Apple's iPhone 11 Pro Is Triggering 'Fear of Holes' Or Trypophobia In Some (bbc.com) 158
dryriver shares a report from the BBC: People with a fear of small holes have claimed the design of Apple's iPhone 11 Pro is triggering their phobia. At its unveiling on Tuesday, many found their attention drawn to its "ultra-wide" rear camera, with three high-powered lenses packed closely together. The lenses sit alongside the handset's torch and "audio zoom" microphone. And hundreds of smartphone users now claim the new design has triggered their "trypophobia," an aversion to the sight of clusters of small holes. The term "trypophobia" was first coined in 2005 in online forum Reddit and it has since become widely talked about on social media.
American Horror Story actress Sarah Paulson and model Kendall Jenner are among those who say they have the condition. Vision scientist Dr Geoff Cole, at the University of Essex, was part of the first full scientific study of trypophobia, working with his colleague, Prof Arnold Wilkins. "We have all got it, it's just a matter of degree," Dr Cole told BBC News earlier this year. The response to seeing small holes can be very extreme, their study suggests. Dr Cole and Prof Wilkins reported testimonies from some people who vomited and others who said they could not go to work for several days. "It can be quite disabling," Prof Wilkins added.
American Horror Story actress Sarah Paulson and model Kendall Jenner are among those who say they have the condition. Vision scientist Dr Geoff Cole, at the University of Essex, was part of the first full scientific study of trypophobia, working with his colleague, Prof Arnold Wilkins. "We have all got it, it's just a matter of degree," Dr Cole told BBC News earlier this year. The response to seeing small holes can be very extreme, their study suggests. Dr Cole and Prof Wilkins reported testimonies from some people who vomited and others who said they could not go to work for several days. "It can be quite disabling," Prof Wilkins added.
Me too! (Score:2, Funny)
Actually, this happened to me as well. It also triggered my MSG sensitivity, my St. Vitus's Dance, and my phantom pregnancy.
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Was St. Vitus the phantom father?
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Didn't affect your gluten allergy? That's a plus!
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But it did trigger his fibromyalgia
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OMFG -- Here's a Fix (Score:2)
Just fill the holes with white epoxy . . . and everyone can remain calm.
So it's come to this (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently we have our answer now.
I suppose that since I find the notch on the newer iPhones disgusting that I'm hardly one to judge though.
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got the bending problem straightened out
I see what you did there =D
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Solution is easy though, go buy an Android instead. An Android full of holes.
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What's interesting is that other phones with multiple cameras don't have this effect. One above the other, or three in an L shape seem to be fine. Things with a square grid of holes generally don't either.
But for some reason a triangular layout triggers it. I guess because evolution has found the most efficient way to arrange holes is in that triangular fashion and the phobia is related to that.
The new Mac Pro case is the same, the way the holes are staggers makes them look icky. Surprised no-one at Apple s
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Odd, I see nothing icky about it - in fact I find a hexagonal grid is generally the most aesthetically pleasing way to arrange quasi-round objects (or holes)
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Hexagons I don't find icky generally either, it's only round holes. It just looks diseased or something.
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No, it's only because it's Apple's devices. Gotta have something to moan about.
With the Mac Pro fiasco, when everybody was saying "bring back the cheese grater design" nobody brought up the problem and yet the thing was covered in holes in a hexagonal grid pattern
https://appleinsider.com/artic... [appleinsider.com]
This is just bullshit.
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You brought up a good point: the headphone jack. That should have triggered these people far worse than 3 lenses which aren't really even holes, just small circles. The jack is an actual hole, and I've never heard of it bothering anyone.
I wonder how they fare around swiss cheese?
Sometimes... (Score:4, Insightful)
>"People with a fear of small holes have claimed the design of Apple's iPhone 11 Pro is triggering their phobia."
Just... Wow. Sometimes the problem really is just YOU, not everyone and everything else.
OK, then, I have a phobia of rude people, loud noises, people cutting me off when driving, taking away my personal freedom and rights, wasting my tax dollars, security theater, dogs crapping on my lawn, cramped airport seats, crappy perfume smells, and TV commercials. Please get to changing the world for me. Thanks!
Re:Sometimes... (Score:5, Funny)
OK, then, I have a phobia of rude people, loud noises, people cutting me off when driving, taking away my personal freedom and rights, wasting my tax dollars, security theater, dogs crapping on my lawn, cramped airport seats, crappy perfume smells, and TV commercials. Please get to changing the world for me. Thanks!
Your ideas intrigue me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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True, but let's also get some context. This is the new normal of some shlub "reporter" (blogger, though this is the BBC so that's weird) latching onto a comment from some twitter nobody rando and pretending it's news.
