote, turned the act into a symbolic right in which the black victim became the representative of his race and as such was being disciplined for more than a single crime.

The deadly act was a warning to the black population not to challenge the supremacy of the white race. It's, it still blows my mind, like, that one, this happened and two that, like, this is not, we have not come far from this, as we can see. and it bums me out. Victims would be seized, and then they would be, you know, I mean, they'd be physically tortured in any number of ways. And it would usually end with this person being hung from a tree and set on fire. They set the person on fire? Yeah.

Oh, and worse things, too. I mean, that's... Honestly, the end was probably necessary at that point because they would do horrible things. According to a 1930 editorial in the Raleigh News and Observer, quote, whole families came together, mothers and fathers bringing even their youngest children. It was the show of the countryside, a very popular show. Men joked loudly at the sight of the bleeding body. Girls giggled as the flies fed on the blood that dripped from the condemn's nose.

Now, adding to this whole terrible macabre scene, lynching victims were typically then dismembered into pieces for human trophies for the mob to take home as souvenirs. I'm just like blank. And it's like blink, blink. And this was again, United States and not that long ago. Just everybody sink that in. This is giving me a stomach. Yeah.

In his autobiography, W.E.B. Dubois writes of the 1899 lynching of Sam Hose in Georgia, he said that the knuckles of the victim were on display at a local store in Atlanta. Just the knuckles? His knuckles. And that a piece of the man's heart and liver were presented to the state's governor. Like, bitch, I don't want that. Like, what's happening? In the 1931, Maryville, Missouri lynching of Raymond Gunn,

the crowd estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 people. And it was at least a quarter women and included hundreds of children. One person, according to Arthur Raper, I believe it is, in The Tragedy of Linching, another book, quote, one woman held her little girl up so she could get a better view of the naked body blazing on the roof. What? Yeah. And after the fire was out, hundreds of people poked at his ashes for souvenirs. Quote, the charred remains of the victim were divided up piece by piece.

this was not long ago everybody I just so that those were crowds of lynchings like people would just show up because it would happen spontaneously usually now we still aren't even close to being over this kind of seemingly barbaric behavior it's just kind of evolved slightly

into different methods and scenarios so besides the lynching of black men and women across the south in relatively modern times think about the executions of people like Ted Bundy Well, they were not broadcasted to the public. Bundy's execution by electric chair was an event. January 24th, 1989, 2,000 people gathered on the lawn outside of Florida State Prison to wait for the news that he was fried.

They had signs and t-shirts that said burn Bundy Burn and toast Ted. One sign actually said, quote, roses are red, violets are blue, good morning, Ted, we're going to kill you. Wow. It was like a carnival, right back to the first. fucking tutor times. It was a goddamn carnival. People were chanting, singing, drinking beer, waving signs, cheering. There were fireworks. People even sold commemorative, quote, Friday t-shirts. They held effigies of various things hanging from fake nooses, which shows how fucking dumb a lot

of this crowd was because he wasn't hanging. But at Florida State University, where Bundy did murder his victims, Bowman and Levy at the Kai Omega House, the Kai Phi fraternity celebrated the execution with a cookout, and they served Bundy burgers and electrified hot dogs. To an extent, I feel like I get that one, because it's like the community was safe again. Well, here's the thing. I get all of this.

Right. I get all of this. I feel like, no, I just feel like that one, like, made it more clear to me about the other ones. Doesn't that one kind of like make. you go, oh. Because you're just celebrating your community being safer. But the only thing with this one is like you're not watching it, so it's a little better.

