[stinos]

> I am absolutely certain this has shaped my world view to some degree

On the other hand many people, if I had to guess I'd say the vast majority, have not seen any of that stuff on the internet. I have, but because I actively went looking for it. Likewise if I ask around amongst friends the only ones who saw the real gore all admitted having actively searched for it. In other words: even before we saw it there might have been something different in our world view already.

[viraptor]

It depends how terminally online you are too. Even not actively looking for it, you'll eventually see it. Probably less likely these days than on the wild west internet ~y2k. But visiting enough forums and going to enough personal pages at the time eventually put you in front of some NSFL content. Or at least a link that you didn't actively look for but now have an option of clicking purely out of curiousity.

[stinos]

visiting enough forums

That's sort of the point though: we do that, but whereas around y2k forums were the online communities, I don't exactly have the impression that is still the case. And it's not like you're going to see much NSFL content on, say, TikTok.

[RF_Savage]

At this current moment it is surprisingly hard at times to avoid combat footage from drones.

It still sure is a wild west in many places.

[resupply1554]

> In other words: even before we saw it there might have been something different in our world view already.

Agreed. I was brought up in a troubled home and spent a lot (if not all) of my childhood/early teens on 4chans /b/ board as a result (mid-late 2000s, early 10s). Looking back at it, it seems like it was THE place that brought together all the damaged individuals.

The stuff I've seen there desensitized me to a basically every disgusting/horrid/tragic thing I had to witness later on in life, other than losses of loved ones in of themselves.