The launch of the iPhone 11 Pro, with its three back cameras, has a lot of people complaining that it’s triggering their trypophobia. After the Apple launch event on September 10, the hashtag was linked so frequently to images of the cameras that the Twitter algorithm began to block the auto-view of some photos, with the warning that they normally use for sensitive material.
Trypohobia is defined as an aversion to the sight of irregular clusters of holes or bumps, as in the lotus seed pod, or the nests in tree trunks created by certain insects. But it is triggered more by disgust than fear.
There are a few theories about the causes for this phobia. Among the most popular is the one that views trypophobia as an evolutionary response to the holes and infestations associated with infection and disease. Over time, we learnt that we too could be horribly infected if we went near a person whose skin looked like this, and this knowledge became a phobia of anything that remotely resembled maggot-infested wounds or diseased bodies.
This theory would seem to be supported by the fact that nothing induces trypophobia as severely as the sight of these irregular holes in human skin. Images Photoshopped to embed seed pods in skin have been going viral since 2014, which is when trypophobia first began trending.
Other theories suggest a primitive fear of being too close to predators with such patterns in their skin or fur.
While straw polls suggest that the condition is fairly widespread, some people report a more extreme version of the phobia, reacting even to the sight of bubbles and honeycombs. Common reactions include goosebumps and mild nausea / panic; more extreme reactions can apparently include sweating, palpitations, and tremors.