It's a little more humane, but also still not. But when you think about it, and again, I'm going to keep saying it, I am not saying this is right or wrong at all. I'm not saying any of the, I mean, the lynchings are wrong, that I will stand by and say that's fucked up and wrong and fucking evil. But when it comes to the people who show up to the public executions in like Tudor times, fucking, you know, these kind of things, like not public executions, but executions of high-profile killers. I can't say they're wrong for showing up to it, but it's like, I wouldn't for this

kind of thing, but it's like for, but I don't know. The Ted Bundy one. If you lived there, you don't think you would. No, because I don't agree with him being executed anyways. I think he should have been studied, so it would have been a mournful occasion for me. I get that. Well, we can't even argue about that, but like, he escaped from prison, what, twice? Yeah, he wasn't going anywhere from this one, know. He had been in there for like nine years at that point. Yeah. He wasn't going anywhere. And but it's like I can't, I can't say they're wrong. So it's like the Bundy burgers and stuff. I'm like, it's kind of funny. And but it's also on the other side of the coin, when you think of it logically, you're like, this is still a person being killed. Like you're murdered by a state, you know? So it's like, it is weird that we celebrate death, regardless of what

is I personally understand it. Yeah. But I can see why some people don't, I suppose. Or why some people look at it as like this is still a person. Yeah. I can see both sides, I guess is what I'm saying. Okay. I find myself more on the side of like I'm not too worried about the morality of it all.

But I get it. I feel like I'm on such a roller coaster right now. Well, there's very different scenarios here because like there's public executions of like, you know, in Tudor times and all that shit. And we're so far removed from that that I think it's easier for us to be like, yeah, that's crazy. And then we see like lynchings, which are totally different. They're not sanctioned executions. These people didn't do anything wrong.

This is literally just racism. Right. That's terrifying. And that's fucking humanity at its fucking worse. But it's just like you said, it's like political and like, it's just, it's all motivated by shit. And it's like, but it's still like stirs crowds into a ruckus. There's still crowds. that will go to these things, regardless of how fucking heinous they are.

Yeah. And regardless of whether it's justified or whether, like, and again, some people might not believe that any execution is justified. I, that is totally, your opinion is valid. Yeah. I don't know. I stand in a very gray area on the death penalty. I don't.

I'm not for and I'm not against. I think that I think it's not black and white. I think there's a lot of gray. Right. I think it's a, it's like the case thing. Yeah, I see both sides. I can totally get with both sides, I get it. So it's like, there's just, it's a very odd, it's just so much thought.

If you did have to vote on it, what would your vote be? Isn't that hard? Here's the thing. I would probably say no, only because I don't trust the justice system to get it right every time. Because there has been times when people. Do I believe there are certain people who deserve to die? Yes. 100% I do. It is not a moral thing. But like you say like what if they put Damian Eccles in?

Exactly. Exactly. What was the other guy's name? Um, Jesse Miss Skelly and Jason Baldwin. Yeah. And what if all of them had died? But it came out that they didn't fucking do it. Exactly. And if there's no evidence that shows that they were in. Or like, I remember I watched like a 2020 on something like this and like the guy's twin brother did it. Yeah. But it was like. Well, and DNA testing. DNA testing is getting a lot of these people off. Yeah. Because it's like, hello. They didn't do it so it's so and that's the thing I know some people have a moral issue with it like we shouldn't kill people that's not you know I honestly I don't have that moral issue with it I think some people do deserve to die I think pedophiles deserve to die yeah I would love to be the one to pull the switch for pedophiles I really would 100% and if it was my family member fucking kill them or like anyone that kills a child you know or anyone that kills a child I want them dead yeah

and I get and it's an emotional reaction so I understand it's like not a moral thing with me. It's more the idea that they can't get it right 100% of the time, and that bothers me. Yeah. Because I don't want innocent people dying. Right. So that's where I would stand if I had like gun to my head had to make the decision. You would say no. I would think I would say no. Okay. Only because of that small margin of right. No, that's a very valid point. What would you? I would say no. Oh, okay, cool. So we're both on the same page of that. Yeah. Yeah. Because of that. Yeah. That's really the only reason. Because I do, and I also just think it's a very case-by-case thing. It is. I don't think you can say I wouldn't vote yes because I don't think yes in all