This gets reported on the BBC site (which apparently is trending towards huffpo levels of being just a blogging platform) and then posted to SlashDot and other sites. Suddenly people think it's real and that "those nuts" are all having some weird made-up condition.
So suddenly it's water-cooler
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Nah, the BBC just needs *anything* to take people's minds off of Brexit, even for a minute or two.
If you proposed what has been happening with Brexit over the last couple of weeks for a TV show about politics it'd get refused for not being plausible.
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>> K, then, I have a phobia of rude people, loud noises, people cutting me off when driving, taking away my personal freedom and rights, wasting my tax dollars, security theater, dogs crapping on my lawn, cramped airport seats, crappy perfume smells, and TV commercials. Please get to changing the world for me. Thanks!
Let's disambiguate:
1. Rude people -- human trait, you're fucked
2. Loud noises -- ear plugs
3. Taking away my personal freedom and rights -- you never had these and you'll be dead in a few
Re:Sometimes... (Score:4, Interesting)
Uh, phobias are personal things. There are claustrophobics who refuse to get in an elevator. It just affects them, not people around them (unless they actually get in an elevator and pass out).
And by definition phobias are irrational fears a person might have. It's just a recognized mental illness. Just like the sight of a spider might cause someone to ball up into tears.
No one is asking for the world to change because of their phobias. The only newsworthy item is that Apple managed to design something that triggered it in a few people. Even those people afflicted probably aren't asking Apple to change the design.
Though, given how successful exposure therapy works for phobias, those people might be thankful next year for getting cured because they were exposed to so much iPhone 11 advertising that it fails to trigger their phobia anymore.
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No one is asking for the world to change because of their phobias.
That's not really true, it's kind of the point of trigger warnings.
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The term "trypophobia" was first coined in 2005 in online forum Reddit and it has since become widely talked about on social media.
In other words, it’s garbage. And if it’s not, then I say let those afflicted puke their guts out at the sight of the iPhone 11. It’s called chlorinating the gene pool.
It fits nicely with the zeitgeist though. End of last century it was: “every child is a winner”. Today it is: “everyone’s a victim”.
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I find that it's not so much the dog crapping on my lawn as it's the owner not picking it up. I don't get upset at the dog. It is just doing what is natural for it to do. It doesn't know about humans owning property. It's been trained to go on the lawn and that's what it's doing. The owner however implicitly entered an agreement to pick up after the dog when they became the own or started to look after it.
One day I noticed some movement out of my window and I saw a woman walking on my lawn. She was walking
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>"As an aside I find it strange that as a society we find it okay to allow dogs to go around everywhere urinating and defecating"
I am not so annoyed by it when the owner takes responsibility and picks it up, and also doesn't allow urination in the same spot.
>"We complain when any other animal does it, especially cats."
Which is truly bizarre, because cat's movements are much, much smaller, they tend to do it discreetly, and almost always bury it (so you don't see it, don't "step" on it, and it has litt
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What, you're not afraid of war or cancer?
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Those are perfectly normal things to have any fear of, in other words, perfectly rational.
This is about phobias, which are IRRATIONAL fears.
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And Mark Davis! :P
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Sometimes the problem really is just YOU
Yeah well that's what a phobia is. Of course sometimes the problem is people themselves.
They are not holes though (Score:2)
They are the opposite of holes, they are protrusions.
People with a fear of holes should be filled with ecstasy upon seeing the many protrusions welcoming them.
Maybe Apple could make a special case with "NOT A HOLE" in big letters all around the camera.
Though probably a case with "A-HOLE" in big letters would be a poor idea come to think of it.
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So maybe there is a market after all (Score:2)
I did not foresee getting an A-HOLE case ironically, as with the Basic Bitch [redbubble.com] T-shirt that is apparently a thing.
Apple Haters could of course buy the case un-ironically.
Oh pretty please!!!!? (Score:4, Funny)
Can we please weaponize this????? This totally sounds like an Asshole-Syndrome detector.
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Can we please weaponize this????? This totally sounds like an Asshole-Syndrome detector.
Oh it is, why do you think they name dropped a bunch of "celebrities".
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In my experience assholes are pretty detectable without special equipment.
Trypophobia must be a bitch if you're a bowler (Score:2)
I try to be sympathetic with people with irrational fears - but this seems to be going too far.
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Isn't that pattern inside the nests? If so it doesn't help with survival because once you got the next open the many angry insects stinging you would be a good indication that you've done something wrong. You don't need to worry about feeling bad from looking at a bunch of closely spaced small holes.
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" Where in nature do we have multiple small holes arranged in close clusters ?"
