I opened every door. Absolutely no regrets and was more happy than I should've been because I am a lore goblin being fed scraps of symbolism and theory-fuel everytime I open a new one.
I feel that way when I can't help myself from clicking a trending topic I know I will hate, just to find out what ridiculous things people are saying about it. There's no real benefit for me, just making myself annoyed/frustrated
@@carlybarly7817 Honestly, social media is fun if you know how to keep away from stressful/ controversial topics etc. It has been for me at least. Oh and blocking people too, it helps a ton.
I should stop my curiosity to opens comments debate in RU-vid, reddit, fb, and others. I know I would only get frustrated by the stupidity of the debate or upset by the point of arguments, but somehow, even I don't like it, my brain always tempted to check it. And thats the devil cycle.
We have many sayings about this. Curiosity killed the cat, ignorance is bliss, etc. I'm reminded of this documentary about the search for missing children (I don't recall the name but the subject matter is fairly common so it shouldn't be the only one), how parents would never give up, and would beg that if anyone knows anything, no matter how little, no matter if it is bad news, to please tell them, they need the closure of knowing the truth. The part that will forever stay with me was, months later, when they interviewed again a lone mother after she'd learned the worst possible news, is that she told them that she wishes she'd stayed ignorant and could continue the search, she wished that she could continue to have hope, instead of getting that closure. What that parent wanted wasn't the truth regardless of whether it was good or bad for them, they wanted the truth but only if it was good. Otherwise they'd rather believe a lie. To bring this back to Omori and the study, I think that people aren't so much curious about what noise could be under the mystery boxes or what horrible secret may hide behind the doors, but rather they're hoping that it'll be a pleasant surprise. Maybe they'll find a box that says "you win $10" or maybe one of the doors has a character who explains the whole plot to you or something like that. I don't have much to base this on, but I figure part of what makes the Pandora Effect result in misery is that participants often face the disappointing reality of a truth they already knew in the first place but hoped wasn't real. It gives them false hope and makes them feel dumb for daring to believe in it. Anyway great vid as always. I enjoy the darker and more existential stuff you make but I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea. Looking forward to the next vids!
JMH, I've written so many characters like that, because it feels so real. It's an amazing concept, and I love the power of denial as a literary device. For the record, I never went through all the black doors in Omori. I'm of the belief that it's healthiest to let repressed memories stay repressed, which influenced my decision not to swim deeper into Black Space, for the health of Sunny. I left when I could, but I did come back there to "get all the content" on a second playthrough.
I completely agree, it's the hope that even though we went through 100 doors with more of the same inside, that maybe this one would be different. We just can't let this nagging feeling of uncertain possibility. We want to know if the cat's dead or alive in the box, silently hoping it's the latter. I'd say it's like loot boxes even.
On the other side, I've heard about parents who just wanted to know what happened to their missing child even if it was terrible, that hoping became exhausting and they couldn't take it anymore, and the unmistakable relief they felt after the closure, that at least it was over. It reminded me of this quote, "Do you know what torture by hope is? After despair, calm sets in, but hope can drive you mad." And another "Hope, in reality, is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man"
A big point of omori is to make you understand what it's like to be depressed like the main character was so it makes sense that there would be a lot of effort into making the player unsettled or depressed enough to make a point. The game never ceases to amaze me by how many metaphors and "show over tell" details it has.
@@Homodemon Yeah, I totally agree. I was just talking about the depression aspects. I think it deals a lot with psychosis and dissociation from trauma as well.
You played yourself, bud. I didn't click on the video wanting to know what was behind the door in Omori, I clicked wanting to know what relevant psych research you were going to discuss. And I walked away satisfied! Hahahahahahaha!!!!!
same lol I didn't even remember that we hadn't gotten an answer on what was behind the door because I just assumed it was more of the same (that was the whole point of the video) :P
I open the door because: 1. I paid for the game and I'm going to see everything it has to offer 2. It is liberating to enact these sometimes morbid, " what would happen if I..." moments in games because we are not able to do so IRL without often severe consequences
Validating an experience because you paid for it doesn't change the fact that it was a bad decision you willingly obliged out of thoughtless principle. This alone is an unhealthy closed minded sentiment. The second bulletin is a much better, less petty logic that actually justifies your first point. They should go hand in hand. Engaging your morbid curiosity with little practical consequence is precisely this game's selling point and I think that is what makes videos and channels like this so successful. By all means indulge your bad habits, as long as you do so with agency and caution.
