0:00

Hi, you've reached the voice mailbox

0:03

of American

0:05

hysteria and you're wrong about

0:08

This is Chelsea and this is Sarah

0:11

and we have a very

0:13

special episode for you today It's

0:16

a two-parter. You can find the other

0:18

part on American hysteria. They're

0:21

not linear parts. They're

0:23

Listen in whatever order you want parts

0:26

in in this episode

0:28

I tell Chelsea about my

0:30

fears and

0:31

In the American hysteria episode

0:34

I tell Sarah all about my fears We

0:38

love making both of these shows

0:40

talking about the fears that we feel

0:43

and the fears that society Experiences

0:46

and we had a lot of fun Making

0:48

these episodes for you and talking

0:51

about our

0:52

dearest fears Thank

0:55

you for listening. Here's our show

1:11

I have a little message welcoming you to

1:13

this very special episode But first a

1:15

little info for you this episode is

1:17

a collaboration with our dear sibling

1:20

podcast American hysteria hosted

1:22

by Chelsea Weber Smith and we

1:24

are also Collaborating with them on

1:27

a holiday show at Portland's Aladdin

1:30

Theatre on December 6th We

1:32

are calling it a massive seance

1:35

and we are trying to connect

1:38

With the spirits of the past

1:40

and the future

1:42

release our 2023 let it go and Prepare

1:47

for the new year and do it all together.

1:49

We really hope we get to see you there We

1:52

also have a bonus episode that

1:54

I recorded with Kelsey talking about

1:56

urban legends the

1:59

concept within sociology

2:01

that Chelsea and I love so much, and also

2:04

urban legend, the underrated late

2:06

90s slasher movie.

2:09

So you really can't go wrong. And

2:11

that will be available on Apple Plus

2:14

subscriptions and on Patreon at the

2:16

end of this month, as you can see, it's

2:18

coming right up. Happy Halloween,

2:21

my friends. And

2:29

hey, Sarah. Hey, Kelsey.

2:30

Funny running into you at this

2:33

abandoned mall.

2:34

I wish. I'm

2:36

a fishery recording in an abandoned mall. We're

2:41

here doing another part

2:43

to our series about our

2:46

fears. I'm so excited. I

2:48

love telling you my fears, Sarah. And now

2:50

I'm so excited to hear all about yours. And

2:54

I can only freaking imagine.

2:57

I'm so excited

2:57

to tell you my fears. As

3:01

someone whose job now is

3:03

looking at moral panics and

3:06

hysterias and America's

3:09

feelings getting ahead of our logical

3:12

faculties as I do

3:14

so much in making you wrong about,

3:17

it's also important for

3:19

me to return and to emphasize when

3:21

talking about this stuff that I'm a very fearful

3:23

person. I'm not claiming to

3:26

stand outside of the impulses that govern

3:28

human behavior. I think really I

3:30

like to observe

3:33

my own behaviors to try and understand

3:35

what we're dealing with as people. Absolutely.

3:38

Same

3:38

here. Yeah. Yep.

3:40

So what do you got for us today, Sarah? What

3:43

are we talking about? I have an opening

3:45

montage, which is

3:48

to tell you some smaller

3:50

fears from childhood. I remember as a kid, my

3:52

paternal grandpa had time

3:55

life seeming books on

3:58

paranormal stuff. And I remember. him

4:00

trying to give me a book on psychic surgery and

4:02

me not wanting it because it creeped me out too much

4:04

and then his feelings being hurt by that

4:06

and my dad being upset about it because

4:09

he had a bad relationship with his dad,

4:11

not that he would admit that at the time. And

4:13

so it was like I had to take the psychic

4:15

surgery book to heal the

4:18

whatever. What is the psychic surgery

4:20

book about? Well, you know

4:23

about psychic surgery? No. Because

4:25

I feel like I, okay, I feel like this came

4:26

up in my cable TV viewing.

