But I already have Jira for that

I've been collecting videos for years that make me shed tears. I don't easily shed tears if it feels a little too manufactured. Usually what works best for me is just seeing actual genuine unprompted emotion, though sad scenarios without any emotion can do it if the sentimentality is balanced well.

Tried maybe 5-6 videos on the site and none of them worked. :/ Just watched one of my old videos, boom, instant tears.

Don't know about the health implications of crying once a week or anything, but sometimes if I'm feeling a little out of touch with life, watching something sad does help.

I'm curious.

Can you share one of those videos?

(None of the videos on the site made me feel bad, even slightly.)

Maybe your approaching it from the wrong viewpoint.Crying doesn't have to be because you feel sad, it can come though feeling empathy, or even joy

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for your appreciation for the site (except that one guy who hated it). Pretty awesome to see this little side project make it to the front page on here.

I'm working on a new project called Feel (https://www.feelapp.io) which is an app that helps you feel all emotions on demand. It goes beyond just crying and helps you navigate and shift your mood in real time. It can make you cry too though. Or feel joy, awe, confidence, serenity, or even process difficult emotions like anger or fear when you need to.

This isn't an ad or shameless plug I promise - I'm actually looking for a creative developer to join the team and help us take it to the next level. Please reach out if this resonates with you or share with your creative coder friends: johnny@feelapp.io

Not gonna lie, this whole "Feel - Emotions on Demand" thing sounds like a slightly dystopian scifi concept. Maybe like a Black Mirror -style parody of how even emotions can be manufactured nowadays.

I get that reaction and see how it could sound a bit Black Mirror ish. It's literally just art and curated audiovisual experiences designed to help you feel and process your emotions though.

We’re already living in a scifi dystopia where our emotions are constantly being manipulated by social media, algorithms, ads, etc. Feel is an attempt to offer an intentional alternative. It's not about manufacturing emotions. It's about moving through them more consciously with greater awareness and emotional intelligence.

I appreciate the comparison and feedback though. I welcome it all.

Not a psychologist, but I have doubts that this is a more conscious and aware way of going through emotions. If you're so stressed about something that it makes you cry, this is a signal that there is something wrong that you need to change or takle/face in some way. If you're inducing cry once a week to relieve your stress, you're instead trying to silence the signal telling that something might be wrong. Like taking a painkiller after breaking a bone, but without taking care of the fracture that is causing the pain.

Perhaps some revolutioning would be a better cure then?

I believe Soylent Green has some prior art.

Sounds like the "Penfield Mood Organ"[0] from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Characters "dial" emotions, from basic to extremely specific (e.g. "481. Awareness of the manifold possibilities open [...] in the future", or "888 [...] The desire to watch TV, no matter what's on it")

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penfield_mood_organ

That is… nothing new? At least for me, music does the same. It can make me cry, make me happy or make me angry. I can spin up a CD and get in each mood I desire. Or, and that’s the great thing about it, get out of it.

I love that you just said spin up a CD

Wait till you learn about art, where other humans use audio visual mediums to evoke feelings. It's going to blow your mind.

Would be a shame if someone picked those up and surreptitiously inserted them in feeds of their social network to manipulate the users' emotions- I mean, "maximize engagement"...

Well the site definitely works.

Currently going through a extremely difficult time at the moment with my amazing cat that is dying of CKD/CHF.

First video this site showed me is "A scene from the movie A Dog's Purpose (2017). A family's dog reaches the end of his life."

Now I cant stop crying.

When my cat passed away I wept like a baby. He was my friend and companion when we travelled across the country for 10 years. It’s been 5 years since and I still tear up whenever I think about him.

Sending virtual hugs in your direction.

Our cat died last year due to blood clots in has back legs. He was a good cat.

Losing a pet is heartbreak on a whole different level. Wishing you and your cat peace and comfort in whatever time you have left together

So sorry to hear about your cat. Sending you strength through this difficult time.

I still miss my guy five years on. It's rough. Make the most of the time while you have it.

My cat passed from CKD last year, it sucks. I feel you man. Stay strong

Been there, sending love

My condolences <3

Hmmm... Nothing made me cry. I will diminish and go into the west.

I had a similar reaction, probably because I don't care about dogs.

Godspeed

Hitachi story made me cry. Having my best friend here right now (Yorkshire), working with me, is especially hard to watch.

I watched this with my girlfriend. I can confirm that your domain name is completely accurate.

I hope Thai Life Insurance videos are in the mix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-B7SIVseO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6CSQvdfTKY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBobmn_u98w

Of course they are!

Thanks for sharing, I have my wedding in two days and have been a nervous wreck, the cry was a good release.

