Viewing certain things on the internet feels like witnessing a horrible accident—you want to turn your eyes away, yet for some reason, you simply can’t. Be it a horror movie or a picture of a fashion disaster, it might be difficult to explain why people are often drawn to the scary things in life.
An impressive collection of horrifying images can be found on the subreddit fittingly titled ‘Creepy’. Created “for all things creepy”, in their own words, the community shares everything from eerie doodles, to paintings, pictures, and other types of visuals. We have gathered some of them here today for you to browse, but do it at your own risk—some of them can be pretty disturbing.
In order to better understand how viewing creepy content affects us and why we do it, Bored Panda turned to Adjunct Associate Professor of Neurology at Indiana University, neuroscientist Shirley M. Mueller, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. You will find her thoughts in the text below.