According to Urban Dictionary, a threatening aura refers to "a place, person or object that makes you feel like you're in danger just by looking at it, sometimes characterized by unsanitary conditions." No matter the picture you’re gazing at, "you can actually feel the bad juju just by looking at the picture."
The two corners of Twitter in question capture the essence of this phenomenon perfectly. "The shirts that keep me up at night," writes the creator of both accounts, and it looks like they have a point. The 'Shirts That Go Hard' social media project started in August 2021 and has already gained a strong foothold on the platform. At the time of writing, it has amassed over 204k followers eagerly waiting for the next frightening and confusing post to grace their feeds.
When it comes to 'Shirts With Threatening Auras,' a page that was created only this month, it has already gathered a following of more than 48k fans. After all, everyone has a guilty internet pleasure, and their followers really seem to love looking at the weirdest pieces of clothing found around the world and enjoy scrolling through one of the most perplexing online galleries out there.
The fact that hundreds of thousands of people willingly expose themselves to a daily dose of vile, bizarre, and cringe-worthy images is nothing new. Items with threatening auras have become a true internet sensation, attracting people to spend their time looking at weird bedrooms, uneasy advertisements, or one of the most popular subjects out there — cursed bathrooms. Over the past few years, plenty of new accounts started celebrating uncomfortable images and were widely embraced by people who felt amused by such content.
One thing that catches our attention about these images is the sense of uncertainty they carry. The disturbing feeling these uncanny pictures provoke can leave us slightly trapped, yet craving for more. As Frank T. McAndrew, Ph.D., the Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College, stated in our previous interview, we find these images unsettling because there is something not quite right about them. Although usually, we cannot pinpoint exactly why it is so disturbing.
"It may combine things that should not go together (a cherry pie with a bleeding human face baked into it?) or it presents an object in a context where it does not belong," the professor told Bored Panda. And the reason why they make us feel so uncomfortable? We humans simply dislike uncertainty, the professor explained. "We like to make sense of the world around us, and things that defy our expectations or things that are difficult to categorize throw us off our game."
We all hate to feel unsure of what’s right in front of our eyes. Bryan E. Robinson, Ph.D., is a licensed psychotherapist, journalist, and Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte explained in an article on Psychology Today that uncertainty causes tremendous anxiety within us. "To the human mind, uncertainty equals danger," he wrote, explaining that our brains always try to make sense of the world. In doing that, it also draws conclusions about what’s safe and what isn’t.
It even turns out that our minds prefer physical pain to uncertainty. "British researchers found that study participants who knew for sure they would receive a painful electric shock felt calmer and less agitated than those who were told they only had a 50 percent chance of getting the shock," he added. "No wonder you fight or flee when it doesn’t know which way is up."