situations. I almost believe it should be like up to the victims, like family members. Oh, for a second, I don't even like up to, I like heard that wrong. I thought you meant the person. I was like, I don't think it should be. I was like, what? Hey, would you like to die? But even that would be case by case. Yeah, it's true. That's the thing. So it's like, there's really, that's why it's so gray. Your girl's stressed. So gray. Now again, are we super far, from Tudor time executions? Not at all. For Ted's execution, people arrived well before midnight, just like they did in Tudor times, because they wanted a good vantage point along the prison fence. Of course, there was nothing gruesome to see in this one, because the only real thing they could

witness was they waved a scarf from the door to signal that they did it. Yeah. Which is creepy. A guy named Craig Warren of Gainesville, Florida, held up a bed sheet that said, quote, I like my Ted well done. Oh, which I just think is creepy. For those who were hungry during this whole thing, four women from Stark sold coffee and donuts. And a man passed out electric chair lapel pins for souvenirs. Okay.

When the scarf was waived, the crowd went bonkers with cheers. And when a white hearse backed up to the prison and drove past the crowd with Bundy's body in it, the crowd went even crazier. I mean, if anybody deserved it, he did. but it was still a fucking dead body rolling past you that you're like cheering about. I don't know. It's, I again, not right or wrong. I'm just saying the idea when you go logical with it is bonkers. Yeah. But it's, it's not logic. But I think a lot of people to remove the humanity from the person. Oh, for sure. Like you don't think, no, I don't think a lot of people think of Ted Bundy as a human.

No. A lot of people don't think of any of these people as human. Right. Like even back in, you know, the executions in medieval times and all that. shit like that person was a criminal so they removed any humanity from it and whatever they did in the eyes of the onlooker was probably just so inhumane heinous that they deserve it right they broke the law so they should do it yeah it was so nuts that they um like one of the news stations asked a waitress down the road from the prison about it and she said quote this is my first one we're from texas they execute a lot of people in texas but i've never seen a crowd like this before It says something about humanity, don't it. First, her grammar tells me a lot about humanity straight off the bat.

But I do agree. Like, we're fucking savages. We really are. It does tell us a lot about humanity. Now, bringing it right up to now, we have the internet, a place where we can secretly and intimately watch whatever gore or death scenario we please, seemingly without any judgment or consequences. All you have to do is erase your history,

and you never looked at it. You know, nobody has to know. So this has just shifted the public execution into a private execution that just happens to occur in front of millions of people at any given time in their own computer areas at their house. It's still very public, but we just don't have the crowd around us

to stir us all into a frenzy. We just do it along with a loan or with a couple of friends, maybe. If you have like a cool, weird group of friends, that's like, yeah, let's totally watch this, which like, good for you. I mean, we've mentioned this, I think, in one other episode, remember rotten.com, everybody?

I'm sure all my 30-something-year-olds were rememberrodden.com. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's still around. Find any death photos you want. I seem to remember a lot of shotgun blast of the face, and a lot of people hit by trains and various other things. It was gruesome as fuck. It was gritty as fuck.

And it was real as fuck. These are real pictures. How is looking at that different from watching a dead man swing from a noose? That's not. You can find videos of horrific beheadings of journalists and civilians by the Islamic State anywhere at any time. And people watch these videos by the millions and millions. I'm talking specifically about beheadings like the ones involving innocent civilians like Nick Berg, Daniel Pearl, and Paul Johnson, an innocent foreign journalist like James Foley, Stephen Sotloff, David Haynes, Alan Henn,

Penning, Peter Cassig, Harunil Yakara, and Kenji Yoga. Those were like the ones that I think everybody recognizes those names. They've happened relatively recently. I mean, the Nick Berg, Daniel Pearl, and Paul Johnson ones were a while ago, but I watched a TED talk on this subject by an anthropologist named Francis Larson. And it's a really good one. People should go check it out. It's short, but it's like nice.

