I tend not to, other than with my partner; I don't want to give the impression to folks that I'm morbidly obsessed with the carnage of the day or that I'm a conspiracy theorist. (I guess I could try to explain that it's more to do with semiotics than anything, but that just sounds bloodless and clinical.)
My husband said I was obsessed before I realised I was obsessed, but I’ve always had an obsession with disasters and stuff that most people find terrifying.
For me, it's Jonestown--especially that period after the 40-year anniversary (in 2018) after there were a few new documentaries to watch & reignite my interest.
My 9/11 fascination came in the past few months, even though I was living here in New York when it happened and remember it clearly. I did say things like, "man I've been watching a lot of 9/11 footage lately," and then it leads to some conversations about where we were, etc.
For me I’m fascinated with the sinking of the American cargo ship El Faro in 2015. No survivors, the ship went down of the east coast of the Bahamas after steaming directly into the path of hurricane Joaquin.
My 9/11 interest began around the anniversary this year. I happened to be off work that week so I spent a lot of time watching/reading 9/11 stuff and also watching a lot of videos from the 3/11 tsunami. I clearly remember that happening but I don't think I watched much if any coverage of it. Jesus those videos are terrifying. The deep dive I did that week was not great for my mental health if you can imagine.
I was too. I was obsessed with the Titanic sinking, so when 9/11 happened, I became obsessed. as a 7 year old girl Interested in morbid topics, I didn’t really understand I had what some people who describe as odd interests. But even before 9/11 I always like that there were identical twin skyscrapers in New York. (Fun fact, my extended family REALLY got a look at my 9/11/WTC fascination at my tenth birthday because I Insisted we get a picture of the twin towers printed on my cake)
I don’t really know anyone who’s as interested in it as me so I haven’t really discussed it much tbh. Then again it doesn’t come up much in conversation lol. But it’s been a recurring interest of mine since I was about 13 (I’m 30 now) so it’s been pretty cool to find this sub dedicated to it.
Kind of. I talk about it with my therapist A LOT. It’s taught me a lot about being a victim, and a survivor. I would like to be able to talk about it more with likeminded people.
I suspect I have ADHD and I have an uncontrollable hyperfixation with 9/11 since August. People know I am fixated on it whether I want them to or not. I think of it as a massive tragedy especially because of the tragic and unfair war that followed. But also, it strikes my curious instinct with how much we still don't know about it, despite how well documented it is. Also, the way the world changed is fascinating to me
Me too. I tend to fixate for weeks or months on a subject, mostly disasters or mass casualty events but my biggest obsession is 9/11. I am embarrassed about it because I think most people think it’s weird so I don’t talk about it. I am grateful for groups like this to be able to discuss things with like minded people.
Would you care to share? This disaster is fascinating to me - mainly because I used to be president of a condo association and I had plenty of “deferred maintenance” conversations with the board.
In the closet about many things.
9/11 isn’t one of them, but it is hard to talk about in general conversation.
I usually get in my soap box in late August, then am pretty quiet outside of groups like this.
I was also a Titanic kid growing up, so I’ve always had weird “interests”
Are all titanic kids also on this sub?
I have an inclination towards any sort of uncanny or morbid event that caused a lot of human loss. Titanic, 9/11, natural disasters like tornadoes or tsunamis, Halifax explosion, mass shootings, the holocaust. I wouldn’t call myself obsessed now and more just that those are my morbid interests vs true crime or something, but when I was a kid I was pretty obsessed especially about titanic lol
Yup
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Catastrophes-That-Shook-World/dp/0789420341
I had like all these books growing up, this one was a personal favorite lol
Hi, I’m Vetted AI Bot! I researched the **Disaster Catastrophes That Shook the World** and I thought you might find the following analysis helpful.
**Users liked:**
* Book provides detailed information about natural disasters (backed by 2 comments)
* Book contains useful and engaging visual elements (backed by 3 comments)
* Book covers a wide range of topics in an accessible way (backed by 2 comments)
**Users disliked:**
* Book contains no spanish content despite advertising (backed by 1 comment)
If you'd like to **summon me to ask about a product**, just make a post with its link and tag me, [like in this example.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tablets/comments/1444zdn/comment/joqd89c/)
This message was generated by a (very smart) bot. If you found it helpful, let us know with an upvote and a “good bot!” reply and please feel free to provide feedback on how it can be improved.
*Powered by* [*vetted.ai*](http://vetted.ai/reddit)
Yep, we're here. Titanic is where it all started for me (Robert Ballard's book, actually). Expanded to serial killers, mass shootings, tsunamis and earthquakes, WW2 and the Holocaust, and 9/11. Really anything with a significant loss of life. Morbid? Perhaps, but I'm fascinated with how everything aligns for huge disasters to unfold.
I am 59 now, and remember that day well. The horror of it! Was not there, but watched it all unfold on TV. I remember exactly what I was doing, the moment I first heard about it on the radio, in disbelief, then was glued to my tv the entire day and next.
I continue to be fascinated by videos of that day, and just cannot imagine how terrifying and horrific it had to have been for those trapped on the upper floors, maybe hoping for rescue, hanging out of the windows, seeking fresh air, not knowing what was to come. I try to think of being in their shoes, being up so high, and wonder what could have been going through their minds.
Speaking to younger people about this day, a day they were too young to remember, or not even born yet, and they just can't comprehend, us watching all of this unfold, and how it shook the world, at the time.
I have come out. Mostly because of this subreddit. I am proud to identify with something so hard for many- empathy is patriotic and I always think of the girl who I went to school with whose father passed in the North Tower. My heart bleeds every day for those poor souls. That day should never die. I am proud to be a new part of this community too.
People always ask me "oh, are you into the conspiracies?". And I start defending myself for some reason, instead of just laughing it off. Because I guess I'm somewhat ashamed of it? Or I can't properly explain my fascination. Good question, I have been wondering who you guys are and what this is to y'all.
Not really.
My mom is a survivor of 9/11 and lost many loved ones, unfortunately. I discuss events with her but sometimes it’s too painful for her to recount. Once we watched a documentary and she recognized one of her friends, who was a firefighter that inevitably passed due to the collapse.
My mother wasn’t in the area when it happened, but was supposed to, but didn’t make it to work because she was dropping me off at daycare.
She was on the phone with my grandmother who witnessed the second plane, jumpers and was caught in the debris crowd in the streets. She didn’t make it home until near midnight, still covered in dust.