From what I have seen of omori, seeing the red door I probably would have gone through all the doors available because I'd feel like it's a trick, you can't just do freely escape that kind of pain just by exposing yourself to some, and need to withstand ALL to actually confront the truth hidden within the game itself
@@SimonWoodburyForget maybe, but it's that feeling of having to confront the problems, confront the fears, and face every one of them that makes that part of the story interesting. I understand that not everyone feels that way, but for me, all the doors need to be opened or else you really can't progress forward and overcome the trauma that they symbolize
I wonder why we have morbid curiosity in the first place. It seems like it might be a dangerous survival habit to hold. Cognitive dissonance aside, it seems like it'd worry me to try and figure it out because of the uncertainty of it being potentially dangerous to me. I do notice that when I watch things like them, however, that I just feel... different. Like I feel I am constantly thinking about what I'd do much like mentioned in the video. Humans really have a hard time dealing with uncertainty. I think that's the crux of it. I wonder if people who are comfortable with uncertainty would have greater happiness.
That’s a solid question. You’d think that in some cases, yes, people who are comfortable being out of the loop would be happy right? Ignorance is bliss after all haha. But from a evolutionary survival perspective? I think that’s why there aren’t many folks like that.
I think it could have something to do with what we know we fear and what we don't know. Thinking about this question reminded me of that famous H.P. Lovecraft saying "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." We fear most what we don't understand, so by trying to look at something and try to understand it, we might lessen the fear to it.
@@DarylTalksGames yeah i guess you're right. But at the same time those who purposefully avoid the news and social media knowing full well about what they're missing seem to actively be more stable and less anxiety prone. And I've known people who just intake it from friends and family and grape vines, usually tending toward less extreme reactions and usually very down to earth instead of constantly killing themselves with stress and worry
Why is it bad survival habit? Isn't it better to be aware of how bad stuff can happen so you can protect you from them? Its a good instinct but it can be manipulated for bad ends(as anything can be).(Just like sex sells,doesn't mean that sex itself is bad)
I don't know what watermelon basil means and I know I will likely suffer if choose to resolve this query. 😭😭 I am going to be the better man and leave this Pandora's box alone. Thanks for the lesson Daryl. 😂
The Mewo scene was the most traumatizing for me. After 4 or 5 dialogues, I kept going "yes, yes, yes, come on, hurry up, give me the key." And then when there was no key inside, I saw the stab option. I missed the symbolism of "this is how people come to the decision that committing suicide is the easiest way out" and instead was left with the shock of how callous I was to be so easily comfortable with cutting open a defenseless cat, just to complete an escape room challenge. 😢
I sure don't regret opening this door At some point of this video, when talking about the no mercy Undertale playthrough I think, I was reminded of how some Dark Souls players have the habit of killing of every NPC in the game before entering NG+ because then they will be resetted anyway.
A+ video as usual. Keep it up. My heart skipped when I saw myself in the credits :D I remember getting skipped on a video so hearing my name called out was pretty cool. Thank you :) I'm curious what the difference would be for positive images or sounds. Compare something negative with something positive and I beleive the results would be different. I've never been one to 100% most games, however, when it comes to story-based games (such as Omori) I will do everything I can to uncover the story, not because it's necessarily negative, but because the positive effects of having the complete story are valuable to me. I grew up on Legend of Zelda and I loved doing side quests (never to 100% completion though), however, I noticed when I played Skyward Sword, I rushed to the end. The romance in this game was so valuable that I felt like time was ticking away, every moment I wasted on a quest was a moment Zelda spent suffering. The reason I opened all the doors in Omori, I feel, wasn't because I was satiating some morbid curiosity, but because I felt like Omori needed to experience these locked away memories in order to heal. This is not an argument against morbid curiosity, because that's undoubly a thing. I'm just curious if morbid curiosity would outweigh wholesome curiosity.
Great question! So in the image study, they actually did a few variations. One included positive images in the mix. To wildly over simplify it, the positive images were picked *slightly* more often than the negative. But on a whole, BOTH negative and positive were preferred over neutral images in both cases. My take is that it’s emotion that draws us to look. Even if that emotion is disgust, it’ll still get us to take a peek just like wholesome intrigue will.