4:28

And also I'll say that as an elementary

4:30

school student, because I was

4:32

born in 1988, so my elementary

4:35

and early middle school years were like right

4:37

in the golden era of like stupid cable

4:39

TV programming. I would often

4:42

sometimes just literally be too anxious to

4:44

like not be like extremely nauseated

4:47

and therefore feel unable to go to school because I was

4:49

afraid I would throw up in front of other people. And

4:52

so my mom was pretty permissive about that and I would

4:54

just like get to stay home and watch America's

4:57

most haunted hotels. Awesome. Yeah,

4:59

it was great. And I learned so much and

5:01

look at me now. Look at me

5:02

now. I'm using it. I'm using all

5:04

that information

5:05

and how much algebra do I do?

5:07

Thanks,

5:08

nausea. And so psychic

5:11

surgery, this also comes up in Man

5:13

on the Moon, the Andy Kaufman biopic

5:16

with Jim Carrey. I haven't seen it. Well,

5:18

it's basically this idea promoted by charlatans

5:21

where if you have cancer or something, you

5:23

go in and they like kind of massage

5:26

their hands on your body. And the

5:28

idea is that they draw the tumor up like

5:30

out through the skin and then they show it to you and

5:32

they're like, look, you're better now. And you're like,

5:35

gee, thanks. And really what they have

5:37

in their hand is like a piece of chicken meat or

5:39

something. I have heard about this.

5:42

I have heard about this. Yeah. Or

5:44

like chicken organ meat or something

5:46

like that. Jim Jones also did this. Jim

5:49

Jones loved a psychic surgery. That

5:51

is so dark. Yeah. Wow.

5:54

Okay. So your dad wanted you to learn about

5:56

psychic surgery. My grandpa did. I heard your

5:58

grandpa. part of this weird,

6:01

you know, paternal toxic

6:03

love triangle. So the real fear there is

6:05

like the troubled relationships

6:07

men have with their own fathers, but then also

6:10

psychic surgery. Okay, go ahead. It's

6:12

a second theory. Same. But

6:14

I wasn't creeping myself out. I really

6:16

liked Ripley's Believe It or Not, and like,

6:19

I can't remember the author,

6:21

but if I asked my mom who it

6:23

was, she would tell me, wait,

6:26

should I just, I'll just try and ask her right now, I'm gonna

6:28

call her. Do it. I'm gonna call

6:30

your mom. Okay.

6:39

You got screened. Oh well, yeah. Damn

6:41

it, yeah. But there was this

6:43

guy who was very popular mid-sanctuary

6:46

and he had like a newspaper column and I think a

6:48

radio show and I remember reading a compilation

6:51

of those columns that was in like the

6:53

sixth grade class library for

6:55

some reason. You know how you would get, you'd get like a

6:57

weird book at school and be like, where did this book

7:00

even come from?

7:01

And it was all facts like one night,

7:04

and this is actually one

7:04

I later saw in Unsolved Mysteries, one night

7:07

at a church choir of like 25 people,

7:10

everyone for different reasons was late

7:13

to church choir practice.

7:15

And on that night, the church exploded,

7:18

but no one was hurt because they're all late for different

7:21

reasons. It makes you think. And

7:23

as an adult, I'm like, yeah, it makes me think about

7:25

how in a country with hundreds of millions

7:27

of people in it, you almost

7:30

have the statistical equivalent of infinite

7:32

monkeys on infinite typewriters and like

7:35

every possible thing is gonna happen at least

7:37

once.

7:38

That's true.

7:39

And also could they have just lied?

7:42

Well,

7:44

I mean, the church wasn't there the next day,

7:47

so.

7:47

I don't know. I feel like evangelical.

7:50

Maybe the preacher was like, let's

7:52

just not have rehearsal tonight.

7:54

Yeah. And then he was like, no, everybody,

7:56

we did have rehearsal. Yeah, I mean, I feel

7:58

like it's not unheard of.