Wishing you all the best for the big day! May the only tears be happy ones

Enjoy the day! Congrats

I haven't investigated the site because I don't want to cry right now, but I think it's a great idea! A good cry can be cathartic, and once a week sounds about perfect. I have a 'songs to cry to' Spotify playlist for precisely this reason.

I thought I wouldn't cry but then I cried

Classic emotional ambush

A piece of music that always makes me cry is Gavin Bryars' Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_njWv6ssGZFL5TYEDOf...

I probably do need a good cry since my breath does that repeated-hesitation thing when I breathe in sometimes (not sure if there’s a name for it yet, but you also do it for a while after you’re done crying, I call it “aftershocks” then… but this is like, all the time for me now…)

Interesting. I'd be curious to know if crying helps it at all. It could be anxiety or stress related. Have you tried breathing exercises?

Hitching.

Yeah. If it isn't actually accompanied by emotions that suggest a cause, you really might want to see a doctor about that. If you also sleep on your side, go for the home sleep study if offered, it's worlds more convenient.

Marley and me, just did it for me.. I don't think I've ever cried like this since I was a kid.

I am (un)fortunate in that I'm a massive softy so don't need to bring out the big guns like this. I cried four times during Superman last week.

Oh I was bawling during the Pa Kent scene in the theater yesterday, it was so good. I also cried at the way Superman was distraught over the treatment of the monster, and then also the scene with the kid and the flag.

Works for me. Most reliable SaaS (Sadness as a Service) I've seen in the past years.

I have a collection of clips that worked on me specifically which I used to gauge my state - not crying is a cause for concern, but over the years I got desensitised to them.

I'm almost afraid to ask: are Japanese Toyota ads in there?

Sadness as a Service - I love that. Thank you.

I don't think any Japanese Toyota ads are on there. I'll check them out. Always open to suggestions for additions.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9fy9gR__iE

Man, that touched me.

If this doesn’t have lil brudder it’s a crime.

He can make it on his own!

He's got the heart of a champion Q_Q

We doomscroll all week, maybe it is time we schedule a cathartic cry like it's a dental appointment

More like going to a massage parlor. I used to work opposite one of those. Believe me, whatever you think you can imagine on the faces of men as they walked out that door, you really have to have seen it. Even I couldn't find the heart to catcall abuse, not even at the men who'd already put back on or never taken off their rings.

Yes! You get it

I've made plenty of websites that made my boss cry.

Also you should reformat it like the "Why don't men cry?" [1] meme and have the video in the bottom left square.

[1] https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/436274023/men-dont-cry

You made me cry, you jerk! I just had eye surgery, and you make me watch a dog dying. You'll be hearing from my lawyers!

See you in court

Estelle! Is that you?

I am Frank Costanza's lawyer.

Thanks, but for that i have plenty of at work.

Made me laugh, thank you! Laughing is healthy, though should be taken more often than once a week. For the record, it gave me https://player.vimeo.com/video/994963176

Crying once a week is great but as Charlie Chaplin said, a day without laughter is a day wasted, which I agree with. Happy I was able to help regardless.

Definitely thought you were a bit scary at first, but... yeah, that definitely wouldn't have made me cry lol

I find that improv classes are good sources of laughter.

This site brings me to tears every time I visit. Sometimes joyful, sometimes sad. Usually melancholy.

https://thesoundof.love

What you made a portfolio tracker for my stocks?

As an employee of a large enterprise SaaS company I was expecting something different

Well, I was reassured I'm just a cynical old bastard, so that's worth something, I guess. To me all the videos I saw, around a dozen, were all (by accident?) emotional cheap-shots, the low-hanging fruit of manipulation. For example: When I see a clip of Brooks Hatlen, the elderly librarian from The Shawshank Redemption, make his final voyage after being released, I get shown an old man take his own life (spoiler! but the movie is 30 years old now, so c'mon). That itself is somewhat sad, yes, but the feelings come from the context of the movie and what the viewer is shown before. So the clip falls flat, even with knowledge of the movie/book. Simply getting shown sad things does not make me cry, especially in short clips out of context.

How can I grab a link for a video to share that specific video?

All the videos are linked on vimeo which you can copy and share. But be sure to share the site as well :)

The Vimeo logo in the video is a link to the video on vimeo.com.

The first video I got didn’t have the vimeo logo in the controls. I guess the play size was too small? Others have had it, but I can’t seem to find that first one at all.

Bandai Namco made a (Japanese-only) DS / Mobile game that did the same thing, 99 No Namida. Got a tiny bit of western media coverage due to the absurdity.

Interesting. I haven't heard of that before. The idea for the site was actually inspired by a Japanese researcher who teaches people how to cry once a week.

Great idea. To reduce the likelihood of repeat draws, maybe you could check out decay weighting.

I've tried to make it so videos don't repeat but will look into that, thanks

I haven't felt anything in years. I am dead inside.