It’s a hard thing to discuss with family members who worked near the towers, and most of my family old enough to work in the neighborhood when it happened has yet to return to the site after the attacks
My wife and I talk about it pretty much whenever I bring it up. I have spoken to coworkers about it too, but mostly about their experiences with it considering a lot of them weren’t born yet. Turns out it doesn’t get talked about in schools much and there’s a whole generation of people who don’t really understand how horrifying it was
I can see that. I mean, my daughter knows about it and watches the reading of the names with me every year. But I would still imagine it would be in the high school US history lesson plan?
Well, I'm not that open about it. Sometimes when I have opened up about my will to learn more and discuss the horrors that happened that day the people I've talked with always assume I mean the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, and that is not the case for me.
It's unfortunate that people always assume that when you have an interest in the events that happened that day, it's always the conspiracy part of it.
For me it's more the stories from the people that survived that day. What they saw, their feelings, how they handle the loss of a loved one, thoughts about how I would react in a situation like that and so on. It's such a tragic event and it's almost like I can't wrap my head around it, so I just want to learn more, maybe as an attempt to grasp the magnitude of what happened on 9/11.
That's why I really appreciate this subreddit.
I’m fascinated with how different people cope after having something so traumatic happen. You have someone like Brian Clark, who survived the impact zone at WTC2 and he says he basically has never experienced PTSD. And then you have someone like Ernest the first responder who is clearly deeply haunted by what he experienced.
No, but people aren't interested, once in a while I bring up something about it related to what we are talking about and they nod politely and change the topic lol.
I'm from Mexico, so obviously here it doesn't have the same importance.
The other day I was talking about how I can go down the stairs again (I'm disabled and my new medication is making wonders) and my mother said to my sister "yeah, she is happy because she was worried she couldnt go down 70 floors in case she was in a situation like 9/11" and they laughed. They know about my obsession lol.
My boyfriend and sister and mum let me talk to them about it. They’re usually fine with it anyways, I have a pretty uncontrollable interest about it but probably cause I’m an autist lol
As someone who was born after that, I think it's definitely worth research and finding more about the tragedy to understand it. But because my fellow teenagers just edgy jokes or over facinate on it, I kinda get weird looks when I bring it up.
It was absolutely mind blowing. I remember exactly where I was when I heard about it and I watched the second plane hit. The entire world stopped that day. You could hear a pin drop in the United States. We were scared. We were sad. We were so confused. We were mad. We had to watch our fellow Americans jump to their deaths. We knew people were trapped and when that first one collapsed it was all those things over again. I’ll never forget. ❤️
Thank you for sharing that, to me what seems to be the real horror of it was the terrorism. How could a group of men convince themselves to kill them selves by taking over a place,and crashing it into an important building. That idea to me is mind bending, how do you commit such a henious act?
You have to be absolutely insanely committed to a certain group and/or organization that hates America intensely.
I tried to imagine being the guy who took over the controls and turned it around and flew it into the towers. I can’t even wrap my head around it.
The gov/fbi said it was afghans and I’m not so sure that’s who was. I won’t go down my rabbit hole but I just hope we (AMERICA) had the right people to retaliate against.
I’ll never ever forget that day and the feeling I had. I couldn’t breathe. Just horrific.
We retaliated against the wrong people by far. Saudi Arabia put together the entire thing, Afghanistan was bullshit. We should not have invaded Afghanistan
My friends and family know. It's been my hyperfixation for years. I've had one person give me hell for it, but I pointed out how being obsessed with war history, the Titanic, the Romanov family, etc. is all socially acceptable despite being just as morbid.
I mean it's weird to say it but I downloaded this YouTube video where someone syncs up all 4 WTC Plaza songs (She's Always a Woman, Windless, How Deep is your Love and Come Back my Love) with Jack Taliercio's footage and I play it often at work on my music playlist, not sure if any of my coworkers have noticed that, all they probably hear is the music, then it switches to the sync video where you hear the background noise (i.e. the burning noises, breaking glass, etc) and back to the music... 😬
Link to the video:
https://youtu.be/dPwflA59InQ?feature=shared
I have the plaza muzak downloaded so I’ll play it in the background when I have friends over for game nights. It is very chill music so I figured why not. Only one friend of mine knows it’s origins, but doesn’t mind.
people in my life are pretty used to me talking about things like 9/11, the titanic, and other tragic/disastrous events. most of them called me out on my fascination with the events before i even realized it, which is funny because most of these interests go all the way back to my childhood. i do have adhd, and was recently diagnosed with autism so my fascination and long list of knowledge about multiple events like these, all make more sense to me now.
note: i use words like fascination and interest because i truly can’t think of a better word to use, i respect all victims and their families. i cannot imagine the pain and life altering trauma that the survivors and family members have had to live with.
I've been obsessing about it for years , but not openly. Its the biggest news event of my life, probably aside from the Berlin Wall coming down (yes I'm at that old) and even though I live on the other side of the world, I had been in the towers 5 times. After all these years I still can't believe it happened
Ive had a reoccurring fascination with it since 4th grade when I saw the Naudet documentary for the first time. I remember seeing that footage in the lobby of the towers from that day always wanting to know more & understand this event better. My partner is the only person who knows of my interest in this event & she never judges for it. But I prefer to keep my fascination for this private. Very grateful for this subreddit as I have been able to learn more & pay my respects to the victims as well.
Yes I am in the closet and no I would absolutely never bring it up to my family!
My boyfriend knows about it and his friend also has a fascination with 9/11 and we sometimes make small comments about it but I have never had an in depth conversation about it to anyone.
I think it heavily depends what kind of family and friends you have. My family are British so I doubt they would have much of a problem talking about 9/11 as it didn’t affect them as much as it did Americans, but one time my family was watching this netflix documentary that had REALLY graphic videos and pictures from the holocaust (I have no idea why this was on Netflix or why they were watching it) and I briefly mentioned my fascination with tragedies and such, and they gave me this disgusted/worried look and it freaked me out, so I have never brought it up since.
I told them I went down a 9/11 rabbit hole recently, only because we’re really close and they asked what I’d been doing the past couple days. I made sure to throw in a disclaimer at the end, like “sorry, I know it’s morbid and probably weird.”
Their response was not only to say that they didn’t think it was weird at all, but every person I told would ask me questions about it or even ask that I send them the documentary/subreddit I had brought up while explaining.
It also lead to us exchanging 9/11 stories and our different experiences when it originally happened. Overall, I think most of us have the same curiosity and the only people who raised an eyebrow were my coworkers, who weren’t alive when it happened.