She pointed out that by watching these particular public executions, we're actually contributing to them happening in the first place. This is because when it comes to beheadings, like by extremist groups like ISIS and the like, they're putting on a show. Because they know people are going to eat it out. They know. If they wanted to just kill these prisoners,

then they would fucking do it and be done with it. No, they're putting it on the internet because they know there is a willing audience waiting to gobble up the carnage. They want it to be like theater. And when we click on it and watch it, that's what they want. That makes them do it more. It's like, but we're never going to stop. A poll taken in the UK in August 2014 estimated that about 1.2 million people in the UK alone

watched James Foley's beheadings in the first couple of days after it was posted online. The same kind of poll was taken in the U.S. in November 2014, and it found that 9% of those polled watched beheading videos online, like would watch them, did watch them, do watch them. But interestingly, 23% of people had watched the videos but stopped right before the death was shown, which I think counts for a lot of people. Because I think it's way more than 23%. I think people just don't admit it. Right. Because curiosity fucking can get you.

And you will start to watch something and then be like, oh, no. Like, why did I do this? I don't want to do this. Like, I've done that. I've gone to watch something and I'm like, what the fuck, Elena? Like, turn this off. Like, you're going to ruin yourself for days. And so I'll like dip my toe in and then I'm like, no.

I don't even go as far as dipping my toe in just because I know I personally can not handle it. Yeah. Well, and in fact, Nick Berg's beheading became the most, I think it was in 2002, I want to say. Nick Berg's beheading became the most searched for term on the internet when it happened. That's so. It was so popular that the Al-Qaeda linked website that first posted the beheading shut down because it couldn't handle all these. traffic. Take that in for a second. Someone's son had his head carved off for literally no reason on film while he screams in pain and it was the most popular search term in the United States.

That is just kind of disturbing. And again, I'm not saying that this is right or wrong. And I'm not judging anyone for what they have watched or what they do watch because I've watched weird shit. I can't judge anybody. And I don't think people who watch these things are sociopaths or sickos. I really don't. Because they're not. Like by, I mean, factually, they're not. Yeah. The most normal people sit and watch this shit. Normal people that I know that don't even like Gore get drawn into this shit. And I, when I was in high school, watched part of that Nick Berg video when it happened and that was the last beheading I needed to see in my life. You saw the whole thing? I didn't see the whole thing. I saw part of it and it was enough and I will never ever, ever again

watch one of those because I still, it is in my mind for the rest of my life. In fact, my life has seen one too many beheadings and I have only seen that one. It was horrific and it will fucking change you. But I watched some of it and I still find myself curious to see things like that when they're caught on video. It's not like it's gone away. I just know now what it is. And I know I don't want it. I don't want it in my brain.

Like I'm good. But it's still like you get that inkling of like, is it really that bad? Like how bad is it? And I find myself thinking photos are more palatable just for myself. Right. Like photos don't bother me as much. Yeah.

But like things caught on video, I feel like I think it's photos separate. me from the actual event in some weird way. But I feel like video makes me too much a part of it. Like I feel like I'm watching it as it happens, even if it happened a while ago. I feel like I'm too much there. And maybe other people feel that way. Now why?

Again, we have not evolved very much in this way. It's just simple. I can't stress that enough. Humans still maintain a base or instinct to watch pain. We just do it behind closed doors now, which is almost worse. Because at least in these crowds, scenarios, there's this element of crowd camaraderie and crowd think, like group think, that can manipulate a regular person into thinking what they're seeing is right and what they're

seeing is entertaining. When we're alone in our room staring at a screen and watching someone scream in pain as their head is carved off, we don't have the excuse of the crowd surrounding us and cheering and that energy and everything, but we do have the excuse of the invisible crowd who is definitely watching along with you. The numbers at the bottom of the videos are all you need to convince yourself that this is okay and this is something everyone does. You're watching it with the crowd. You're just alone.

