You’ve seen it, and you’ve probably enjoyed it — what everyone tends to call a “fail” compilation. Or if you haven’t, then let’s get you up to speed.
For quite a few years now, videos of people failing at tasks, or "fails," have been amassing throughout the internet with incredible acceleration, taking up the attention of countless video users. For some reason, people are attracted to the failure of another person in a ridiculous manner — whether it be pain, shock value or embarrassment.
Don’t believe me? A popular Youtube channel, failarmy, uploaded a 2016 Fail Compilation in July. It reached over 11 million views in October.
Many of us may get flashbacks to middle school when the word “fail” is heard in this context. Younger audiences may still use it themselves. Perhaps even older ones. But what is this obsession with seeing the complete failure of others?
It can be summed up using the German term "schadenfreude," which is generally defined as pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune. People merely enjoy the pain of others to a certain extent.
As this pain rises higher, the enjoying audience lessens. Fails generally only encapsulate pain that doesn’t result (or at least show) serious injury, but rather is something simply ridiculous that happens to someone that probably causes a few minutes, hours, or maybe days of discomfort — no more than that.
There are certainly darker parts of the internet — be they Reddit, 4chan or elsewhere — that contain much more serious injury for the enjoyment of others. And no, this is not illegal. But these more violent videos — well, not only are they not allowed on YouTube, but they likely would not gain nearly the same audience. The “fails” that we see go viral are goofy, funny and ridiculous — that’s about it. It’s certainly not anything serious.
So is seeing the senseless pain of others and laughing always bad?
That’s more of a personal question. Oftentimes in fails, however, you’ll see people laughing at themselves afterwards if the clip allows enough time to do so. It’s generally accepted to be something funny. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it is.
Everyone has different tastes, and the audience of the fail compilations certainly aren’t hurting anyone. They’re just watching people hurt themselves.
Marco Omta is a sophomore studying music production. How do you feel about fail videos? Email Marco at mo183714@ohio.edu.