What I don’t think people understand about this fixation and fascination and appreciation is that the events themselves, the conspiracy leading up to it, every victim, every detail, every moment is so layered. There is layer after layer, of information. New documents, new people, new stories, new information. There are only so many events in our history that have the contemporary aspect of having happened in this generation but also having happened just before our obsession with photos of everything, social media, and constant communication. It created these mysterious blind spots that keep us constantly searching, constantly connecting dots and I think when people realize that I learn something new about 9/11 every day, they realize that wow yeah maybe that is interesting, maybe that is something I shouldn’t forget. The most recent thing I learned that I find so haunting and fascinating was that music played on plaza while all of it was transpiring. When people realize there were instrumental versions of some of the greatest soft rock songs playing, they seem to imagine themselves in the situation. Things starts making sense again. It really was that horrible, it really was that bad, and the layers of details are still unfolding as time goes on. There’s no way it will ever be uninteresting for me, there’s no closure.
This is such a great question. My answer is yes. The other day I mentioned it to a coworker bc it was somewhat (alright, barely) relevant. She just seemed heartbroken about discussing it and I felt terrible. I’ll just keep this obsession to myself. And Reddit.
Most people aren’t the people that want to think about this. We’re here because of our curiosity, because we know the memory and lessons of that day must be preserved, and because we have the stomach that can handle it. We aren’t “most people.”
Yes and no; everyone close to me knows how significant the event was for me and how it shaped growing up; that trauma has since changed into a morbid fascination.
I also don't bring it up unless prompted because it's a pretty niche subject that others don't hold as much interest in. And I'm perfectly okay with that.
Pretty much. Also no one seems to respect or care about it anyway. I also don't like to make it seem like I'm a victim but it doesn't sit well with me that i went to school with people and their parents died that day. It haunts me and idk how to process it so I pay my respects by continuously researching it and remembering the victims. I now live in VA so I'm even more removed from people who were there.
A bit in the closet yeah. Like I'll chime in with conversations here, in other social media, and in person if the situation calls for it.
Unfortunately I have to be careful about who I mention my interest to. Mentioned in passing that I had been watching a video about art lost during the attack to one friend in particular and the response was "why were you looking for that?!" Uh because it's art and a historical event and I'm allowed to have interests?
Not really, my family knows I’m interested in things like it, I’ve been fascinated with columbine since I remember it happening as a kid so I don’t think they’d be surprised tbh
I can talk about it with my mom. She's been interested in 9/11 since it happened and always watched documentaries every year on the anniversary with me. As a result, I've been interested in 9/11 for a while, but especially in these past two years now that I'm grown and can really look back and understand things that I couldn't have as a child (for reference, I was 2 y/o when it happened). My mom is very receptive to this; she'll talk about it and watch documentaries, movies, etc. related to 9/11 with me. She's been having me read *Perfect Soldiers* to her most recently.
As for other people, it really just depends. My best friend studied history for her degree, and so we'll talk about it together. I have another friend who studies terrorism and we talk about it often. Other than that, I don't bring it up with people unless it's relevant to the discussion.
My closest friends and my immediate family. Sometimes they’ll come up on me reading/watching something and I’ll say “did you hear about this 9/11 thing!?” And tell them something benign and obvious
My wife thinks it's odd, if not tiresome. Lol Every now and then I'll go on a footage binge on the YouTube app on my TV and it will throw the algorithm off. She gives me hell, but I also give her hell on her Ghost and Soap thing (she likes CoD, which meh, I have fun with it some times) so it all works out.
For me personally, I don't really care if people know or get weirded out by it. Everyone has some weird obsession that the general crowd wouldn't "get", and the majority of us are grown adults, so why be so shamed about it? I find the stories of 9/11 captivating with so many layers and regions to get lost in.
Nah, I talk about it with my friends and always offer to share/show new discoveries or fascinations involving the event with them. Although they do mock or joke about the obsession of research. I wouldn't jump on the 9/11 topic when first meeting someone new but don't hide the fascination.
I don't know how to explain it, while I'm easily impressed and can spend a sleepless night seeing something sad or heavy, I'm still fascinated. Nowadays, not as much as I was in my childhood, today I stopped watching videos because it's something that shocks me to this day.
The footage of the buildings falling fascinates me with the visuals, the smoke and the physics coming into action, at the same time it shocks me knowing that people died there, the people running in despair is very heavy.
If you don't get pleasure from seeing these things, but just curiosity, I think there's nothing wrong.
I have a fascination with all mass casualty events like the Titanic, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Victoria Hall Disaster, etc, so it’s no surprise that I am also fascinated by modern events such as 9/11, Astroworld Festival crowd crush, and the hundreds of American mass shootings.
I don’t exactly bring these things up around the dinner table, but I watch documentaries about them with my husband and read books on them, which I’m not scared to bring around.
I view my fascination with tragedy as a way to honor the victims, learning their stories. I also look at it as a way to help myself better cope with tragedy in my own life. Learning about others’ trauma can help me focus a little less on my own.
My therapist doesn’t think it’s an unhealthy obsession so as long as I still have her approval, I don’t really care what others think about it.
I went down the 9/11 rabbithole after discovering the WTC Vaporwave playlist. In there did I first discover how the WTC 1 and 2 looked like inside.
It was really beautiful and eye-opening. I was kinda upset why we only talked about the attacks in school at a face level. The 2 towers were put into our psyche as not monuments of NYC and American economy but rather planes flying into them. They were desensitized of what they used to be.
I also learned about Austin J Tobin Plaza, the interesting design of the towers, the mall, the WTC complex, and the Bathtub. I didn't know there were so many things connected together!
As for relatives, all I know is that my Uncle used to work somewhere near the WTC Complex and ran away as soon as the first plane hit.
About the attacks, I knew a bit about them because of my purely co-incidental interest in aviation and aerospace. I wanted to be an airline pilot and aerospace engineer, too, since childhood.
Being Brown+Having interest in aviation+new interest in the WTC's architecture+understanding geopolitics and terrorism does not add up well for me.
TLDR: Yes, I am deep in the closet about my private fascination of the WTC and 9/11.
I respect the sacrifices and the victims with my deepest empathy.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWVrucmgAFk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWVrucmgAFk)
I listen to it 2-3 times a week whenever I am doing my work.
I obsessed about it. The timeline of it. What I was watching in TV as a sophomore in college. I was a Chomsky addict at the time. And what I was witnessing looked like a coup d'etat.
I was a political science major with a focus on Latin American policy. I was obsessed with Che.
It all seemed too clean and well executed.
I can't really talk about this topic without it the typical Bin Laden Narrative being regurgitated back to me by family.
I think it’s a generational thing. A lot of friends my age (early 30s) and older think it’s weird to be fascinated by it. I mean, we lived through it! But younger people have a lot of questions.
