The Internet's fascination with Tasers goes at least as far back as "Don't Tase Me, Bro," an unfortunate altercation between campus security and a student in 2007 that became one of the first viral videos.
For some reason, audiences just can't seem to get their fill of videos of people reacting to being shocked by stun guns or Tasers, and then reliably screaming, passing out or falling over.
But a new video from The Slow Mo Guys has a willing test subject stunned with a Taser at 28,500 frames per second. The team traveled to Taser headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, armed with a Phantom v2511 high-speed camera for a demonstration of the x26, a model that delivers 50,000 volts.
We hazard to say that it's a thing of beauty: painful, educational beauty.
Unlike most of the amateur clips of people getting hit with stun guns and Tasers -- which are, by and large, gratuitous -- we learned a few things from this video.
For example, the festive pink and yellow confetti that explodes from the Taser when it's fired serves a purpose. It isn't just there to celebrate the successful deployment. The serial number of the Taser is printed on each piece of confetti, which can come in handy when investigators are trying to confirm whether a Taser was fired at a crime scene.
Dan Hafen, who works for Vision Research, the maker of the Phantom camera, volunteered to be filmed getting hit with a Taser. The video shows Dan's muscles contracting as the Taser's probes break his skin and deliver their high-voltage payload.
It's mesmerizing, but it was also incredibly painful for Hafen.
"I couldn't stop [the groan] from coming out," he says in the video after receiving the shock. "I think that was just my body convulsing and pushing the air out ... It still feels like my muscles are locked up."
The American Civil Liberties Union has argued that Tasers aren't truly non-lethal weapons. More than 500 people died after law enforcement uses electroshock weapons such as Tasers on them, according to a 2012 ACLU report.
The literature on Taser's website maintains that the devices are designed to minimize harm, and are superior to firearms "in many contexts."