7:59

for evangelical churches to

8:02

create propaganda like that. But

8:04

you're also right, statistically it's going to happen

8:07

once in a while. Just like when the exorcist

8:10

premiered and lightning struck that cross

8:13

and it fell into the plaza. I don't

8:16

know. I've never seen proof that that really

8:18

happened, by the way. But statistically.

8:20

Right. But it gets repeated. Yeah. I mean,

8:22

this is the thing, right, that like the exorcist,

8:25

I can't remember if this happened with the exorcist. It definitely

8:27

happened with the Omen, which is about the Antichrist

8:30

that like people died while that movie

8:33

was in production and we're supposed to take that as

8:35

proof that like it angered Satan. But

8:37

like two people who worked

8:38

on Pretty in Pink died

8:41

during or after right after

8:43

that movie coming out. And like that movie wasn't

8:45

about Satan at all. Not

8:47

that we know of, yeah. Unless

8:51

Satan is James Spader.

8:53

Yeah, well, he would be

8:55

a good Satan in something. James

8:57

Spader in the 80s. Are you kidding me? That would

9:00

be a good Satan movie. So,

9:02

yeah, I

9:04

loved just kind of creepy cable

9:06

content. CCC.

9:09

There was a story that haunted

9:12

me for years. It was also from a book I

9:14

got from like an elementary school book nook

9:16

that it was about. If anyone knows what this

9:18

book is, like comment

9:21

on Instagram. But it was

9:23

This woman was in an asylum and she

9:25

had a baby and she had been like meticulously

9:28

pulling hair out of her head and making

9:30

a giant braid that she was going to escape

9:33

out the window with. And then on

9:35

this one fateful day

9:38

where the story picks up, they come in the

9:40

order laser whoever and they take

9:42

away her baby and they throw her braid on the

9:44

fire. Yeah. Wow.

9:47

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's

9:49

the thing, because it's the thing of like, oh, my God,

9:52

like someone has spent, you

9:54

know, months over a year, the idea

9:57

of like something being destroyed in an instant.

9:59

Yeah. way like that actually is

10:01

a concept that really haunts me.

10:02

Yeah, especially if it's something where you're

10:05

working to somehow

10:07

become safe or to protect yourself

10:10

from something. Yeah. And then

10:12

just the

10:13

easy way that someone

10:15

with more power can just

10:17

like kick you right back down the hill again and you're

10:20

back at the bottom. And that is very, very

10:22

scary. That's really scary.

10:24

I think a great work of horror

10:26

fiction is Jack London's To Build

10:28

a Fire. I didn't ever read it. It's

10:31

wild. It's wild, man, because that story is like

10:34

it's a prospector in the Yukon. He's

10:36

alone with his dog who he treats very

10:38

badly. So we, from the beginning, are not

10:40

supposed to like him particularly. And

10:43

he's also traveling alone in 70 below Fahrenheit.

10:47

And there's this whole thing reasonably

10:49

enough about like only a complete idiot

10:52

would be alone in 70 below

10:54

because he has zero margin for error. Yeah.

10:57

And he goes about trying to build a fire and he

11:00

like has some kind of initial minor fuck up

11:02

that starts a chain reaction of fuck ups. And

11:04

he's like very rapidly. I think he

11:06

steps for shell face this thing and

11:08

shell face is like thin ice on top of water.

11:11

No. And he steps into water. He

11:13

has to build a fire. But his body is like

11:16

very quickly numbing up. And

11:18

like the horror that I feel as I read

11:20

that story is unmatched by most experiences

11:23

I've ever had with like any kind of horror

11:26

movie or like over the top or supernatural

11:28

horror fiction because it's like this just happened

11:30

to people. Like this exact scenario or

11:32

something very similar to it has

11:35

happened to so many people.

