There is a lot of gore content on the internet and always has been, all the way back to when Rotten.com launched in 1997. Today those seeking out shock, blood, and gore have a wide spread of sources to pull from. I recently discovered an interesting subset of gore culture that I had never encountered before, however: death audio. Just a heads up before you continue: This post and podcast contain graphic descriptions of violence.

There is an introductory post pinned to the top of the subreddit r/hearpeopledie. It reads, in part, "We're all here for the same thing, to enjoy particularly poignant audio of death. Be that the gasp of last breaths, the gurgle of a slit throat, agonizing moans of someone shot/stabbed, the mourning of a loved one, even 911 calls/black box recordings preceding the immediacy of death. As long as these things are particularly notable, we would love to hear them."

Hearpeopledie is an offshoot of a subreddit called watchpeopledie, which is for videos of graphic violence. Audio, however, is a little more hardcore.

The clips on r/hearpeopledie range from quiet moments of legal assisted suicide to the violent death of someone being hit by a car. I wanted to understand why people listen to these recordings, and what draws some gore fans to audio in particular.

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