When Do We Look Away?

On vicariously living while the whole world dies.

Hi,

The first time I saw something that made me recoil on the internet was a visit to Rotten.com.

The clue was in the name — but the internet was a new thing to me in the 90s, and no-one really knew what the hell was going on. But somehow I found myself on a website boasting “pure evil since 1996”, featuring nothing but horrific photos of horrific things.

This is not me, but it is another generic acne-prone white man online in the 90s.

In the wild west of the early internet some argued that it was trying to make a point about free speech — but really it was there for no other reason than to mindlessly and pointlessly shock teenagers like me with police crime scene photos, death and destruction.

It was the first website to publish people jumping from the Twin Towers, humans choosing to fall to their death rather than burn. The site simply called them “Swan Dive.”

The thing is, photos like those would end up being collectively etched into all of our brains, far beyond Rotten.com. There was a documentary, and Elton John purchased one of the most famous images for his art collection, telling CBS news:

“It’s the most beautiful image of something so tragic. It’s probably one of the most perfect photographs ever taken. It’s not a shot that a lot of people probably would want to hang on their wall. And we’ve never hung it on our wall.”

The journalist asked Elton if he had any reservations about his interest in the piece.

“No, because this is an historical event. It’s as important as the naked girl running down the road in Vietnam, and I have that. The little boy in Syria recently, just sitting there on the chair? I desperately want that photograph. And we’re trying to get it.”

Elton John showing CBS reporter David Morgan his art collection.

Throughout my 20s and 30s there were moments I took pause to wonder about some of the images that were becoming more accessible, and our reasons for watching.

At some point during the 2010s I watched one of the Isis beheading videos. It’s hard to explain if you weren’t deeply entrenched in internet culture, but there were certain things that were just suddenly available, and that fact alone seemed reason enough to partake (this, for the record, was a very terrible reason).

To this day, I wish I hadn’t watched that video.

As Graeme Wood wrote in The Atlantic, “I watched Isis videos and felt my soul diminished.”

“After years of reporting on violence, one worries about numbness. All carnage, all the time. If you live like this too long, it can warp your view of the world.”

I was reminded of those videos while making Dark Tourist for Netflix. Part of that series saw me in the UK at Littledean Jail, an incredibly bad taste museum which was basically Rotten.com brought to life. There was an entire space referred to as “The Isis Room” — and it featured nothing but videos and screenshots from those videos.

It never made it into the series. In a show about ethically dubious tourist endeavors, it was simply too bleak.

---

Here in 2024, I’ve been thinking about what goes into my brain again recently, and more importantly why things are going into my brain.

I’ve been wondering about when to look closer, and when to look away.

When to bear witness to the world, and when to shut it off.

So much of this comes down to intent. Seeking out some kind of immature shock, just to tweak that strange part of the human brain that has to leer at a car crash is one thing. The Rotten.com mentality of a stupid kid online.

But then there is that other aspect of needing to bear witness to certain horrors: Horrors that are unfolding in real time in front of us. To not just sit in our own privilege and pretend innocent people aren’t being slaughtered in the tens of thousands.

We need to be aware so that we know we need to help.

Which raises another question: How much do we watch, and what is that doing to us?

It’s here I hand things over to trauma and bereavement counselor Ross Palethorpe — because he’s been thinking about this too.

David.

---

The Flood

by Ross Palethorpe.

For most of human history, images of atrocity and human suffering were either seen first hand or not at all. The Bayeux tapestry with its dissociating Normans looking impassive as they’re hacked to death do little to convey the full horror of an early Mediaeval battlefield.

We can read accounts of pyramids of heads outside the ruined cities of Mongol conquest, but it’s hard to fully imagine the collective terror and grief it represents. 

The Bayeaux Tapestry on display, showing the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

Our ability to not just write an account but show others what’s taking place over the horizon is less than 180 years old, a notable early example being when two British photographers disinterred and arranged the bodies of Indian fighters following the Indian rebellion in 1857 in order to report back on British superiority in quelling dissent. 