Melting snow (especially if there was an impurity like pebbles in in it)
Lava Rock
Sponges
Corals
Barnacles
Crab holes in Sand
Honeycomb
Wasp nests
Worm eaten wood
All of these are pretty benign.
The only thing I can think of that would be a bot fly infestation; those will burrow in living human flesh. But they aren't contagious per se, and not something to be "afraid of"; such that there is any benefit to running away screaming if you see
Justifiable fears (Score:2)
Given price tag understandable to be afraid of the holes a new iPhone will leave in your pocket.
Re: Justifiable fears (Score:2)
Given price tag understandable to be afraid of the holes a new iPhone will leave in your pocket
I am used to holes in my pockets. It's the ever growing debt hole in my credit card that has me worried. Audit then end the FED after the bastards are jailed.
A Non-Partisan Joke (Score:2)
Guess these people will never read the Mueller report.
Small holes? (Score:3)
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Small holes, closely packed. Yes, they have to be black, but they don't have to be regular or symmetrical in shape. It is a reflexive form of disgust/fear. It doesn't translate to abstract concepts or large, clean, solitary, brightly-lit holes you can see clearly into, like the hole in the putting green.
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Is this for real, or just hysteria and/or a tactic for attention?
Hey hey now, I just got 5 extra paid sick days with this excuse, don't bend my jig!
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Sounds like a study needs to be funded.
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As TFA notes it's been established to be a real thing. Measurable response in basically everyone to some degree, with a smaller number of people having more powerful responses.
Wikipedia has some more info but basically it's only certain arrangements of holes. Square grids are generally fine, non-square like this arrangement are not.
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Picture a woman's breast.
Now picture that same breast after all the eggs implanted in the skin have hatched and the parasites have crawled out.
That's the primitive-brain root of it. Like anything in life people will vary in their reactions to it, and there's probably an equal number of people at each end of the phobia/fetish spectrum.
Mass hysteria. (Score:2)
And I don't mean mass hysteria in the sense of this affecting huge masses of people, I'm referring to the way bullshit like this spreads and infects people's minds. This isn't a real thing, but people hear it and it worms its way into their little brains and then it becomes a "real" thing..to them.
See also 98.7% of people with "chronic lyme's disease" aka mental illness.
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This article says more about how desperate they were to write an article than it does about rampant phobias.
There's a perfectly rational reason for the brain to be disgusted by something that looks like it hatched a million parasites. Like every perfectly rational reaction, some people will respond to it far more than others, some to the point of being debilitated.
I can look at something tryptophobially inducing and spend half a second analyzing the "ew" reaction before moving on with my day, so I can acce
I'm more afraid of biggest hole from new iPhones (Score:2)
Well that was stupid (Score:2)
I did enjoy some quotes in the linked article explaining the phobia:
"Crumpets have never been allowed in my household," says Gemma Perkins, from Dudley."
Maybe legit? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Maybe legit? (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't even known trypophobia was a thing until my daughter was symptomatic. We got some new wooden coasters for a living-room table, and they were patterned with these clever honeycomb-like holes. And my young daughter couldn't even look at them; she found them really, really upsetting. When should could finally speak about it, she just described that it's the kind of holes were bugs and snakes might be hiding.
My wife and I thought she was totally making it up until I Google'd it. Kooky.
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Also diseased and rotting stuff. Milk can go like that if you leave it long enough. Humans have a natural aversion to disease and decay for obvious reasons.
Re:Maybe legit? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought it looked more like a very large compound eye of an insect.
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Agreed. I'm not phobic of it, but my initial reaction is that it reminds me of the eyes of a spider.
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My first though upon reading this headline was "wow, what a bunch of fucking pussies", but then after thinking about it a bit, I think I understand where this phobia might be coming from.
Maybe it's both.
Letting an irrational phobia control you to that degree is pathetic. Wherever it came from, ones owes it to oneself to fix it, it will just keep cropping up otherwise.
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That would mean they suffer from spheksophobia or something similar. Not trypophobia.
ok, so... (Score:2)
If I'm understanding TFA, the iphone makes some people vomit. That's hardly news.
A place they should avoid (Score:3, Funny)
The Albert Hall
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Phobias are bad, possers are worse (Score:2)
My phobia is haemophobia, and is really bad.
But the thing about phobias is that they are an irrational fear. Is not rational.
Having said that, if these people get scared by an iPhone with just 3 punny lenses (+flash/torch and zoom microphone), i guess they will faint when they see the Nokia 9 Pureview with its seven (or eight if you count a super small mic) holes, or will fall into a coma at the sight of a light.co light L16 with its SIXTEEN small holes...
But this being apple, yes, all the trypophobia suffe
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https://www.theverge.com/circu...