@@DarylTalksGames why didn't say that in ur video? everyone is under the impression that the study compared one thing only, and I even wrote a comment about how the study is low quality if it only compared negative to neutral, anyway it's a great video but it still has selection bias which isn't necessarily bad for a youtube video. Problem is, in this afe people are willing to take their science from such sources
black space was a cool and creative way to represent intrusive thoughts one might shove down. i loved it. i was terrified but thrilled during that sequence. sorry you didnt have a great experience with it
"Don't open the door, Denji." But seriously, I really like the way the Horror in Omori is linked to curiosity. [potential SPOILERS] If I think about it, you can avoid most scares in this game if you simply avoid it and don't look any deeper. You don't have to open most doors, you never have to look in a mirror. You don't have to go through the lost forest or wake up again when you don't need to. You don't have to question anything and can just ignore it. But in this case that may lead you down a path of denial and dissociation. Not opening a door could be a crucial decision or mistake. You are supposed to look into the uneasy since something is clearly wrong and even if it will scare you, it may make you understand and allow you to overcome. And at the end, you can be rewarded for it. "The end of this journey will lead to suffering... but if you do not face this you cannot continue."
@@moon_girl1047 Yeah it's the ambigious voice you hear after Humphrey right before returning to the beginning of the game. Just like the coral tree, it feels like it's the direct subconcious of Sunny speaking.
"Do not search for what you don't want to find" I think that quote really represents human nature, like, it's almost hilarous to see how despite having evolved to prevail survival, we as human beings still take many decisions that are objectively terrible just for the sake of stuff like curiosity. It's even kinda creepy to realize how fragile we are just bc we're humans ngl
Part of it may be group survival over personal survival. We know that on a personal level if things go wrong we could easily die or be hurt by things we don't understand. But if things work in our favor, if we learn, if we continue to look into things, if we get as much knowledge as possible on a situation, we may be able to use that information for our wider communities. We're very social creatures.
Another amazing video! Though to be honest, my first thought when you presented the study with buttons was "Ah damn, there's so many buttons to uncover, and it's just the same two sounds. I guess I'd just play the water sound repeatedly until I die from laughing or get bored", but then you showed the second button board and my completionist instinct kicked in. "There's only four unknown ones, nooo, the board isn't complete, let me just- lemme click them so that the board would be fully uncovered like it's meant to be". In this case it wouldn't be my curiosity, but rather my need for things to be "complete" or "matching". And in the second board, it was *so close* to being completed. In the same vein, when you said that the results were that participants clicked on the first board more, my immediate thought was "duh obviously the second one has less stuff to uncover"
I think in the unknown board I would click until I encountered the first water sound, or wouldn't click at all. In the nearly-complete board though, I fully agree, I would click the hell out of these 4 buttons so it's done lol
In the first one, I'd click a single water, then stim my way through the remaining 4m56s. Maybe turn it into a soundboard to make some improv music if the sounds didn't overlap. In the second one, I had an irresistible urge to click the four ?s.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet but the Seeking Mr Eaten's Name questline in Fallen London is a great example of making use of morbid curiosity to drive players to a self-destructive end
Or the ritual you can perform in Cultist Simulator which calls itself “a beautiful and terrible magic”, and literally does nothing but kill a random character on the board if you cast it.
Well... If I'm petitioned to choose between a picture with lots of things going on about in it (the picture with riot and many people) and a simple picture of a kettle that hasn't got many more details, obviously I'm gonna choose the more detailed picture
I was thinking this as well. Maybe the people in the study could have chosen the more busy image because if u look at a person putting mail in a mailbox that’s very easy to figure out what’s happening. If it’s a whole scene it’s harder to make out so they would want to look at it closer.
yea exactly!! obviously not discounting that morbid curiosity exists, but i think other factors r always in play. personally, i kept thinking about how much more interesting the composition of the negative pictures were compared to neutral lmao
@@justas423 Yeah, adding Positive images may change the results a bit. For instance, would you rather look at [insert gruesome thing here] or an adorable fluffy kitty?
There's a big difference, in my opinion, between the study and the doors, and I say this as one who opened every door and, before you revealed the result of the study, turned out to be an exception (I would press none of them): Exploring a game allowed me to explore more about Omori, even if it's ultimately more of the same it's a different faucet of the same trauma. Two buttons that play two sounds you know are just that: it's something you know. There's no need, in my opinion, to take the risk. Denying myself further exploration of Black Space held no advantage, and I certainly didn't regret knowing more.
