A pixellated video — shot surreptitiously from the hip on a smartphone — documents an unfolding altercation between a bus driver and an irate young woman. Another video of similar quality offers a window into a high school cafeteria, where dozens of girls rip at each other’s hair, screaming like banshees. What is it that makes violence go viral?

The former video — uploaded by entertainment site Worldstar Hip Hop — has been viewed almost 20 million times. Similarly, high school fights have become commonplace on teens’ Instagram feeds — Atlanta-based Clayco Fights boasted 30,000 followers before being shut down (though immediately replaced) — while searching for ‘subway fight’ on YouTube dredges up more than 170,000 results. With the ubiquity of smartphones leaving anyone free to shoot and upload on the spur of the moment, this kind of content is only set to multiply. “The presence of recording devices becomes a self-fulfilling dynamic within the event itself,” says Jeff Ferrell, a professor of sociology at Texas Christian University specialising in the intersection of culture and crime.

Our obsession with violence is nothing new; just last month genocide simulation game Hatred was released in the UK, just the second game title in history to get an 18+ rating. Grand Theft Auto V similarly fed an international hunger for running down pedestrians and putting bullets in police officers to the tune of almost $2 billion, while boxing champion Floyd Mayweather is the highest paid sportsman in the world, earning more than $6 million a minute during his 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao.

Social scientists believe that spectating on violence can be cathartic. “Theory suggests that the more violent the sport is, the greater the pleasure received for both the participant and the viewer,” write Jewell, Moti, and Coates in ‘A Brief History of Violence and Aggression in Spectator Sports’. But whether watching ringside or with mates clustered round a smartphone screen, where is the line between cathartic entertainment and destructive perversion? And is there a space near that line where media creators can guiltlessly exist?

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Written by Lore Oxford, deputy commissioning editor at Canvas8