When did you launch this? 300 tiktok followers in a day seems like great engagement

I actually launched it like a year ago. I'm working on a new project now called Feel (https://www.feelapp.io) which I've grown to over 40k followers on IG and tiktok

I want this in literally every other emotion, except for anger, because there's already a site for that called reddit.com

IT here. I don't need a website; I have users.

I've been in SWE in non-enterprise for decades and right now I'm seated with IT and operations because our two teams total less than 15. The amount of users who open tickets with "I have this issue" and then send a screenshot of some error in a browser with absolutely no context... Not even the full browser image, just a small snapshot of the completely meaningless error... As though they expect the IT support people to just know what they were doing? My twin todlers who haven't learned to speak yet are still somehow better at telling me what is wrong when something is wrong.

I'm always amazed at how friendly the IT support people manage these things.

It is with the confidence of decades of experience that I can say that the problem is that you have a bad attitude about your job.

(I have elaborated on this in the past: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164086>)

It is with the confidence of decades of experience I can say that to quote Alan Watts aloud is a sign of desperately needing to read another book.

Is anything in that quote so wrong that it invalidates the larger point the quote is meant to illustrate?

I miss alt.sysadmin.recovery

“scary devil monastery”.

this is a you problem. Worked in IT over 20 years, never been angry. Perhaps you should change careers.

Twitter and facebook are far more effective for that.

I think we can just kinda blanket-statement this and say all social media induces anger, yeah?

All of them can but I don't think they are equal. Back before I deleted twitter about a year ago, no matter what I did, how many accounts I blocked, I'd get a feed of AI generated ragebait. Meanwhile TikTok and Youtube seem to respect my preferences more. There is ragebait on those platforms but it isn't shown to me. Facebook just seems to be entirely Boomers and Gen Xers angry at the news.

Reddit has historically respected your subscriptions but it does look like they are drifting away and making the home page just whatever they want to show you.

I'm actually making this: https://www.feelapp.io

What's a good subreddit for crying? All I get is ragebait and recycled punchlines

First video was about Hachiko and it made me cry. Bookmarked, will revisit in a week. Thank you for making this.

That one hits hard. Thanks for visiting and crying.

I was like this website isn't going to make me cry.

Then it shoves a knife through my heart with a montage of that dog movie. Well done.

I love getting comments like this

> Studies show crying can relieve stress for a week.

Correlation, causation, etc?

I.e. I can easily imagine that, if something is seriously weighting on your mind, opening up about it and even crying would reduce stress.

It might even be the other way: That once people get a moment to de-stress and get a chance to mentally process some devastating event, they will cry.

I find it much harder to believe that just crying about some random, unrelated thing will magically make you more relaxed.

Driving to work is sufficient for my daily cry.

I already cry once or twice a week, usually when going to sleep.

I actually prefer to laugh

The amount of javascript I had to allow made me cry. Unfortunately browsing with No-Script seems to block much of the functionality. But otherwise a cool project!

You can turn off such things for specific sites.

Then that would defeat the purpose of the site. I have to cry.

what website? BTW who the heck is chopping onions next to me?

Is it just the first ten minutes of Up?

Yes

It'll not be long before the UK gov add crying to the online safety bill, so enjoy this while you can, people of the UK.

You got a license for that free speech there gov?

Be careful, I'd hate for your comment to misconstrued as one talking poorly of the government or government officials.

I clicked. I didn't cry.

Click again

I tried five times. I cry at lots of media, I'm no stoic. I just find different things cry-worthy than the majority of others I think.

What usually makes you cry?

Damn, I had no idea Richard Gere was Japanese

Does what it says on the label.

I like it. Thank you for showing.

Thanks for crying

If you ask AI to recommend or gen a video to make you cry, it may just show you a video of someone cutting onions.

Alternatively, you can watch one episode of Violet Evergarden once a week.

Ep 10 has reliably gotten the tears going 3 out of the 3 times I've seen it from 2019 on, but if I watched it any more frequently, nah. I find this site distasteful.

This is bad. If you want some emotional art therapy, go actually watch something, whether it's something you already appreciate or something new that you are willing to try. Content poaching wrapped up as pseudoscientific wellness product is just exploitative.

It sounds like you need a good cry

Jesus Christ you must be not fun at parties

This is just scientifically false. Emotions only last for 90 seconds and short-form content can indeed be beneficial. Studies show even a two minute experience can break the cycle of negative rumination.

Studies of what? Bunch of teenagers that are already hooked on short-form content, whose attention span is non-existent?

You're arguing with a grifter, you know. Best case he's going to crib what you say to sound smart. Why help?

Can I "upvote" / "downvote" the videos? I got "unlucky" and the two I saw didn't made me cry.