It concerns me that I recognised that door, OMORI makes the cutest thing eerie and the most normal thing cute! Thank you for reading my TED talk on my fear of doors
Yeah I consider it an important meditative step to get over this effect. You can watch a dozen videos, play a hundred dodgy games, read a thousand sus comments, but at a certain point, you will be able to see the signs. Not because of your ability to see through lies, but because they advertise exactly what you're getting into, and you need to accept that going forward means choosing a future where you looked for no good reason. People eventually stop looking. Just as curiosity seems impossible to resist, so is trauma and prejudice. That's why BEFORE you get to that extreme, you need to be able to get a handle on your own need to know, and decide whether you're getting to know something worth knowing.
Ooh, another great OMORI video! Kinda glad to see that this game still has its grip on you, lol. The entirety of the Black Space section is basically a giant pandora's box; the game even tells you that the journey you're on "will lead to suffering", and for the sake of the plot/story it's necessary, but morbid curiosity has a lot to do with it, too, hence Black Space itself being full of weird secrets you have to go out of your way to find. In some playthroughs I've seen people fully explore it, but in others they try to get out as quickly as they can. It's neat seeing how different people feel toward it! I checked every door when I played and it almost wasn't worth making myself feel even worse, but I'm still kinda glad I did? It's hard to describe, but since finishing the game, I've come to appreciate Black Space a lot more. Mostly because of what it represents. OH! And I loved all the ed edd n' eddy clips, lol.
If given a few milliseconds to decide priority, and you are given an image of a disaster, or something neutral, it almost always makes sense to learn more about the disaster..... What typically requires more care, or thought to deal with? What's a higher complexity situation? What's more dangerous? Though even for same degree complexity, an obviously dangerous creature in the bed is often more immediately "interesting" than a sexy partner in said bed. Also, go stare at a boring screen for 5 minutes, and see what your curiosity drives you to do.... Opening the mystery box was excitement in a boring situation whereas clicking on boring buttons when you already understand what they do is less exciting than mystery buttons with a 50% chance of being one thing or the other
That was actually one of my questions about the study. A picture of a phone on a table, or a flower in a vase, is less interesting than the other. You see it, and you know what it is. The other though, has more details to investigate. I can't help but wonder if they controlled for this - what would a case where you saw, say, a dead animal, but then the other photo was are complicated scene of a celebration or a birthday party, turn out to result in for selections?
To me it makes perfect sense. As an animal trying to survive, learning about dangerous and threatening things prepares you to be more ready when something hypothetically goes down involving you. Curiosity is just a manifestation of our primitive survival instinct and I don't think it's a negative thing unless it attracts social judgement to you.
I have done that. When I heard about, say, a disturbing comic, I had to look it up. I had to look at it several times, even when it made me viscerally uneasy. It was like an itch. I needed to do that to let it go. Otherwise, my thoughts kept coming back to it. It always felt like an assertion that the "danger" was there but under control. I will say, though, that I am convinced I would not have clicked any buttons on the first board. I am honestly surprised. The sound of water is nice, but not possibly-hear-nails nice.
Two of the situations you talked about and expanded upon, Paper Mario and Undertale, with the book and genocide run, I actively chose not to let curiosity drive me. I felt fulfilled having finished both of them, without needing to open either's door. I have definitely caved into curiosity, and felt the pain of regret, but I find it interesting that two of the examples you brought up just so happened to be ones that I actively chose against curiosity. Also, I did eventually read the book from Paper Mario when I was replaying the game with my sibling. I think I was more inclined to do it because I had an audience at the time, but I won't deny that the curiosity was a bit stronger that time around.
For me, I kept going through all the doors in Omori because I was looking for clues. Clues to whatever was truly haunting Sunny and Basil. Little did I realize the whole point was to show that there were no answers to be found. Omori wouldn’t allow it to happen. I still remember the last door I went through with the shadow figure saying, “ your not my son anymore”. For some reason that haunts me more than anything.
My favorite morbid curiosity moment in gaming is Monster Houses in Mystery Dungeon. You look in a room, you see there's a crapload of items in there as bait for an ambush, and you have to decide whether you're willing to fight the inevitable ambush of like 20 guys. (The answer is usually no)
I felt the same way, had to open every door before leaving. I knew that I wanted the morbidity but on the other hand I felt so receptive to this powerfull energy that the game was projecting towards me. Maybe this was going to be a lesson in level design and how to project a powerfull ambiance for the player. After doing what I thought I had to do with Mewo, I was slapped by emptiness and stopped playing for about 5 minutes... Just analysing what just happened and how... After that, all the shame surrounding that morbid curiosity was gone... I was in full learning mode 😬
....oddly enough, i clicked on this video because i was certain i was going to be getting a good observation about how things in games can be carefully used to evoke certain reactions in players. I was right. And i am very happy about it. Pandora's Box.... hmmm. Don't forget. Hope was still inside the box even after all else had gone.
