My urge to hurl has increased a little bit.
There are some very scary things posted in this thread. So far the above is by far the scariest
Some of them sort of remind me of the Victorian 'hidden mother' photographs.For the record, the first image is the actual current avatar of a stranger I am playing against on Words with Friends. That set me off to find the Frank from Donny Darko, and Google provided the other two.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Buzzfeed for example has an excellent selection, including this one:
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And from elsewhere
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Now that is very scary and just plain wrong
And that, in turn, reminds me of Victorian memento mori images.Some of them sort of remind me of the Victorian 'hidden mother' photographs.
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https://ridiculouslyinteresting.com/2012/01/05/hidden-mothers-in-victorian-portraits/
There seems to be some debate about whether the hidden mother photos are in fact memento mori, as discussed here:And that, in turn, reminds me of Victorian memento mori images.
PS happy Easter!
Does it really seem that far a step from my OP?How did we go from cream egg scotch eggs to dead children in 4 posts?
Fair enough. I've wrapped my image in a spoiler (@winjim, can you do the same in your quote?)Yes. To me anyway.
You don't need to put it behind a spoiler for me. I don't really find it fascinating but I do know the Victorians did and had some strange ideas of what death meant. I know what you mean about handing over parents or other loved ones, but not everyone even does that the same as I can personally testify.Fair enough. I've wrapped my image in a spoiler (@winjim, can you do the same in your quote?)
I personally find this stuff fascinating, how different cultures - and I think the Victorians are a different culture - regard death.
When I was searching for some images to share, I kept finding sites about "weird" Victorian death photos, but are they weird? I wonder what history will say about our death rituals. I spoke to an Indian friend, whose mother was there when my friend's father in law died**. She was a doctor, so lead them in the appropriate rituals of washing and dressing the body. I remembered this ruefully, when my dad died, and handed him over to strangers to prepare. I'm pretty sure that embalming (which I did not request) is very weird.
@Slick is going to be further mystified how the thread got to this place. Soz!
**India has an English word for the relationship between your parents and your spouse's parents: co-parents. I don't know why we don't.