Oh, that just looks freaky. I can actually understand how that could set someone off.
Imagine the creature from Pan's Labyrinth with eyes like *that*...
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We hit peak stupid.
Fortunately, the Universe has an unending supply of it, and more will be along shortly.
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Yeah, but Nokia is going to sell what, six of those?
iPhones with this will be all over the dang place.
Actually, while nokia has never had a big presence in the USoA, they remain big in Africa, SE asia and LatAm, with a healthy presence in europe too.
So, is very weird that no trypophobia sufferes from those geographies spoke about it...
Well fry me for an oyster ... (Score:2)
... It's not an Onion piece.
I've heard of Swiss cheese memory... (Score:3)
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Cheese is fine because the holes aren't regular.
So send Apple Corp another angry letter (Score:2)
This isn't the first time someone has complained [royalalberthall.com] to Apple about these holes. Last time someone did, though, they got a response.
People with a fear of small holes (Score:3, Funny)
Not prince Andrew or Jeffrey Epstein then.
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Is it really displaced anxiety, I wonder (Score:2)
Of course this should be studied, but I hope they don't just take it at face value and make it "a thing". It might be legit insofar it's displaced anxiety, akin to a somatoform disorder [wikipedia.org]. ie, modern life is stressful, tech is stressful, stress gets mapped on to trendy new phobia because people find comfort in knowing that others have it. See also, Morgellon's, although that's usually associated with meth.
This is not to say that phobias aren't real, but the classics like heights and closed spaces actually
Please, think of the children (Score:2)
Dear Apple... (Score:5, Funny)
...you're hole-ing it wrong.
I'll let myself out now.
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Evolution (Score:2)
Since trypophobia may be an evolutionary response to things that are associated with disease---such as diseased skin, parasites, or other conditions---it may have an evolutionary basis. This makes you wonder about the direction Apple is going.
Not quite trypophobic enough... (Score:2)
Chesse Graters? (Score:2)
Their pricing is triggering my phobia (Score:2)
Their pricing is triggering my phobia of having holes in the wallet.
The entire beta test group must be affected ! (Score:2)
"And hundreds of smartphone users now claim the new design has triggered their "trypophobia,""
That's nothing. Hundreds of 'users' who have not yet touched this iPhone? Just think how bad it will be when users actually begin receiving these units.
Just get a plain âoe11âoe then (Score:2)
Cheaper anyway. And better battery life.
Cheese Grater (Score:2)
How do they grate cheese then?
What about speakers? (Score:2)
Holes isn't "technical debt"? (Score:2)
That would make sense, given the 11 Pro just now has the same features my LG V20 had in 2016.
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... my LG v40 had 3+1 cameras a year ago...
Use language correctly for a change. (Score:2)
Plenty of people have aversions to things; this does not make them "phobias". A related concept is that it's patently stupid to build one's identity around fears, aversions, flaws, shortcomings, irrelevant preferences or genetic attributes.
I'm not afraid of the 11 Pro; it's just fugly.
Re:Oh fuck right off (Score:5, Funny)
Fear of holes? Tell the fucking pussies to get over it and fuck right off
...if they're pussies, does that mean they fear themselves?
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Re:Oh fuck right off (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh fuck right off (Score:5, Insightful)
It can be pretty disturbing
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
It triggers some primal "get the fuck away from diseased people" self preservation instinct.
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Jesus, that actually had my skin crawling all over nonstop.
Didn't even know this was a thing.
Re:It affects me (Score:5, Funny)
What an unfortunate username.
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What's an "IPhone X11 Pros SE/Rs" ?
Re:It affects me - causes agoraphobia? (Score:2)
Seriously, if you're phobia is so severe that a cluster of camera lenses on the back of a phone freaks you out this bad, how are you walking around in public? There's holes all over the place. In sidewalks, in the sides of buildings, manhole covers, tire rims and covers... The list goes on and on.
I think we just found the true cause of agoraphobia.
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Only one? Isn't he supposed to have like 5?
Re:Simple solution... (Score:4, Interesting)
This, this, and this.
WTF, this is news that matters?
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Don't buy the bleeping phone!!!!!!!
This, this, and this.
WTF, this is news that matters?
Look, it's not lost on me that people with a condition like this need to self-manage. But just because they don't own the phone doesn't mean they aren't affected. People who suffer from trypophobia deserve some consideration. Don't automatically assume they are fine with you shoving a multi-lens camera phone in their face to take a selfie with them.
Yeah I get it -- being afraid of a $1k phone does seem like a first-world problem. However, it is news for nerds/stuff that matters, because technology and healt
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Don't buy the bleeping phone!!!!!!!
Ah, if only you could avoid exposure to Apple products simply by not buying them ...