JUST FINISHED THIS GAME, loved it. i didnt find that section as impactful, though i was listening to music and always followed the footsteps immediately. though the red door area affected me. i immediately went through the red door.
i think you're right but at the same time i think that the function of curiosity, in the context of the symbolism omori was going for with that sequence, is that curiosity can also be what keeps us alive. instead of immediately taking the way out, you went through every door in hopes that you'd find something different. sometimes you're perfectly fine and you don't need to go looking for more reasons to be upset, but sometimes just the fact that you didn't give up looking, even if all you find is more and more bleakness, is actually the better outcome. because it means that you're still holding on to hope that things might change and that leaving (or dying, as the metaphor suggests) isn't the best option even if it seems so.
This was such a neat video!! The editing was pretty much spot-on! I’ve never played Omori, but seeing how this game worked psychologically was really interesting! Great work! 👍
I actually really enjoyed the rooms going through them, I really love over saturated blues and reds and eye bleeding colors and meshes of semi surrealist work with the kinda vent art feel
Sometimes morbid curiosity is necessary so that you can know what you’re dealing with. Not always, obviously, but sometimes it’s better to look the monster (or the severe bodily harm) in the face so that it’s not mysterious anymore and you might be able to deal with it (your results may vary).
I don't regret playing it. it was one of the biggest experiences i had with a videogame, mostly because i didn't get any spoilers (As i usually do with these kind of games). But man. It does hurt a lot in the heart.
black space was torturous for you? personally, i found it interesting. learning more about the character's psyche more and more, the things he buries so deep within his dream like paradise
eh, the only truly disturbing door in Omori is the one where SPOILERS you have to murder the cat to leave, the worst part is that later a friend told me you could just stab yourself and avoid killing the cat
For Omori, it wasn't (only) curiosity that made me open the door, it was just pure logic. I knew what were the themes and what was the message the game wanted to give to the player as it was said multiple times before this dark room: you will have to face the truth, and you will have to face suffering and endure it if you want to progress, if you want to move on. But it's funny that, after a few rooms, you become a bit insensitive to this horror as you clearly know you are in a nightmare... but a nightmare that is necessary to the personnal journey of the main character. And, what do you know, opening all the doors and facing its contents were indeed necessary for having the best ("secret") ending =D But it's true that we, human beings, have and always had some sort of morbid curiosity.
Actually, the only requirement for the secret ending cutscene from what I know it’s just watering basil dream plants at least 3 times, but it would be cool if the black spaces doors thing was true
I think this propensity for violence is written into our very being, from which something like morbid curiosity makes sense to me. I think it's your responsibility to protect yourself from it at the point it actually affects you negatively, like how true crime youtubers need a break from all the dark shit or how on even the biggest gore hounds need a break from those types of pages sometimes. Protect yourself and know yourself.
Hell, imageboards might be the main exponent on how being irresponsible by satisfying those violent urges again and again might bring us closer to being just beasts that know how to form sentences on a keyboard. The amount of gore threads on /b/ and the depraved responses there might just be edgy trolling, but the more you indulge on it, the lesser it affects you as it should on a human level. You become insensitive to misfortune and decay. And what for? Is it our need to protect ourselves against despair and fear? Exposing ourselves to heinous stuff to make ourselves feel strong so nothing can hurt us? Or is it us, fetishizing what "strong" means for bragging rights later? It makes me think about how little children are prone to brag about being "hardcore" and not wincing at violent or horror movies and how, as intrinsically helpless individuals, that fact makes them feel more mature. I wonder if even as adults, we still have that quality to us... And that's what makes people want to become numb and seek the negative in the world to gawk at.
Wonderful video! I couldn’t help think about the real world doors in Omori too during this video. (Spoilers maybe?) The first time you hear a knock on the door, you can make a choice to open it or not it, but if you do you are met with part of Sunny’s trauma and a jumpscare for the player. Obviously going outside is scary for Sunny. Keeping the door shut is safer for him. The second time you hear a knock, you don’t have to open it. It might be the same awful thing again or worse, but still there’s that wonder that maybe it’s not this time. And ultimately opening the door kickstarts everything for Sunny and leads to so much being discovered, for better or worse. Basically, I love this game and its storytelling. EDIT: I forgot… there’s one more door you have the choice to open or not. Basil’s room. The game starts and ends with these choices and goddamn this amazing game and it’s doors…
That's something that fascinated me. I watched my sister and my brother play through the beginning of omori, and while my brother hesitated for a solid minute before turning away when Mari knocked, my sister IMMEDIATELY opened it without even thinking. It's cool to see how different people react to the same event.