Since then, the use of photography and film to document war and suffering has been a crucial tool in propaganda, subversion, punishment and education. German civilians were shown footage of the concentration camps by Allied forces as part of Denazification efforts. Nick Ut’s “The Terror Of War” won him a Pulitzer, a censorship battle with his publisher, and accusations of fake news from Richard Nixon, for showing the world the horrors of Vietnam in a single photograph of a terrified, burning child. 

Ironically, the photo was briefly removed by Facebook in 2016, before a challenge by the government of Norway reinstated it along with the statement "the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal". 

In the last 20 years, social media has exposed horrors in a way that would have been unthinkable in the 20th century. 

In 2009, former British prime minister Gordon Brown reflected: "You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken”, a statement that would be laughable in it’s naivety if the subject of genocide wasn’t so bleak and so current.

Since 2009, our access to atrocity seems to be as limitless as our powerlessness to prevent it. We catch footage of unimaginable suffering on our phones in between recipes and photos of Uncle Steve’s pet cat. In a sea of deepfakes, passive-voiced news reports and politicians determined to look the other way, it can feel like a revolutionary act of compassion to seek out what’s really happening.

We’re told it is our job to bear witness, to not let their suffering be in vain. At times, that exhortation takes on an almost aggressive edge. That by being overwhelmed, or looking away, we are complicit in these acts, even condone them. 

So we watch, trapped in a flood of suffering we are incapable of understanding and powerless to stop. 

At what point though, do we cross the line from bearing witness to the trauma of others to turning on ourselves? We can move from a state of empathy to what academics describe as “empathic overarousal”, where our empathy for the situations of others creates distress in us, to the point that we become overwhelmed by it. This can create a sense of paralysis, powerlessness and despair - or detachment and even cynicism as a way to shield ourselves. 

Lots of us are familiar with the “fight or flight” response to trauma, but the “freeze/flop/fawn” responses are equally debilitating. Freezing and flopping, for example, are the dissociation, numbness, and helplessness in the face of something we can’t stop. 

Frontline healthcare workers are taught about the risks these responses can present in our ability to work with our clients, and how to manage our exposure to vicarious trauma to prevent it from swallowing us. The line from caring enough about others that we act and caring so much we’re overcome is both fine and constantly shifting. 

I work in trauma and bereavement counselling, and so my working life is one of hearing about the pain and grief of others. It requires full concentration, care and attention for the person in front of me, and also a constant monitoring and awareness of how the work affects me. I quickly realised when I started doing this work that once I crossed the line into empathic overarousal, I became almost useless. 

After one particularly intense week a few months ago, I found myself practically incapacitated. I couldn’t focus. Loud noises, or too many demands on my attention bordered on painful. I was both exhausted and wired, endlessly ruminating on what my clients were going through, what I was going through, my feelings of powerlessness in the face of it all. What was the point of doing anything if I couldn’t fix everything? 

After one particularly bleak late night staring at the ceiling, I thought “The world is too cruel”, a thought that hinted at the abyss. I recognised that I’d crossed the line, that I needed to pull back. I connected with my family and friends, talked out how I was feeling, took my dogs to the beach. It wasn’t the job of my clients to take care of my wellbeing by shielding their experiences from me, but if I wanted to actually support them, I needed to take better care of myself. 

So what can we do? When I work with people who are in this state (or recognise it in myself), I offer permission to scale back exposure. We can’t be on the front line all the time. Reconnecting with ourselves and those around us in meaningful ways, doing something actively positive for others, uninstalling whatever app is causing the most harm for a few days. Granting ourselves the chance to be more than an observer. 

Empathy drives prosocial behaviour. It’s the reason why many of us donate money and time to causes we care about. It’s what compels us to take to the streets, write to MPs, post on social media, have hard conversations. But if all we’re doing is absorbing the trauma of others, we can end up as emotional casualties.

We can’t mitigate harm done to others if we’re hurting too much ourselves. 

-Ross Palethorpe.