How to Use shock value in a Sentence

shock value

noun
  • Don’t leave her in a bind; don’t put shock value on it.
    Jenny Berg, Vogue, 17 Oct. 2023
  • In so many movies, a cat is run over for laughs or something bad happens to a dog for shock value.
    Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 8 May 2023
  • And the social impact, of course, goes far beyond the shock value of viral videos.
    David McKenzie, CNN, 28 Mar. 2024
  • Granted, there hasn't yet been a kill of the same game-changing shock value as the beheading of Ned Stark.
    Megan McCluskey, TIME, 3 July 2024
  • Despite the initial shock value, the zany act charmed Mandel.
    USA TODAY, 2 Aug. 2023
  • The contests have staying power in part because of their shock value, Bitar said.
    Elise Hammond, CNN, 29 June 2024
  • Many people forget that Aguilera was also a part of the kiss, maybe because Spears got the shock value of being first.
    NBC News, 13 Sep. 2023
  • While many of its campaigns push boundaries, the intent is never to provoke for shock value alone.
    Jenny B. Fine, WWD, 16 Aug. 2024
  • The line was no mere deep cut, and wasn’t spouted by a reckless twentysomething seeking shock value.
    Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 25 May 2023
  • The shock value behind his imagery makes a strong first impression.
    Bianca Salonga, Forbes, 11 Feb. 2024
  • Shot in three countries over nine weeks in late 2022, the film shows the horror of the time with dignity and doesn’t use the disturbing and the re-creation of the heartbreaking pictures, for shock value.
    Clayton Davis, Variety, 9 Sep. 2023
  • So, this film’s shock value was neither a negative nor part of its attraction?
    Patrick Frater, Variety, 27 June 2024
  • Hurt feelings are the cost of doing business Despite the shock value, the claim, Cappelli says, is pretty modest.
    Jane Thier, Fortune, 19 Oct. 2023
  • Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman says the film packs on the nostalgia but omits the shock value that propelled the first film to legacy status.
    Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 4 Oct. 2023
  • Rather, the film relies on them for shock value—in effect, uses them as entertainment.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 5 Dec. 2023
  • The film’s shock value has remained potent and helped earn Divine a place among pop culture’s most influential and provocative drag stars.
    Isabela Espadas Barros Leal, NBC News, 15 Dec. 2023
  • Like some of Nicolas Winding Refn’s later efforts, its later scenes rely a bit too much on shock value and stylized glimpses of gore, which can dull their impact.
    Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 21 Jan. 2024
  • The goal was to diminish the shock value of any retaliation by Beijing for Pelosi’s trip, a senior White House official says.
    TIME, 29 Feb. 2024
  • The series has already garnered attention for its boundary-pushing bedroom scenes — in the premiere, Tim sucks Hawk’s toes — but shock value was not really the point.
    Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times, 4 Nov. 2023
  • The play’s plot contains a host of delightful reveals and unexpected turns, which upon first viewing have shock value with great payoff.
    Christian Lewis, Variety, 12 July 2024
  • But in a digital world where millions of people are shooting for shock value to gain followers, why did this account become so viral?
    Kyle Lamar Rice, Rolling Stone, 4 Aug. 2023
  • That film strikes a remarkable balance, using its more graphic moments to enhance the story’s gravity rather than for shock value alone.
    Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Mar. 2024
  • While many users clearly spread the images of the massacre, including of the dead attacker, for shock value, others retweeted them to underscore the horrors of gun violence.
    Benjamin Mullin, New York Times, 7 May 2023
  • And all over TikTok, too, makeup artists and regular people are slapping on hues that defy the typical lipstick, all while getting millions of views—and not just for shock value.
    Kristen Bateman, Harper's BAZAAR, 1 June 2023
  • The video is hypercharged by three surefire paths to virality in this era of social media: nostalgia, shock value, and celebrity cameos.
    Andrew R. Chow, TIME, 31 May 2024
  • One escort takes revenge on the boys by leaving a huge mess of excrement all over the toilet, an action painting in brown shown in great detail here for no discernible artistic reason, apart from shock value.
    Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Like his designs, Demna’s shows were big, weird, intense, and somehow intelligent in proportion to their shock value.
    Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2023
  • That made his presence at practice have significantly less shock value.
    Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 5 Mar. 2024
  • These images are often creepy but never moralistic; there’s a kind of sensuality in their shock value, so that what at first looks like a warning comes to feel like an invitation.
    Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2023
  • Rather than falling into the trap of the provocative and taboo for the sake of shock value, Roth emerges as a more mature filmmaker, without entirely sacrificing his sense of humor and penchant for brain-altering gore.
    Richard Newby, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Dec. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shock value.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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