I always love to see more OMORI content. I was super drawn into the Blackspace section. I think for me, when I was in Blackspace, my mind was partially geeking out about the connection to Yume Nikki, and how this was pulling off a similar effect but more effectively. I guess that just goes to show how previous experiences can absolutely color your understanding of a scene. I was still horrified, especially in the scene with Mewo, but there was some other stuff going on in my head too. I've played games similar to the Blackspace section before, so I think I was better able to push through. I admittedly, also had to see everything, because those were little glimpses into Sunny's head, and I wanted to see as many of his thoughts as possible
This feels like padding an essay you turned in late. "I opened the door to find a bad thing. Behind the door, there the bad thing was. The bad thing, which was on the other side of the door, was bad."
I can't be sure, but I feel this is related to emotional maturity, in the sense of how one has learnt to deal with trauma. I've been through periods of extreme anxiety disorder and depression and have learnt how to be comfortable with both. I have learnt to accept that death and suffering happens and I'm okay with it. I used to be fascinated with horror stuff, but since I learnt to accept the horrors of the world, I no longer have any interest. I can confidently say that in all these instances you mentioned, I don't have the morbid curiosity that most people seem to have. in fact I discovered that this is precisely how humans get over depression and anxiety... by running towards the things that scare us and confronting them head on. so when people pursue morbid curiosity, it is for the very purpose of learning to cope with it.
While that makes sense, I don't think it's also definitive and total; humans are complicated and I'm sure there's a million reasons for this sort of thing, and that you figured out one of them
When it comes to anything like a study, or a video game, or even a gory image online, I think it's less that I can't resist curiosity and more that it's such a low-stakes scenario for me personally (as in I'm in no physical danger) that I don't care to. If I have reason to believe that curiosity might actually cause me serious harm (like if I'm walking in a city at night and hear what might be a mugging or a drug deal gone bad in a dark alley) I'm a hell of a lot better at resisting any morbid curiosity. And I can imagine, for example, that looking up gory images would be a much higher-stakes scenario for someone with PTSD or phobias related to that kind of thing, but I don't have any of that so for me it's no problem. I think perceived personal threat level is a huge variable here that no scientific study can ever (ethically) test.
I lost my Mom just before Halloween, and the steady celebration of all things disturbing and depressing since has taken something of a toll, but your videos can always be counted on to shine a light upon the beauty hidden in the function of it all. We appreciate your service Sir. Happy holidays.
I feel that part about Black Space. I figured that red door was my ticket out, but my curiosity overtook me to see everything else that was in this mess of a place.
4:10 would be interesting to test with positive, neutral and negative all being shuffled to see if we're more interested in negative things or just interested in not-neutral things
Reminds me alot of a video from Dan Olson of Folding Ideas, a video about Intended Play. Games that diegetically suggest to the player to not do a thing, but "rewarding" the player anyway in the form of an interaction- that if the game didnt want you to do the "thing", it simply would not respond.
8:58 Hilariously enough, I am usually the player that respects the ghost's privacy, but I also have a very strong sense of morbid curiosity that I've never denied and in fact have nurtured since I was little. Part of that, as I found later, was trauma seeking behaviors, but still! Interesting, no? Honestly though, I wonder if that isn't a causation relation. Throughout my young life, my consequence for going to far with my morbid curiosity was not discomfort- it was partially reliving a traumatic experience. Now, I honestly think that some part of me wanted that to happen- I've always been the type to actively disturb a painful injury until my brain decides to numb the pain. I think that's why Omori's black space actually felt... plain. Sunny created a light world where he could escape in response to his trauma, but I simply scribbled on the walls of black space, pallet-swapping my traumas and forcing whatever media I consumed into it's shape. There were parts I actively buried, sure, but most of the physical aspects I recreated over and over again. Even now that I'm an adult, and I've resurfaced all the experience and addressed it, it still dictates so much of what I'm drawn to in media just by force of habit! Yet, with my trauma seeking, I still gained something from all the pain. I was slowly and subconsciously using exposure therapy to almost entirely destroy my trauma, what the fuck could be more rewarding than that?! In that way, I guess I began to expect reward for my morbid curiosity, or at least for myself to be almost entirely immune to it. Nowadays, I'm drawn to things that mimic the recent secondhand trauma's I've collected, but also to psychological horrors and physical deformities and so much more. ...None of the subjects I'm drawn to except for the traumatic ones have any ability to hurt me, though, and if I genuinely think it will, ...I don't look. Ever. I may poke around the subject, or look with my eyes half closed to blur it, but I never fully look at anything I think will hurt me. I guess, in a weird way, the same cause of my heightened and unashamed morbid curiosity, taught me avoidance of that negative feeling. After all, I've already experienced it in much worse of a way than anything like that could induce, so why should I be curious about it?