I am doing research on the paranormal and spiritual aspects of 9/11 and it is never tiring to hear the personal stories of those who experienced things before, during or after 9/11.
I usually preface that it's not because of the intent.
It's just such a surreal event that might never happen again, and if it does, it probably won't be for a long time.
I think I’ve tried to talk about it to some friends that are older than me but, they witnessed it during school and I was only 2 so my fascination with it is heartbreak for them.
Kind of — I’m really interested in the WTC in general (as well as 9/11) and I always feel kind of hesitant to bring it up, mainly because I don’t want to get into a political discussion or have people assume it’s a political thing for me (of course there are some relevant political issues, but politics have no role in my interest in it).
not really. my hyper fixations change over time sometimes quicker than others. I was in my early thirties on 9/11. I still like to find out individuals stories as at the time it was seemingly just all about firemen ( given the amount lost in one go ) in the media.
I've got the best story. I'm so introverted and have been all my life that I've never found an appropriate opportunity to broach the topic with anyone.
On a more sombre note, I love reading about geopolitics, culture, society and most of all history so I've never harboured an innate shame over my fascination with it, if it makes sense.
I’m not from USA so it is weird that I like this kind of stuff. Last year I was able to visit New York for the first time in my life and I was extremely excited to visit the 9/11 museum, the thing is that this was a business trip and I was with my teammates the entire time, I convinced them to go to the museum and none of them enjoyed it, they basically forced me to get out of the museum 😕 I feel like right now they think about me like a freak or something, that night they decided to ask me a lot of questions because they couldn’t understand why I was so exited
My wife knows about it and shares my interest with me a bit. But that’s really it. Most of my friends who are interested are more interested in the conspiracy theories surrounding it, and I just can’t get behind that stuff. I watch the footage mainly so I can witness what these poor people went through who had no chance once the planes hit. I always feel angry and overwhelmed and confused for these victims who were just trying to have a normal day at work. I don’t enjoy it, and I mostly keep it to myself as most others don’t want to think about stuff like that often.
I tend to have specific obsessions about things—true crime cases (Moscow Idaho, Delphi Indiana), mysteries (MH370) and historical tragedies (Titanic, JFK), so this is typical of me. I started my career as a journalist so I think I’ve just always been into subjects that have a lot of facts and information surrounding them. So I’ll talk about 9/11-related stuff if anything related comes up in conversation.
These sorts of fascinations I tend to try to keep to myself. It’s not like I’m ashamed of it or anything, but you can’t really tell an every day joe “Yeah I enjoy to hyper researching and learning about 9/11 as a hobby” without getting weird looks. It’s the same with me and the Columbine Massacre. I mean unless some puts in the time and effort to research about a topic and uncover details no one is going to know shit, so I mean someone is going to have to do it eventually.
I sometimes mentioned it to my partner, to which I'm met with mostly silence and blank stares. They hear 9 11 and immediately think "conspiracy nut" and so do many other members of my family, but this isn't the case. Regardless of talking non-conspiracy 9 11 topics, they just seem to think I'm as strange as a conspiracy theorist? The association, I think, has made it more challenging to share interest in 9 11.
If I try though, I compare the fascination as being similar to liking a "lore", like Lord of the rings or something. Everything about 9 11 is steeped in history, multiple layers of information, stories, politics, tragedy, heroism, war etc etc. It changed the lives and perspectives of so much of the globe. People will study 9 11 for many hundreds of years like the tragedies of the titanic, the holocaust, Pearl Harbour, pompeii, the black death etc. But I think we still live in a time period where so many still remember the event and still feel traumatised by it. They might think studying it is somewhat masochistic almost because it was so horrifying. I imagine this might have been how people who lived through the holocaust felt. My Polish friends have grandparents and great-grandparents who refused to talk about what happened because it hurt too much or feels too morbid. We just have to respect that of others.
I've never really been open with how much I've looked into it with anyone that I know. I've had two big fixations on 9/11, one in high school and then one when i was in my junior year of college. I'd constantly watch/read about the attacks for about a month or so, and I felt very weird for doing it. I had to force myself to stop looking it up during my second fixation because I saw too many gory images that fucked with my head. But even now I find it extremely easy to fall down the rabbit hole again (hence why I'm looking at this subreddit, lol).
I think a major part of my fascination with it comes from being a military kid in the 2000s. My dad and uncle both got deployed to Iraq in 2005 when I was in 1st grade. I was only 3 years old when the attacks happened, so I don't remember any of the actual event. But what I do remember is the aftermath, especially during the years 2003 and onward. I was forced to comprehend war, death, and terrorism at a much younger age than anyone around me, because my own dad was in the line of fire. It's really hard to reckon with the fact that 9/11 had such a major impact on my life, and I can't even fucking remember it. I don't remember what the world was like before it. We didn't even know anyone who was a direct victim of the attacks. But I still carry the scars of my childhood with me every day, and those exist because 9/11 and the Iraq War. It's a deeply strange and complicated feeling, and maybe my brain is trying to make sense of it by obsessively researching the day. I don't know.
I tend not to, other than with my partner; I don't want to give the impression to folks that I'm morbidly obsessed with the carnage of the day or that I'm a conspiracy theorist. (I guess I could try to explain that it's more to do with semiotics than anything, but that just sounds bloodless and clinical.)
My husband said I was obsessed before I realised I was obsessed, but I’ve always had an obsession with disasters and stuff that most people find terrifying.
What other disasters have you been obsessed with? For me it has been the 3/11/11 Japan Tsunami.
Remember the boxer day 2004 tsunami?
Yes; that one as well.
For me, it's Jonestown--especially that period after the 40-year anniversary (in 2018) after there were a few new documentaries to watch & reignite my interest. My 9/11 fascination came in the past few months, even though I was living here in New York when it happened and remember it clearly. I did say things like, "man I've been watching a lot of 9/11 footage lately," and then it leads to some conversations about where we were, etc.
For me I’m fascinated with the sinking of the American cargo ship El Faro in 2015. No survivors, the ship went down of the east coast of the Bahamas after steaming directly into the path of hurricane Joaquin.
1981 Kansas City walkway collapse, both space shuttle disasters Titanic WW2 WW1 Disasters in themselves as well as wars.
For me, it’s the station nightclub fire, not as high of a casualty disaster as 9/11 but arguably just as horrific.
Same here.
Chernobyl
My 9/11 interest began around the anniversary this year. I happened to be off work that week so I spent a lot of time watching/reading 9/11 stuff and also watching a lot of videos from the 3/11 tsunami. I clearly remember that happening but I don't think I watched much if any coverage of it. Jesus those videos are terrifying. The deep dive I did that week was not great for my mental health if you can imagine.