I think it has to do with the person being executed as well. I think our empathy has a boundary sometimes. If it's someone that we can't find up common ground with or empathize with, we don't feel that sense of moral obligation to be disgusted by their death. it's if it's a horrible murderer then we say fucking burn bunty burn but what about these innocent people that are still watched by millions of people on the internet and pain like why is that someone a lot of people can why is that something that a lot of people can do without fucking retching well we may not even we not may not ever have a direct answer to that but there's an

interesting study that was done in 2014 and it compared acute stress levels and people who watched repeated coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings with those that were there and witnessed it firsthand. Okay. Interestingly, they found that the repeated bombing related media exposure was associated with higher acute stress than the direct exposure. So the people that watched it after the fact were more stressed than the people that were actually there. Wow. Which is like interesting when you bring it into now. Like the people who watched live executions and tutor times and all that would have a less of a stress level than us who are watching these repeated videos. Right. You know, maybe it's because we can pick them apart and dissect them and watch them

as much as we want. And of course, morbid curiosity is a real thing. It's just real. Like, when you think or read about the absolute atrocities humans can do to each other, you almost sometimes feel like you have to see it for yourself to confirm that it's real. Like, you're like, what? Right. No, like, people don't do that. Also, we all know what pain is. We have all, like, this is how, this is something I was just thinking about. We all know what pain is. We've all felt pain, like physical pain. We all know the limits that exist within our bags of flesh that we carry around on our skeletons. I believe that sometimes seeing someone else suffer through like the most unimaginable pain and suffering we could come up with, it's something we feel compelled to see

because we can't and don't want to experience that suffering. So seeing someone else's reaction to all these awful things happening to them satisfies some weird curiosity to know what happens when humans suffer through unimaginable pain and get taken to like the limits of human trauma. Like I can't experience the blood eagle, but I'm damn curious to know what the hell happens when someone else does. Like you know what I mean? No, I'm not willing to break my arm, you know, in half.

But if it ever to know what it is. Yeah. Like I want to know what it feels like. Like, I want to know what it looks like. I want to know what it, like, I'm interested. Or it's even like something as simple as that video, remember that basketball player like a few years ago? Yeah, yeah. And his leg broke through his.

That was a rough one. Like, I'm sure so many people looked that up. And that's not even like a, but it's a similar kind of. But it's still one of the, you definitely don't want that to happen to you, but you want to see what it looks like when it does happen to someone. Because you're like, I have a leg. Yeah. Like, I need to know what that looks like. I can't even look at that shit.

And I feel like that is part of it. Yeah. Like, I have. have a head. I want it attached to my body forever and always. But like, it's weird when someone else gets taken off of their body. Again, I don't ever want to watch a badding video ever. But again, I get why people do. According to Alexander J. Skolnik, who is a PhD and an assistant psychology professor at St. Joseph's University, quote, the evolutionary idea is, what's functional about disgust, it keeps us safe.

Rotten food has a sour, bitter flavor, and that's a cue to us. We spit it out. Right. The weird taste, the nasty smell, it makes you not want to eat things that are going to hurt you and make you sick. So photos and videos of bad shit happening to people kind of served the same purpose. Uh-huh. That's a really good analogy. So Skolnik often kicks off one of his psychology classes by telling students not to Google image search, recluse spider bite.

Of course they all do. I'll do it. Because they're like, what the fuck is it? I want to know what that is. Like, you want to know, so you fucking avoid it. Like, you don't want that. He says, he says, quote, sometimes we're disgusted when we see someone with red rashes or welts.

We don't want to stand next to them. That disgust keeps us safe from contagious elements. Mm-hmm. So he also compares Googling gross gore and shit to just watching a scary movie, a horror movie. You know, I was thinking that the whole fucking time, I like almost said it so many times. Exactly. You should have. Because the whole point. is you get to scare the shit out of yourself in a completely controlled secure environment.

