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From ‘First-class videos' to the best fail: why do we like people to have a bad time?

How many times, in the last month, have you been sent to your WhatsApp account a video in which a person slips/falls/breaks the chrism? 800,000 or so? There is a trend that not only does not go out of style but every time it seems that we like more .The genre is defined by a content full of fails and shows us, basically that, people making mistakes with consequences that They are always fun for us.Why do we love them?

Already in my grandmother's time



Let's not get confused. This fails is not a thing of now .Of a lifetime, our favorite anecdotes, the stories they told us as children and those we shared with our friends had that content.A person who undertakes X adventure and fails miserably.


Of course, the arrival of television was the phenomenon.If you are not very young, you will remember a program called 'First Videos'.It was broadcast on La1 during the decade of the 90s and you have to see what that we laughed with him. people recorded his family, his neighbors, his pets ...doing the most ordinary thing and, suddenly, they fell, they stuck a smack, they caught the heifer of the people...So much was the pleasure to see it was a contest in which the winner of the week was called a million pelas (6,000 euros for which he no longer remembers what that was).


Actually, it's not that the Spaniards had discovered the dust, far from it.The space was a version of the American's American Funniest Home Videos.In fact, today, the proliferation of such formats on television it maintains its good health.And it is normal: they are cheap to produce, of varied thematics, surprise , and, of course, make us laugh at everything it gives.television that triumphs since 2011 and that also has its adaptation to our country.


YouTube, the video library of our time



But of course, nothing comparable to the phenomenon that is lived on YouTube.The great video club of our time could not resist having a collection of innumerable (and it is not a word used because yes) videos in which everything fails They torture their protagonists with the millions of viewings that have made them world famous.Their success fits perfectly with the new consumption models that the Internet has popularized.


We have short pieces , which are consumed with astonishing immediacy.We have a story, the narrative is always important because it makes us get hooked on that anecdote.The story exists in all kinds of human messages.It is the way that allows us to empathize, connect and understand.But at the same time, very important, the fail is not scripted (or should not).Which allows It is fresh, dynamic and sparkling.We have a groundbreaking structure: a hook that goes up the expectation, that generates that "you'll see now" and that explosively breaks ...Although we intuit it, no We know how and when it will happen: "Yes, that will burn your hair, but how will it happen?" Expectation, after all.All these features make it viral .


Thus, the accounts presented to us no longer simply fail one after another, but authentic fails compilation , sorted by themes such as "the best of the month" "fails sports", "fails de girls »,« wedding fail », have productivity by flag and reach absolute success with their thousand and one crazy occurrences.


Fails, why do we like them so much?



We come to the big question: why do we like to see a person fall, a tooth is broken or the head is opened? It is clear that we get satisfaction from all this because we not only laugh, but we are able to watch the same video a hundred times without getting bored.


We must say that not everyone gets the same degree of satisfaction when we see these contents.kind of laugh with, sometimes, quite a pity, a contradictory sensation that explodes us in the brain.Having fun with the pain of others.That is so human, so everyday, it defines us both as a species.Why? Some specialists (because, of course, this is studied by psychologists) ensure that there is a component very related to the evolutionary issue.See as positive that another is more clumsy than you and, therefore, that you have more options for Survive Queel, is something tattooed in our way of being, in what makes us human and has allowed us to grow and improve.


There are many other causes.Some of these videos end up even being educational Nino, don't get on the roof», «why?» "Because it can happen to you like this guy" .Then you put the video of that man who was ready to do stunts and broke a leg.The child immediately understands the danger because, as they also told us a lot before the Internet: a picture is worth a thousand words.


Apart from the joke, the previous paragraph has a phrase to analyze "go over ready." And is that some of our favorite failures start from a situation of alleged superiority, of great value, of tremendous posturing. that, of course, guapi, we love to see how it ends badly: the one who sucks on his surfboard and falls; the one that is going to be pulled from a super high cliff and slips, the one who wants to lift a weight of so many kilos and slips.There are many types because the greatness of fail is that this can happen at any time, even while reading this article.Remember that video in which a boy opens his iPhone 6 just bought to show it to a reporter who covered the launch of the phone? The nerves for showing such a precious prize betrayed him and threw the unused mobile on the ground.The virality of the video had a lot to do with an "insane envy" for not being one of the first to get that last model.Or, precisely, for not supporting the one that people who kill for getting that last model...


The fail also has that tender point, in which we feel identified with a clumsiness that no one knows but persecutes us daily: when we drop our coffee in our clothes, when we step on a puddle (or worse) , when we did not find that fundamental role.The video of the fall of Edgar, with more than 50 million reproductions, which continues to triumph in the network for ten years, shows us a child who falls when crossing the river. Are we not all a little Edgar at the most inopportune moment?


I would tell you: the win



But it's okay to laugh at the misfortunes of others, man.There is also an opposite phenomenon to fail: the win, the winning move.The win usually starts from the same situation as a fail: a dangerous staging, a quirky experiment, a risky adventure but, surprisingly, it ends well.There is no fall, there is no pain.Everything is solved. We are very happy ending and we love heroes .


Of course, the win is more win the more risky the scene is.It is not worth a simple pirouette, a little jump without more.There has to be danger of fat people and a tremendous sense of threat that is formulated with the "ayayay" so universal.The success of the win is that for a hair, it has not become a fail .For once, good triumphs and we all applaud.Well, all, no.There is always someone who He prefers to fail, of course.And you, are you win or fail?

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