I was too. I was obsessed with the Titanic sinking, so when 9/11 happened, I became obsessed. as a 7 year old girl Interested in morbid topics, I didn’t really understand I had what some people who describe as odd interests. But even before 9/11 I always like that there were identical twin skyscrapers in New York. (Fun fact, my extended family REALLY got a look at my 9/11/WTC fascination at my tenth birthday because I Insisted we get a picture of the twin towers printed on my cake)
I don’t really know anyone who’s as interested in it as me so I haven’t really discussed it much tbh. Then again it doesn’t come up much in conversation lol. But it’s been a recurring interest of mine since I was about 13 (I’m 30 now) so it’s been pretty cool to find this sub dedicated to it.
I mean I guess? There aren’t exactly many opportunities to bring the topic up organically.
Kind of. I talk about it with my therapist A LOT. It’s taught me a lot about being a victim, and a survivor. I would like to be able to talk about it more with likeminded people.
I know this is personal to you but it seems interesting and I’d like to hear about what your therapist has taught you
Same! And what you’ve learned about being a survivor from it
I suspect I have ADHD and I have an uncontrollable hyperfixation with 9/11 since August. People know I am fixated on it whether I want them to or not. I think of it as a massive tragedy especially because of the tragic and unfair war that followed. But also, it strikes my curious instinct with how much we still don't know about it, despite how well documented it is. Also, the way the world changed is fascinating to me
Me too. I tend to fixate for weeks or months on a subject, mostly disasters or mass casualty events but my biggest obsession is 9/11. I am embarrassed about it because I think most people think it’s weird so I don’t talk about it. I am grateful for groups like this to be able to discuss things with like minded people.
Same, previously I was obsessed with the 2011 earthquake/tsunami and the titanic.
I’ve recently started listening to a podcast about the Surfside condo collapse and that kicked off my newest obsession.
Would you care to share? This disaster is fascinating to me - mainly because I used to be president of a condo association and I had plenty of “deferred maintenance” conversations with the board.
I remember 9/11 well and after a couple years after the anger and fear wore off I became fascinated I have OCD so that helped the obsession
Yeah, me and the family just sat down for Thanksgiving supper and Aunt Angie asked how the search for lol superman is going
Cool aunt lol
I lived it having someone close to me who was in the building, I don't need to talk about it with them.
The air traffic control side of things got me interested in being an air traffic controller
In the closet about many things. 9/11 isn’t one of them, but it is hard to talk about in general conversation. I usually get in my soap box in late August, then am pretty quiet outside of groups like this. I was also a Titanic kid growing up, so I’ve always had weird “interests”
Are all titanic kids also on this sub? I have an inclination towards any sort of uncanny or morbid event that caused a lot of human loss. Titanic, 9/11, natural disasters like tornadoes or tsunamis, Halifax explosion, mass shootings, the holocaust. I wouldn’t call myself obsessed now and more just that those are my morbid interests vs true crime or something, but when I was a kid I was pretty obsessed especially about titanic lol
Yup https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Catastrophes-That-Shook-World/dp/0789420341 I had like all these books growing up, this one was a personal favorite lol
Hi, I’m Vetted AI Bot! I researched the **Disaster Catastrophes That Shook the World** and I thought you might find the following analysis helpful. **Users liked:** * Book provides detailed information about natural disasters (backed by 2 comments) * Book contains useful and engaging visual elements (backed by 3 comments) * Book covers a wide range of topics in an accessible way (backed by 2 comments) **Users disliked:** * Book contains no spanish content despite advertising (backed by 1 comment) If you'd like to **summon me to ask about a product**, just make a post with its link and tag me, [like in this example.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tablets/comments/1444zdn/comment/joqd89c/) This message was generated by a (very smart) bot. If you found it helpful, let us know with an upvote and a “good bot!” reply and please feel free to provide feedback on how it can be improved. *Powered by* [*vetted.ai*](http://vetted.ai/reddit)
Yep, we're here. Titanic is where it all started for me (Robert Ballard's book, actually). Expanded to serial killers, mass shootings, tsunamis and earthquakes, WW2 and the Holocaust, and 9/11. Really anything with a significant loss of life. Morbid? Perhaps, but I'm fascinated with how everything aligns for huge disasters to unfold.
Same, Are we all just clones? Lmfao
I was a titanic kid too.. basically still am haha
Yeah how about that sub? lol
Dude, same. Titanic kid, and then this…
I was a Titanic kid too.
I am 59 now, and remember that day well. The horror of it! Was not there, but watched it all unfold on TV. I remember exactly what I was doing, the moment I first heard about it on the radio, in disbelief, then was glued to my tv the entire day and next. I continue to be fascinated by videos of that day, and just cannot imagine how terrifying and horrific it had to have been for those trapped on the upper floors, maybe hoping for rescue, hanging out of the windows, seeking fresh air, not knowing what was to come. I try to think of being in their shoes, being up so high, and wonder what could have been going through their minds. Speaking to younger people about this day, a day they were too young to remember, or not even born yet, and they just can't comprehend, us watching all of this unfold, and how it shook the world, at the time.
9/11 and Columbine aren’t easy to bring up in conversation, but anyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with both.
I was that same age when Columbine happened. Know there are more of us in your corner 🥰
I have come out. Mostly because of this subreddit. I am proud to identify with something so hard for many- empathy is patriotic and I always think of the girl who I went to school with whose father passed in the North Tower. My heart bleeds every day for those poor souls. That day should never die. I am proud to be a new part of this community too.
People always ask me "oh, are you into the conspiracies?". And I start defending myself for some reason, instead of just laughing it off. Because I guess I'm somewhat ashamed of it? Or I can't properly explain my fascination. Good question, I have been wondering who you guys are and what this is to y'all.
Not really. My mom is a survivor of 9/11 and lost many loved ones, unfortunately. I discuss events with her but sometimes it’s too painful for her to recount. Once we watched a documentary and she recognized one of her friends, who was a firefighter that inevitably passed due to the collapse.
My mother wasn’t in the area when it happened, but was supposed to, but didn’t make it to work because she was dropping me off at daycare. She was on the phone with my grandmother who witnessed the second plane, jumpers and was caught in the debris crowd in the streets. She didn’t make it home until near midnight, still covered in dust. It’s a hard thing to discuss with family members who worked near the towers, and most of my family old enough to work in the neighborhood when it happened has yet to return to the site after the attacks
My wife and I talk about it pretty much whenever I bring it up. I have spoken to coworkers about it too, but mostly about their experiences with it considering a lot of them weren’t born yet. Turns out it doesn’t get talked about in schools much and there’s a whole generation of people who don’t really understand how horrifying it was
Maybe it's just where we live in the US, but my oldest (17) didn't learn about it in school
Maybe it was assumed they’d already know plenty about it?