You're not the one in danger. But in the internet makes this even more of a safe environment. It's so funny because I was fucking thinking that the whole time. I wish I said it. You should have because if you see something horrific, you just X out of it and boom, it's gone. You never have to be there again. And no one needs to know you even looked at it. But it's like, why do we watch scary movies?

Like we want to be scared. But we like the physiological reaction of being scared. Yeah, it's fucking crazy. Yeah. In fact, this is what I was just going to get into. So we like disgust and being scared and all that good stuff. When it's not happening to us. Which Clark Macaulay, Ph.D.

and a psychology professor at Bryn-Mar College said, quote, it's similar to why people go on roller coasters. You feel fear, even though you know you're safe. You get a big arousal value out of them. Arousal has a positive component. that's what it is. It's a physiological response that feels good and you are safe. You are not part of it. So people looking at these executions, they're not being executed. It's not happening to them. Right. But they're getting that like jolt of like, and as a final note to this long discussion, I wonder how long

this is going to be. Maybe it's our own mortality and how scared we are of death. I mean, no matter who we are, death is unknown to us. We have not experienced it yet. We don't know what it is. So maybe we need to see it to try to understand it in some way. Like it makes us feel like we're starting, we can understand it. Or seeing someone else die, you feel better about the fact that someday you are going to die. Can I give you my final thought? Yes. This was way too heavy for you to put me through in the state that I am in.

Sorry. You know that I'm going to go home tonight and cry because of this. You're going to have an existential crisis. I'm literally having one right now. I hope I didn't give anyone else an existential. I think you might have. I thought this was very, I could have gone even further with this. No, I'm half joking because I probably am going to cry later.

But this one, no, about this too. Yeah. It was so stressful. It's heavy. But no, that was, this was like a really good episode. Yeah. Like, this is, this topic, I could have gone so much longer with it. Like, I swear this could have been like a four hour podcast.

I'm glad you didn't because I am, like, like, certain things, like, I mean, the, like, beheadings during, like, King Henry the 8th and all that. that could be like a whole thing in itself. Oh, easily. Lynchings could be a whole thing in itself, but that would be a very heavy episode. But it's important to tell it. It is. And, yeah, a lot of these things can be their own thing, but I wanted to touch upon as many parts of history as I could without stretching this.

You did a really good job on that. Thank you. Like, for real. This was like a, like a thesis. A thesis. This was my thesis. Can I take this stuff fair home with me to as you can? So that was my

I'm doing air quotes mini episode on public executions. It's over an hour. It was a good job. And you know what I'm just going to say to you? If you want to follow us on Instagram because I want this to be over so badly, you can do so at

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We're just going to try to compile like a, um, episode where we read your stories. I think that would just be so much fun. Because we've got to, we've, we've received a ton of stories lately. But keep sending us more. Yeah, because we want to make full episodes out of them. And if you want to donate to the Patreon,

you can do so at Patreon.com slash morbid podcast. All donations are funding my Van Jari's thing right now. Thank you. Honestly, your donations are making this podcast able to happen and able to happen multiple times a week. So without you guys, doing that, we would not be able to do this. So we truly appreciate it. Thank you. It's,

it is so, I've said it so many times. It still blows our mind that people are helping us. Like, thank you for helping us. It's so overwhelming. And being so generous. And in a good way. Yeah. It is. No, it's overwhelmingly like humbling. Yeah, no, totally. It really is. 100%. And if you want to, what haven't I told you to do? Oh, if you want to look at our website that my lovely co-house so greatly designed, you can do so at Heyo, morbidpodcast.com, minus the hayo. Thank you for listening, and we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you're really stressed out right now

and you don't know where to go with your life and you Google some weird shit, but like we're not judging you if you do. I don't have a lot to say at the end of this. Goodbye. Bye. to nap. Hope everyone's okay. Bye.