Take our Borderline Personality Disorder Test

Find a therapist near me

Disturbing footage like Hilton's self-harm live-stream may activate the reward centers of our brain.

Emotional activation, novelty, and the desire to understand so as to protect ourselves increase the allure.

Morbid curiosity is common, but people high in neuroticism and anxiety tend to be more morbidly curious.

On Tuesday, August 4, 2026, blogger Perez Hilton live-streamed a brutal episode of self-mutilation for approximately 15 minutes on TikTok Live. The stream may have continued had the platform not taken the deeply disturbing content down earlier—though 15 minutes was an astonishingly long time for content that violated TIkTok’s policies to remain in place. (TikTok has since blamed technical challenges for the delay in shutting down the horrific stream.)

Thanks to “multiple calls regarding an individual who was live-streaming acts of self-harm,” Hilton was apprehended by Miami-Dade County police and transported to a hospital by emergency medical services.

Viewers of the livestream describe it as traumatizing. “I saw about two seconds of it and wanted to vomit,” wrote one Reddit user. Another commented that it was so disturbing as to trigger their own relapse of self-harm.

And yet. Some people are still seeking out the video, if not images from it or news about it. Why? What could possibly be compelling so many people to seek out such a disturbing and, for some, triggering video and story?

The Science of Morbid Curiosity

Disturbing content kicks off a series of neuropsychological responses apart from mere aversion. One of those responses........

© Psychology Today