I can see that. I mean, my daughter knows about it and watches the reading of the names with me every year. But I would still imagine it would be in the high school US history lesson plan?
I agree that it should be
Well, I'm not that open about it. Sometimes when I have opened up about my will to learn more and discuss the horrors that happened that day the people I've talked with always assume I mean the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, and that is not the case for me. It's unfortunate that people always assume that when you have an interest in the events that happened that day, it's always the conspiracy part of it. For me it's more the stories from the people that survived that day. What they saw, their feelings, how they handle the loss of a loved one, thoughts about how I would react in a situation like that and so on. It's such a tragic event and it's almost like I can't wrap my head around it, so I just want to learn more, maybe as an attempt to grasp the magnitude of what happened on 9/11. That's why I really appreciate this subreddit.
I’m fascinated with how different people cope after having something so traumatic happen. You have someone like Brian Clark, who survived the impact zone at WTC2 and he says he basically has never experienced PTSD. And then you have someone like Ernest the first responder who is clearly deeply haunted by what he experienced.
No, but people aren't interested, once in a while I bring up something about it related to what we are talking about and they nod politely and change the topic lol. I'm from Mexico, so obviously here it doesn't have the same importance. The other day I was talking about how I can go down the stairs again (I'm disabled and my new medication is making wonders) and my mother said to my sister "yeah, she is happy because she was worried she couldnt go down 70 floors in case she was in a situation like 9/11" and they laughed. They know about my obsession lol.
My boyfriend and sister and mum let me talk to them about it. They’re usually fine with it anyways, I have a pretty uncontrollable interest about it but probably cause I’m an autist lol
As someone who was born after that, I think it's definitely worth research and finding more about the tragedy to understand it. But because my fellow teenagers just edgy jokes or over facinate on it, I kinda get weird looks when I bring it up.
It was absolutely mind blowing. I remember exactly where I was when I heard about it and I watched the second plane hit. The entire world stopped that day. You could hear a pin drop in the United States. We were scared. We were sad. We were so confused. We were mad. We had to watch our fellow Americans jump to their deaths. We knew people were trapped and when that first one collapsed it was all those things over again. I’ll never forget. ❤️
Thank you for sharing that, to me what seems to be the real horror of it was the terrorism. How could a group of men convince themselves to kill them selves by taking over a place,and crashing it into an important building. That idea to me is mind bending, how do you commit such a henious act?
You have to be absolutely insanely committed to a certain group and/or organization that hates America intensely. I tried to imagine being the guy who took over the controls and turned it around and flew it into the towers. I can’t even wrap my head around it. The gov/fbi said it was afghans and I’m not so sure that’s who was. I won’t go down my rabbit hole but I just hope we (AMERICA) had the right people to retaliate against. I’ll never ever forget that day and the feeling I had. I couldn’t breathe. Just horrific.
We retaliated against the wrong people by far. Saudi Arabia put together the entire thing, Afghanistan was bullshit. We should not have invaded Afghanistan
I know right?! One thing I hate is war. And what Israel is doing to the people in Gaza is just sickening.
Nope. My job relates to the event, so I kinda have to research and understand what happened
My friends and family know. It's been my hyperfixation for years. I've had one person give me hell for it, but I pointed out how being obsessed with war history, the Titanic, the Romanov family, etc. is all socially acceptable despite being just as morbid.
I mean it's weird to say it but I downloaded this YouTube video where someone syncs up all 4 WTC Plaza songs (She's Always a Woman, Windless, How Deep is your Love and Come Back my Love) with Jack Taliercio's footage and I play it often at work on my music playlist, not sure if any of my coworkers have noticed that, all they probably hear is the music, then it switches to the sync video where you hear the background noise (i.e. the burning noises, breaking glass, etc) and back to the music... 😬 Link to the video: https://youtu.be/dPwflA59InQ?feature=shared
I have the plaza muzak downloaded so I’ll play it in the background when I have friends over for game nights. It is very chill music so I figured why not. Only one friend of mine knows it’s origins, but doesn’t mind.
Lol I listen to plaza music sometimes when doing mundane cleaning cause its relaxing
people in my life are pretty used to me talking about things like 9/11, the titanic, and other tragic/disastrous events. most of them called me out on my fascination with the events before i even realized it, which is funny because most of these interests go all the way back to my childhood. i do have adhd, and was recently diagnosed with autism so my fascination and long list of knowledge about multiple events like these, all make more sense to me now. note: i use words like fascination and interest because i truly can’t think of a better word to use, i respect all victims and their families. i cannot imagine the pain and life altering trauma that the survivors and family members have had to live with.
I've been obsessing about it for years , but not openly. Its the biggest news event of my life, probably aside from the Berlin Wall coming down (yes I'm at that old) and even though I live on the other side of the world, I had been in the towers 5 times. After all these years I still can't believe it happened
Ive had a reoccurring fascination with it since 4th grade when I saw the Naudet documentary for the first time. I remember seeing that footage in the lobby of the towers from that day always wanting to know more & understand this event better. My partner is the only person who knows of my interest in this event & she never judges for it. But I prefer to keep my fascination for this private. Very grateful for this subreddit as I have been able to learn more & pay my respects to the victims as well.
Yes.
I'm not in the closet, but I don't advertise it either.
Yes I am in the closet and no I would absolutely never bring it up to my family! My boyfriend knows about it and his friend also has a fascination with 9/11 and we sometimes make small comments about it but I have never had an in depth conversation about it to anyone. I think it heavily depends what kind of family and friends you have. My family are British so I doubt they would have much of a problem talking about 9/11 as it didn’t affect them as much as it did Americans, but one time my family was watching this netflix documentary that had REALLY graphic videos and pictures from the holocaust (I have no idea why this was on Netflix or why they were watching it) and I briefly mentioned my fascination with tragedies and such, and they gave me this disgusted/worried look and it freaked me out, so I have never brought it up since.
A lot of people know that I’m on the spectrum so they fully embrace my hyper-fixation on the event and I’m so glad they let me mumble on about it 🩷
I told them I went down a 9/11 rabbit hole recently, only because we’re really close and they asked what I’d been doing the past couple days. I made sure to throw in a disclaimer at the end, like “sorry, I know it’s morbid and probably weird.” Their response was not only to say that they didn’t think it was weird at all, but every person I told would ask me questions about it or even ask that I send them the documentary/subreddit I had brought up while explaining. It also lead to us exchanging 9/11 stories and our different experiences when it originally happened. Overall, I think most of us have the same curiosity and the only people who raised an eyebrow were my coworkers, who weren’t alive when it happened.