Interesting subject. Hearing the video and what people are saying in the comments, it sounds like I'm a lot less of a thrill seeker than most. If I get even the slightest sense that I won't like what I find, I don't usually open that door. Never did a genocide run of undertale and won't do one for deltarune. Both games are just as satisfying without experiencing all the content. Honestly can't remember what I chose my first time in Paper Mario with the diary, since I played that game years ago. That said, I guess I did experience that with this video. The last Omori video was so dang disturbing to me that I paused when you brought it up here. I really thought for a minute, "Do I wanna run that risk again?" But I decided to watch anyway, cause I love psyche of play (usually). And I didn't find this one as upsetting as the last but... it was a perfect example of what you were talking about.
perhaps I'm just weird and my heart has blackened so much that it didnt effect me, but I loved blackspace. It's one of my favorite parts of the game. It was so interesting and intriguing looking into the deepest darkest crevices of sunny’s mind. Besides butchering the cat i still feel bad about it im so sorry mewo i love you
No regrets, I now know there is such a thing as the Pandora Effect and to be more thoughtful of my curiosity. I knew a 16 minute video on RU-vid would not be something traumatizing especially from a channel I know makes great videos, the Psych of Play in the title gave it away. Curiosity is important, it can give us information that is rare to get otherwise and often can end up positively impacting us. The study was made with negative and neutral images, would the results differ if there were positive images too ? How would they change if it was apparent from a glimpse that the negative image was well... negative and the positive or neutral image had features that made them less bland ? Is curiosity attracted to negativity or lack of information one could gather from a glipmse of it ?
I’ve fallen victim to this effect more times than I can count but at the end of the day I’m always happy that I got the opportunity to learn more about myself. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to resist a good old Faustian bargain like that, but it’s just like you said, curiosity killed the cat
Feels like he's tryna sell me sand when I'm on the beach with the whole omori door being spooky... But ik it's just set as an example for the point he's tryna make.
but i didn't regret opening the door or watching this video. i like learning and i like horror because dark stuff is interesting, and lore is cool to learn about. i guess macabre stuff feels more "real" in a weird way, even when it's unrealistic, it always feels more real and relatable than some happy fluffy story. it's like we can all relate to loss or pain quite easily but it's not as easy to relate to not having a care in the world. at least for me.
Frankly? I don't have regrets opening this door. Yes, what you said was right, I felt empty that my curiosity to this video wasn't fuffilled because it wasn't what I wanted (that being a deep dive into Omori) but I have no regrets because despite not getting what I wanted, I instead got something regardless; that being a better understanding of something that changes my perspective, which I thank you for because this was still incredible to watch, even when I'm a year late
(TW for reference of a suicide) I know it's kind of an extreme parallel but... This is why morbid curiosity combined with being online is a horrible combination; the internet for the most part is uncensored and unmonitored, which can lead to some of the most gruesome content able to be easily spread. I for one gravitate towards morbid lost media, not only to see if it'll ever be found but to know just how bad it could be. Earlier this year, a real audio recording from the Christine Chubbuck tape was posted on RU-vid. It's about as chilling as you'd expect, and one of the comments that stuck with me was something along the lines of, "I hope I'm not around if the video ever resurfaces".
While I agree with the results, I can't help but note there's a huge flaw in that study. Every neutral image presented is also visually boring, there isn't much to take in. At a glance, you feel comfortable you've taken in most of what the image has to offer. Contrast this with the negative images presented, which all have a lot going on in frame - dynamic composition, lots of background details, so on and so forth. Essentially, the controls are presented as controls, not as alternatives to the negative images. Images of cluttered rooms and complex landscapes would work much better as controls for this particular study.