You can answer the questionnaire after the video that asks you if it made you cry or not.

That is straight out of Severance

"Please enjoy each cry equally"

I kinda love this comparison (even though I'm not trying to create emotional dystopia)

Yeah they showed me ET, which I first saw at a very young age. While it might have been a tearjerker for some, it was one of the first horror movies I watched and just watching the clip was a trigger. What kind of sick bastard designs a horrifying alien instead of a cutesy one for a kids movie?

whatcha gonna do about it, cry?

pfff Already do this. Monday in the shower before work .

woof. Two deeply moving clips back to back.

Seems that website is hosted on cloudflare and doesn't open in Russia, which blocks all cloudflare traffic. This makes me cry, thanks! App works 100%

Very thoughtful of you to have written a comment that makes me laugh as a response to a website that made me cry.

I appreciate this level of emotionality on HN once in a while.

Accidental therapy at its finest

Mission accomplished

Mission failed successfully

Yes, of course. Russians are, in fact, not people and do not deserve to view Western sites, media or actually any web service hosted by Western nations.

What kind of a take is this? If you strategically block an entire nation from viewing our sites and media, you're handing the state-run media there more power.

FYI Russian ISPs are blocking Cloudflare, Cloudflare isn’t blocking Russia.

I believe he knows

> What kind of a take is this?

The take of the Russian government?

Xenophobia is good because our NATO/US overlords which don't engage in propaganda tell us to hate our enemies. Then in X years they stop being our enemies and we point our irrational hate to someone else. It's also useful because you can label any dissenter as "pro Russian".

The McCarthy strategy/red scare is very effective.

We're the good guys though. Remember that. If we admit any wrongdoing ever, that's just history and now we are good. Or else.

I'm currently in Russia trying to get a US visa for my CS PhD. Because I do CS, I got into a thing called administrative processing. For 95% of people, it takes days -- weeks, tops. Because of the colour of my passport, it has already lasted for 3 months. I know people who are waiting for 2 years to pass it.

Why do you think I shouldn't have access to this website in Russia?

> the fact that it doesn't open in russia makes me happy, to be honest

Mind to explain why?

Standard "boo Russia, yay Ukraine" vibes + forgetting that Russian people are just regular people with regular-people hopes and fears.

Yea, but I wonder how they try to justify (if those silly emotional bursts are justifiable) those statements.

I don't think they think as far as "justifying" it. They just get their opinions from the internet

I think some people just support countries the way they support football clubs.

I'm sure among those Russians who want to go from Hacker News to "Cry once a week" site the portion of the Government supporters is minuscule.

As if the news and state of the planet weren't enough.

The planet is stateless.

Then why does it keep mutating?

Something something entropy

Is that what they mean by cryotherapy? ;)

Anyway, this seems to be a covert ad for https://www.feelapp.io/.

It's how funnels should work. Show a sample and if people want more, they can go to https://www.feelapp.io/

Sadly, they have a waitlist, so I'll just come by on the next funnel.

Join the waitlist! We're launching soon I promise

How do I know your comment isn't a covert ad for https://www.feelapp.io/.

How do I know yours isn’t?

I’m not linking it, therefore no covert ads here.

Unless that’s what I want you to think.

My comment was actually intended as a literal ad, therefore my comment was not a covert ad for https://www.feelapp.io/.

Weirdos watch windows, faking evidence, exposing lizardmen and pyramids, protecting illuminati’s operatives.

(Sorry could not resist)

It's not a covert ad, that's just my new project

It’s not clear why the page would link to the app if it isn’t to promote the app.

"Furiko (Pendulum), a Japanese short film about the passing of time."

Well that was fun.. :)

Didn't make me cry, but came close. I don't know if i feel stress relieved. It made me feel even more aware of my own mortality and mistakes i made/make in life. Don't feel particulary happy or relieved.

So i clicked again

"A scene from the movie Steel Magnolias (1989). A woman mourns the loss of her daughter. (6:44 min)"

Oh hell no..

Third and last attempt

"A scene from the movie Bambi (1942). Bambi mourns the loss of his mother. (02:47 min)"

You sure this is about stress relieving? :)

The only way out is through

Of course. Thank you for creating this.

Thanks for visiting

"Emotions are racial" is a new one.

What did it say? I missed it and am so curious now

turn on showdead in HN options

What is this stupidity? Why are low effort posts at top of HN all the time? Even slashdot has better top posts now

Cry about it

I am not stupid enough to cry over some random meaningless post. You are creating solutions for the problems that don't exist

Stress doesn't exist? Hundreds of thousands of people have used the site and I receive tons of messages from people it has helped with not only stress but also things like grief, C-PTSD, etc. But thanks for sharing your feedback.

Do you have a background in clinical psychology, or any proof that what you're doing has any long term beneficial effects?