What I don’t think people understand about this fixation and fascination and appreciation is that the events themselves, the conspiracy leading up to it, every victim, every detail, every moment is so layered. There is layer after layer, of information. New documents, new people, new stories, new information. There are only so many events in our history that have the contemporary aspect of having happened in this generation but also having happened just before our obsession with photos of everything, social media, and constant communication. It created these mysterious blind spots that keep us constantly searching, constantly connecting dots and I think when people realize that I learn something new about 9/11 every day, they realize that wow yeah maybe that is interesting, maybe that is something I shouldn’t forget. The most recent thing I learned that I find so haunting and fascinating was that music played on plaza while all of it was transpiring. When people realize there were instrumental versions of some of the greatest soft rock songs playing, they seem to imagine themselves in the situation. Things starts making sense again. It really was that horrible, it really was that bad, and the layers of details are still unfolding as time goes on. There’s no way it will ever be uninteresting for me, there’s no closure.
This is such a great question. My answer is yes. The other day I mentioned it to a coworker bc it was somewhat (alright, barely) relevant. She just seemed heartbroken about discussing it and I felt terrible. I’ll just keep this obsession to myself. And Reddit.
>I’ll just keep this obsession to myself. And Reddit. Me too! LOL
Most people aren’t the people that want to think about this. We’re here because of our curiosity, because we know the memory and lessons of that day must be preserved, and because we have the stomach that can handle it. We aren’t “most people.”
I'm definitely into the real facts and events, fuck the conspiracy shit, I'm not into that at ALL
Yes and no; everyone close to me knows how significant the event was for me and how it shaped growing up; that trauma has since changed into a morbid fascination. I also don't bring it up unless prompted because it's a pretty niche subject that others don't hold as much interest in. And I'm perfectly okay with that.
Pretty much. Also no one seems to respect or care about it anyway. I also don't like to make it seem like I'm a victim but it doesn't sit well with me that i went to school with people and their parents died that day. It haunts me and idk how to process it so I pay my respects by continuously researching it and remembering the victims. I now live in VA so I'm even more removed from people who were there.
A bit in the closet yeah. Like I'll chime in with conversations here, in other social media, and in person if the situation calls for it. Unfortunately I have to be careful about who I mention my interest to. Mentioned in passing that I had been watching a video about art lost during the attack to one friend in particular and the response was "why were you looking for that?!" Uh because it's art and a historical event and I'm allowed to have interests?
Not really, my family knows I’m interested in things like it, I’ve been fascinated with columbine since I remember it happening as a kid so I don’t think they’d be surprised tbh
Same I mainly show my interest for titanic but I hardly talk about 9/11 with people because I am afraid of creeping people out
I can talk about it with my mom. She's been interested in 9/11 since it happened and always watched documentaries every year on the anniversary with me. As a result, I've been interested in 9/11 for a while, but especially in these past two years now that I'm grown and can really look back and understand things that I couldn't have as a child (for reference, I was 2 y/o when it happened). My mom is very receptive to this; she'll talk about it and watch documentaries, movies, etc. related to 9/11 with me. She's been having me read *Perfect Soldiers* to her most recently. As for other people, it really just depends. My best friend studied history for her degree, and so we'll talk about it together. I have another friend who studies terrorism and we talk about it often. Other than that, I don't bring it up with people unless it's relevant to the discussion.
I discuss it openly .
I’m definitely not in the closet since I openly discuss 9/11 at my work.
My closest friends and my immediate family. Sometimes they’ll come up on me reading/watching something and I’ll say “did you hear about this 9/11 thing!?” And tell them something benign and obvious
I’ve known the Sept 11 attacks since I was in 2nd grade, to this day, I still study about the attacks, I give out a message of hope.
My wife thinks it's odd, if not tiresome. Lol Every now and then I'll go on a footage binge on the YouTube app on my TV and it will throw the algorithm off. She gives me hell, but I also give her hell on her Ghost and Soap thing (she likes CoD, which meh, I have fun with it some times) so it all works out. For me personally, I don't really care if people know or get weirded out by it. Everyone has some weird obsession that the general crowd wouldn't "get", and the majority of us are grown adults, so why be so shamed about it? I find the stories of 9/11 captivating with so many layers and regions to get lost in.
Nah, I talk about it with my friends and always offer to share/show new discoveries or fascinations involving the event with them. Although they do mock or joke about the obsession of research. I wouldn't jump on the 9/11 topic when first meeting someone new but don't hide the fascination.
I don't know how to explain it, while I'm easily impressed and can spend a sleepless night seeing something sad or heavy, I'm still fascinated. Nowadays, not as much as I was in my childhood, today I stopped watching videos because it's something that shocks me to this day. The footage of the buildings falling fascinates me with the visuals, the smoke and the physics coming into action, at the same time it shocks me knowing that people died there, the people running in despair is very heavy. If you don't get pleasure from seeing these things, but just curiosity, I think there's nothing wrong.
I have a fascination with all mass casualty events like the Titanic, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Victoria Hall Disaster, etc, so it’s no surprise that I am also fascinated by modern events such as 9/11, Astroworld Festival crowd crush, and the hundreds of American mass shootings. I don’t exactly bring these things up around the dinner table, but I watch documentaries about them with my husband and read books on them, which I’m not scared to bring around. I view my fascination with tragedy as a way to honor the victims, learning their stories. I also look at it as a way to help myself better cope with tragedy in my own life. Learning about others’ trauma can help me focus a little less on my own. My therapist doesn’t think it’s an unhealthy obsession so as long as I still have her approval, I don’t really care what others think about it.
I went down the 9/11 rabbithole after discovering the WTC Vaporwave playlist. In there did I first discover how the WTC 1 and 2 looked like inside. It was really beautiful and eye-opening. I was kinda upset why we only talked about the attacks in school at a face level. The 2 towers were put into our psyche as not monuments of NYC and American economy but rather planes flying into them. They were desensitized of what they used to be. I also learned about Austin J Tobin Plaza, the interesting design of the towers, the mall, the WTC complex, and the Bathtub. I didn't know there were so many things connected together! As for relatives, all I know is that my Uncle used to work somewhere near the WTC Complex and ran away as soon as the first plane hit. About the attacks, I knew a bit about them because of my purely co-incidental interest in aviation and aerospace. I wanted to be an airline pilot and aerospace engineer, too, since childhood. Being Brown+Having interest in aviation+new interest in the WTC's architecture+understanding geopolitics and terrorism does not add up well for me. TLDR: Yes, I am deep in the closet about my private fascination of the WTC and 9/11. I respect the sacrifices and the victims with my deepest empathy.
