Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

[matt j]

(Apologies for anybody that has the same trigger reaction as I do.)

Top image here (Trypophobia):

http://www.lolwot.com/20-of-the-most-bizarre-fears-that-people-actually-have/3/

I would have never thought so, but I can barely look at it. What the heck?

Also, don't google Trypophobia. Good god. I never knew I had this reaction.

[hobbes]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

I went out with a girl whose fear was "lots of very small things close together."
So I suspect she'd have had sympathy with this.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

The thing that is freaky about the first image is that it looks like it's a human hand and god alone knows what the hell has happened to it.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

My uncle had to leave the room when I was blowing up balloons for my dad's birthday. (This is called globophobia I believe.)

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

I hate balloons. And clowns. Kids' parties are not for me.

[beak]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: I hate balloons.

May I suggest you spend your next holiday hanging around the escalator to the train platforms at Schiphol?

[Sits]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Oh Jesus. I wish I'd remembered what that phobia meant before I clicked the link.

Any organic "cluster" makes my skin absolutely crawl. Oysters on a rock, the seeds inside a bell pepper. A dense rash. Holes do it too - dense woodworm for example. . So that photoshopped link is an absolute nightmare.

But non organic - absolutely no problem. The alloy wheels on a Mk. 4 Capri for example. Absolutely fine.

[Jah Womble]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

I'd not call it an uncontrollable phobia, but objects full of holes that otherwise maintain their basic shape make me feel a bit weird. I think my brain reads them as having been eaten away or infested with insects or similar.

(And yes, what is that in which those holes have appeared in the top shot?)

May I suggest you spend your next holiday hanging around the escalator to the train platforms at Schiphol?

That is oddly arbitrary. Did Schiphol railway station have some kind of 'incident' involving balloons in the recent past?

[matt j]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

I feel like I'm getting more impact from the some of the photos than from the real thing. I've never had problem looking at seeds in a bell pepper, or cantaloupe, or honeycomb, or most of the other of the examples I've seen this morning. But the pictures are making my skin crawl (lotus seed heads and those frogs- nononononono).

(I may also be more susceptible today than I would normally be however, as I had a reaction to some sunscreen over the weekend and have a collection of bumps on the backs of my hands, ears, and neck. So it could just be paranoia about that.)

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Extraordinary.

[Benjm]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Jah Womble wrote: I'd not call it an uncontrollable phobia, but objects full of holes that otherwise maintain their basic shape make me feel a bit weird. I think my brain reads them as having been eaten away or infested with insects or similar.

(And yes, what is that in which those holes have appeared in the top shot?)

One of my brothers had a pretty yucky thing where parasites burrowed into his feet a few years ago. At first glance I thought the photo was going to be something along those lines, which is enough to make anyone feel a bit queasy.

[via vicaria]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Like mattj says - that first pic appears to be photoshopped as they're lotus seed heads, but look like they've been 'shopped onto a hand. In their own milieu they ain't so bad.

[hawkvshandsaw]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

fear of oiks

[ursus arctos]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

More on the phenomenon from Scientic American

[ian.64]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Fear of Italian playwrights, Dariophobia.

[3 Colours Red]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

I'm scared of people who aren't scared of clowns.

[Incandenza]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

It's funny, I was reading about this recently. There was an article on the Awl that went over the different categories of links with photos and clickbait-y headlines that appear at the bottom of articles online (You May Also Like. Things designed to get people to click on a link. One of the categories is a Deeply Psychological Body Thing, one of which being an image that triggers a trypophobic reaction, and that was the first time I had heard of the term.

I was aware of lotus seeds because there was a horrible urban legend/shock email forward going around a while back about a woman who visited either Africa or South America, and came back with a worm/parasite in her bra, and there was an image of the lotus seeds photoshopped onto a woman's breast. And apparently they were also used in a shock photoshop image for a similar story about Head & Shoulders shampoo causing horrible skin reactions in some people. Seriously, DO NOT LOOK TO SEE THESE.

It's the things involving bodies like that that freak me out, but I can look at holes and other patterns and be fine.

[matt j]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Yeah, the original link I posted was a click-baity thing I went to just because I didn't know what I was looking at.

I'm kind of fascinated that this whole thing started by people sharing photos online in the 2000s, (I was online in 2000, how did I miss this?) which does make me wonder how much is related to the 'image' versus the reality, as I mention above. I'm sure if I saw lotus seed pods in the flesh (sorry), it would probably be fine.

I do have some similar problems with the massive body modifications/piercings that crop up on TV shows sometimes. That gives me similar willies. Again, possible just related to the idea that there is stuff in your skin waiting to pop out.

And no, I have no interest in revisiting that thread with the cyst stories from a few years back.

[Incandenza]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

I think it's one of those things that has been enhanced by the internet, with people realizing that they didn't feel this way until they found out that others had this reaction.

There are YouTube profiles and Instagram accounts of people who just post videos of pimples popped and blackheads and ingrown hairs being removed. And people love watching them. You wouldn't have been able to do that 20 years ago (your mention of the cyst thread reminded me of that).

[caja-dglh]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Interesting to read about chum and what it is targeting. I am happy to say that none of the deepest fears it attacks affect me.

[Sits]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

Incandenza wrote: I think it's one of those things that has been enhanced by the internet, with people realizing that they didn't feel this way until they found out that others had this reaction.

I had this long before the internet. Not that I would wish to call it a phobia - those are real medical conditions. This is just a physical reaction.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

ian.64 wrote: Fear of Italian playwrights, Dariophobia.

Here we go.

[Jah Womble]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

(^Dunno, could be wrong, but I think I spot another recurring phobia here^.)

[Stumpy Pepys]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

ian.64 wrote: Fear of Italian playwrights, Dariophobia.

And fear of Italian plumbers?

[Jah Womble]

Does this freak you out or give you the willies?

...or that of 17th-century English novelists?