The Conversation revealed that the reason we are often enthralled with something repulsive lies in the early stages of human evolution. It is believed that disgust originally mostly concerned food and helped people evaluate when it has become a source of danger. Its pungent smell or off-putting appearance let them know it was better not to touch it.

That is why people learned to pay attention to it. And eventually, certain things that seemed disgusting became captivating as well. In addition to that, viewing certain abhorrent things became somewhat satisfying due to the human tendency of enjoying constraint risks, also known as benign masochism.

When it comes to disgust, it’s not only the palpable things that repel us. Similarly to safeguarding ourselves from physical danger, we tend to save ourselves from what we find morally alarming as well. 

The neuroscientist Aditi Subramaniam covered this idea in Psychology Today. “Indeed, there is considerable overlap in the brain regions that govern both 'core' disgust and moral disgust,” she wrote. “When something provokes core disgust, our reaction is to get our bodies as far away from it as possible, to minimize the chances of contamination or infection. Similarly, scientists have suggested that when something disgusts us on a moral level, we tend to want to protect our 'souls' from contamination by staying away.”

The online world is an inexhaustible source for those who enjoy viewing rather gruesome content. The ‘Make Me Suffer’ subreddit alone has gathered over a million members since its creation in 2018. And that’s just one example.

Unsurprisingly, such content as well as some horrific trends have attracted plenty of attention from the online community, whether it’s videos of people popping pimples, eating something gross, or something else completely.

But it’s not only the disgusting things we can’t seem to look away from; scary material can captivate people’s attention just as well. Take horror movies, for instance. How many times have you seen someone peeping at the screen through their fingers? Chances are, they know something horrifying is about to happen, yet they choose to witness it nevertheless. 

According to Frontiers In Psychology, it is related to the build-up and the resolution of suspense. The build-up in horror movies is typically based on negative elements, such as anxiety, stress, or horror. Caused by something atrocious, they emphasize the juxtaposition of the positive effects the resolution of suspense brings.

Some people who love horror movies are often terrified nevertheless, as fear is not easily manageable. (Readers who have fears related to any of the listed images can attest to that.) Similarly to disgust, it is a survival instinct based on responding to a perceived threat. However, the things we identify as threats differ from person to person. That is why something that’s terrifying to some can evoke no reaction from others.

In some cases, excessive fear might actually be a phobia—a debilitating sense of anxiety caused by a specific object, situation, or feeling. The National Institute of Mental Health revealed that nearly 13% of Americans experience a certain phobia at some point in their lives. 

Phobias are classified based on the source of the anxiety. They include animals, the natural environment, blood, injection, and injury, situations, and other types. Some believe there are as many as 500 different kinds of phobias.

When it comes to the most common phobias, Very Well Mind distinguishes the following ten: arachnophobia (spiders), ophidiophobia (snakes), acrophobia (heights), aerophobia (flying), cynophobia (dogs), astraphobia (thunder and lightning), trypanophobia (injections), social phobia (social interactions), agoraphobia (places or situations that are difficult to escape), mysophobia (germs, dirt, and other contaminants).