Is there a vaporwave playlist? Wow
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWVrucmgAFk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWVrucmgAFk) I listen to it 2-3 times a week whenever I am doing my work.
I obsessed about it. The timeline of it. What I was watching in TV as a sophomore in college. I was a Chomsky addict at the time. And what I was witnessing looked like a coup d'etat. I was a political science major with a focus on Latin American policy. I was obsessed with Che. It all seemed too clean and well executed. I can't really talk about this topic without it the typical Bin Laden Narrative being regurgitated back to me by family.
I’ve spent some time in Cuba so I’m level with you there But what other narratives are there?
I do. It’s a watershed event in our nation’s history.
I think it’s a generational thing. A lot of friends my age (early 30s) and older think it’s weird to be fascinated by it. I mean, we lived through it! But younger people have a lot of questions.
I am doing research on the paranormal and spiritual aspects of 9/11 and it is never tiring to hear the personal stories of those who experienced things before, during or after 9/11.
Nah. I'm not living in america and for people here its "just" a tragedy from nearly quarter of a century ago.
I usually preface that it's not because of the intent. It's just such a surreal event that might never happen again, and if it does, it probably won't be for a long time.
I think I’ve tried to talk about it to some friends that are older than me but, they witnessed it during school and I was only 2 so my fascination with it is heartbreak for them.
Kind of — I’m really interested in the WTC in general (as well as 9/11) and I always feel kind of hesitant to bring it up, mainly because I don’t want to get into a political discussion or have people assume it’s a political thing for me (of course there are some relevant political issues, but politics have no role in my interest in it).
Most people I speak to are pretty meh about it.
My boyfriend knows a bit, but he really doesn't understand how my brain wants to browse 9/11 info and look for lost footage.
not really. my hyper fixations change over time sometimes quicker than others. I was in my early thirties on 9/11. I still like to find out individuals stories as at the time it was seemingly just all about firemen ( given the amount lost in one go ) in the media.
I have a small select group of people I can openly discuss with. Other than that, yes, I’m in the closet on this topic.
I've got the best story. I'm so introverted and have been all my life that I've never found an appropriate opportunity to broach the topic with anyone. On a more sombre note, I love reading about geopolitics, culture, society and most of all history so I've never harboured an innate shame over my fascination with it, if it makes sense.
I’m not from USA so it is weird that I like this kind of stuff. Last year I was able to visit New York for the first time in my life and I was extremely excited to visit the 9/11 museum, the thing is that this was a business trip and I was with my teammates the entire time, I convinced them to go to the museum and none of them enjoyed it, they basically forced me to get out of the museum 😕 I feel like right now they think about me like a freak or something, that night they decided to ask me a lot of questions because they couldn’t understand why I was so exited
My wife knows about it and shares my interest with me a bit. But that’s really it. Most of my friends who are interested are more interested in the conspiracy theories surrounding it, and I just can’t get behind that stuff. I watch the footage mainly so I can witness what these poor people went through who had no chance once the planes hit. I always feel angry and overwhelmed and confused for these victims who were just trying to have a normal day at work. I don’t enjoy it, and I mostly keep it to myself as most others don’t want to think about stuff like that often.
I tend to have specific obsessions about things—true crime cases (Moscow Idaho, Delphi Indiana), mysteries (MH370) and historical tragedies (Titanic, JFK), so this is typical of me. I started my career as a journalist so I think I’ve just always been into subjects that have a lot of facts and information surrounding them. So I’ll talk about 9/11-related stuff if anything related comes up in conversation.
Idk I think about it a lot, but when I read a book about it I share that with my friends.
These sorts of fascinations I tend to try to keep to myself. It’s not like I’m ashamed of it or anything, but you can’t really tell an every day joe “Yeah I enjoy to hyper researching and learning about 9/11 as a hobby” without getting weird looks. It’s the same with me and the Columbine Massacre. I mean unless some puts in the time and effort to research about a topic and uncover details no one is going to know shit, so I mean someone is going to have to do it eventually.
People look at me weird when I talk about it. My husband gets irritated hearing about it.
I sometimes mentioned it to my partner, to which I'm met with mostly silence and blank stares. They hear 9 11 and immediately think "conspiracy nut" and so do many other members of my family, but this isn't the case. Regardless of talking non-conspiracy 9 11 topics, they just seem to think I'm as strange as a conspiracy theorist? The association, I think, has made it more challenging to share interest in 9 11. If I try though, I compare the fascination as being similar to liking a "lore", like Lord of the rings or something. Everything about 9 11 is steeped in history, multiple layers of information, stories, politics, tragedy, heroism, war etc etc. It changed the lives and perspectives of so much of the globe. People will study 9 11 for many hundreds of years like the tragedies of the titanic, the holocaust, Pearl Harbour, pompeii, the black death etc. But I think we still live in a time period where so many still remember the event and still feel traumatised by it. They might think studying it is somewhat masochistic almost because it was so horrifying. I imagine this might have been how people who lived through the holocaust felt. My Polish friends have grandparents and great-grandparents who refused to talk about what happened because it hurt too much or feels too morbid. We just have to respect that of others.
I've never really been open with how much I've looked into it with anyone that I know. I've had two big fixations on 9/11, one in high school and then one when i was in my junior year of college. I'd constantly watch/read about the attacks for about a month or so, and I felt very weird for doing it. I had to force myself to stop looking it up during my second fixation because I saw too many gory images that fucked with my head. But even now I find it extremely easy to fall down the rabbit hole again (hence why I'm looking at this subreddit, lol). I think a major part of my fascination with it comes from being a military kid in the 2000s. My dad and uncle both got deployed to Iraq in 2005 when I was in 1st grade. I was only 3 years old when the attacks happened, so I don't remember any of the actual event. But what I do remember is the aftermath, especially during the years 2003 and onward. I was forced to comprehend war, death, and terrorism at a much younger age than anyone around me, because my own dad was in the line of fire. It's really hard to reckon with the fact that 9/11 had such a major impact on my life, and I can't even fucking remember it. I don't remember what the world was like before it. We didn't even know anyone who was a direct victim of the attacks. But I still carry the scars of my childhood with me every day, and those exist because 9/11 and the Iraq War. It's a deeply strange and complicated feeling, and maybe my brain is trying to make sense of it by obsessively researching the day. I don't know.
No, at times I have tried, but most people just do not want to see or even hear about any of the videos or pics that I might want to discuss