No regrets here. We must learn to appreciate that which is unpleasant. Hearing the nails makes listening to the water all that much sweeter. Your gambit of doors was a challenge you set before yourself and you endured. Be happy for what you have done. If your choices bring pain, attempt to learn, to steel yourself, and most of all, learn to love the sensation of experiencing.
I know the whole "regret watching this" was like a half-joke but if anything I was also grateful for the video teaching me more about the world(even if it was supposed to be more entertainment than educational).
The main reason I played omori was because I knew of black space and I really wanted to experience the horror moments. I really like games with yume nikki vibes, and I love the way those scenes explore the characters minds, and the way the artists chose to express that. Like watching hannibal the series not for the shock and the gore, but for the surrealist imagery and the slow descend into madness. Sometimes you just want to suffer, and want your suffering to have a clear ending & moment of catharsis
Here's my experience with the Omori red door (Warning: Unsatisfyingly torturous) I saw the red door and was promptly relieved to step into it right away only to see a door in my upward periphery and realize as I step in that the other doors are still there. Permanently locking me out of my own morbid curiosity in that playthrough.
NGL, this helped me understand the horror of that first episode of Black Mirror, the way that they tried to make no one watch what happened only for everyone to watch because of how much they were told not to, because they might miss out on something they know would be grotesque. Also I thought the thumbnail said "the paranoia effect" but I think it's almost like the opposite of paranoia, the idea that you could miss something horrible outweighs the fact you know it should just not.
Not sure why I'd regret opening this door. More of the same is what I was looking for and I'm not disappointed. It was the same with me when I played Omori, but then again, I might've built up a considerable resistance against surreal pixel horror playing games like OFF, Yume Nikki and especially middens.
Fun fact, you can return to some rooms in this area in an alternative route. I’m keeping this comment vague for spoiler purposes. Also this is interesting to learn about :O
oh this is such an interesting topic to have a video about! i have to admit i kind of guessed every result of every study because of course, that's exactly what i would do too great way to call out my huge curiosity, and great job as always!
"Good games games usually do reward your inquisitions quite well." *Shows Hollow Knight* Me: *remembers the Hollow Knight episode* *ARE YOU **_SURE_** ABOUT THAT???*
Oh I clicked on this video because I chose to trust. I knew you always made outstanding psychology oriented video game videos so I knew it had to be good
It's ironic for me: In games, my curiosity is defined by the conditioning of secrets and Easter Eggs found throughout, through extensive searching, so I intentionally go out of my way to explore optional content and often get left disappointed by my findings, but STILL fulfilled that I scratched that itch. But, bizarrely, outside of games, I do NOT have this same itch at all. It's like, I'll intentionally only do what's required of me to achieve whatever I'm looking to get, because i know any extra searching on a subject is fruitless. That being said, if I knew beforehand that extra indulgence on a topic could reward me down the line, I'll do it - but I feel that moves towards the "Easter Egg Incentive" more. TL;DR: If I don't have an incentive I find justifiable, I'll flat out just never seek more answers. I don't know if this is due to my aspergers, but I always just found it bizarre when people just KEPT doing something that was clearly fruitless, even to them being in the scenario, expecting something more. Take that experiment for example. As soon as it was mentioned you could click as many as you want, I immediately thought "click all the water and then stop." I have sensory issues as is and subjecting myself to chalk board screeching sounds like the stupidest/most masochistic idea ever. The thing that I still dont understand, is why anyone would click the random boxes, knowing prior that there is only one or two options. Perhaps if I was told there was a hidden sound within ONE of the mystery spaces and I only had a limited number of clicks to get it for a mystery prize, my curiosity would be perked back up again, because of that Easter Egg Incentive, but why the hecc would I click random spots when I KNOW full well that the two options I see before me are also behind each hidden space? You get what I mean? That being said, the topic still fascinated me a LOT!!! I definitely didn't regret watching this! Honestly one of my favourite channels as of recent, and I've been binging your content ever since I found you through the video on the colour purple and its significance AS a visual narrative tool! Amazing video as always!! - Gen
Now the REAL meta things start now for ppl like me that haven´t played omori yet. when i catch myself almost done wtih the video and ready to search for videos of the rooms in yt... the realize is exactly what the video is about, i know they´ll suck and still i had the urge to go search for them. I full spirit of the video i´m not gonna do it, i´ll... let it be. Great video man, keep up the great work!
i opened every door twice today (saved at the start) and loved it. they all offered something different and felt like a nightmare if headspace was a dream.
