Ghost vs Gimmick

While I’m working on some research that is a little more substantial, I feel the need to get this off of my chest.

I will be honest. I often feel discouraged and have a really hard time with the paranormal field & community. In 2022, it feels like everything is clickbait, fake or just plain stupid. Maybe it’s the Capricorn in me but I take this field of study pretty seriously, and when I see popular creators across all forms of social media trying to capitalize on clearly fake evidence or lies it makes it so hard not to be angry. There is a reason so many people don’t take investigators seriously!

So, I had to stop and ask myself “Why is there such a market for this?”. Thinking about it, the paranormal shows have been around since the early 2000’s and the Warrens even before that. Horror movies have been captivating audiences for over a century now too.

Go ahead and check out the first recorded horror movie from 1896!

From a marketing perspective, fear is something that sells. For so long, there was such a limited pool of people who could create films/books/TV on a mainstream level, and now almost anyone can. Just download TikTok or YouTube and hope you hit the algorithms…and the right audience. I won’t name names, but I see people giving psychic readings to people in their comments, using phone apps to “catch real ghosts on film” & sharing their reactions to clearly fake videos. Not to mention faking evidence, or being too quick to share something when there may be a logical explanation. There NEEDS to be some distinction between these gimmicks, and those of us who truly want to discover what the answers are. Unfortunately, the study of the paranormal can’t be called a science just yet. But I’d like to contribute to pushing it in that direction and not towards something laughable.

"TC Lethbridge believed that the supernatural of one generation would eventually become the natural of the next and that all occult phenomena would in time be explained by science."

Fear is fun! Fear is necessary for survival. We all enjoy a good spooky movie or haunted house during the season (or all year round). There are hormones that are released into our bodies when we feel fear and excitement. Adrenaline and Dopamine both play a role in why a good amount of people enjoy being scared. It’s even better when we’re enjoying it through a screen from the comfort of our homes and not the ones being chased by demonic ghost children. These gimmick-y channels give people an opportunity to explore the darker side without actually having to do it. Younger audiences eat this type of content up as well. They’d much rather watch someone hooting and hollering around in the dark, rather than sitting there during an actual investigation for 3 hours while nothing happened. Many people have capitalized on this.

At the end of all this, what I’d really like to convey is that there really are still some of us out there who want to study, learn & help advance the field in some way. We’re here, but everyone else is louder, and wants to be the next Zak Bagans. Being a speaker on parapsychology (for dummies) or speaking on different theories and trying to truly understand is my ultimate dream.

Go enjoy the clickbait, if that’s what puts the cheese on your cracker…just please differentiate between the gimmicks and the ghosts.

-xo