11:37

Like freezing to death is very real. And

11:40

I get that that's why a lot of the horror

11:42

we choose to consume is more allegorical

11:44

than that. But it's something

11:46

that I find very compelling and

11:48

grounding in terms of like we

11:51

are people and we are on the earth and there are just

11:53

certain physical realities that dictate

11:55

what happens to us. And that's kind of as

11:58

you know in the after. episodes that I've

12:00

done with Blair Braverman on

12:04

the Miracle and the Andes and on the Dyatlov Pass

12:07

incident. There is also comfort

12:09

to be found in the idea that nature doesn't wish

12:11

you heart, it just doesn't wish you anything. Yeah,

12:13

and the indifference stars above is that Donner

12:15

Party book that is my favorite. Yeah,

12:18

God. It's the same thing. It's like,

12:20

I mean it's like- It's like, oh I'm made of gas

12:22

and million miles away, I can't really do anything.

12:24

Which is so comforting and so

12:27

terrifying.

12:28

There isn't an anima- well we don't know I

12:30

guess, I'm an agnostic, but there may

12:32

not be any animating force

12:35

to the universe that wishes you

12:37

well,

12:38

nor is there one that wishes you harm.

12:41

And that is, you know, it's both comforting

12:43

and terrifying at the same time. Yeah. Yeah.

12:47

Yeah. I don't really

12:49

waste time with simulation theory because I think it is a silly

12:51

waste of time based on a 12 year old's understanding

12:53

of the world. I

12:56

get the viewpoint that when

12:58

we're trying to conceive of God, right,

13:01

and like if there is a rational mind at

13:03

the center of all this, or if there's like a thinking

13:05

mind at the center of all this, like

13:08

what is it like that like a sadistic 14

13:10

year old in breeding

13:12

their sims is kind of what comes to mind.

13:16

Locking him in a room with no door. Like God just felt

13:18

like torturing his sims,

13:20

you know? Yeah.

13:22

Mm-hmm.

13:22

And I am terrified that we're living

13:24

in a simulation. Oh, okay. No,

13:27

it's a waste of time. Not to

13:29

be wrong. Don't get me wrong. Not to be

13:31

insulting to your conspiracy theory. No, no.

13:33

But yeah. I don't want

13:36

it to be true. I just feel like as

13:38

we get closer to AI, I'm like, is this

13:40

just the cycle repeating itself into

13:43

infinity? We

13:46

got real big real quick

13:48

with our fears.

13:49

Straight to simulation theory. Well,

13:52

we did. And with good reason, you know, we should be

13:54

afraid of all this. Like Victorians being like, you

13:56

know, all this sitting there, this could have ramifications.

14:00

They were so right. And these are scary things. But

14:02

to get to like an iconic scary

14:04

thing, Chelsea, I have

14:06

never truly watched the Max Hedrum

14:09

signal intrusion video. And some of

14:12

you just went, and some of you were like,

14:14

what? But this is a video that like for

14:16

whatever reason, I when I first

14:18

found out about it, and I'm sure it was from finding

14:21

a list of creepy Wikipedia articles

14:23

on like Jezebel or something and then trying to read

14:25

all of them. I found it so

14:29

unbearably creepy that I watched it,

14:31

but only with the sound off. Wow. And

14:33

kind of like

14:34

leaning away. And I don't normally do

14:37

that, but I find it so unsettling.

14:39

And I would love for you to,

14:41

you know, I don't want to put you on the spot because I can

14:43

all bring in like, you know, dates

14:46

and everything as we need them. But like,

14:48

what was this thing?

14:49

Yeah. From what I remember,

14:52

this happened in like the

14:54

80s. And it

14:56

was a TV station that

14:58

was essentially hijacked by

15:01

this group of people who

15:03

I think were maybe never identified. And

15:06

yeah, we have no

15:07

we don't know who did this. And it's been

15:09

like 35 years or more.

15:11

It's just this creepy video of

15:13

this guy wearing the Max

15:15

Hedrum

15:16

mask, which was you're gonna have

15:18

to explain to me what that actually was.

15:21

I don't really understand

15:23

the lore of Max Hedrum, but he was a character

15:26

who I don't know his origins, but he was just like

15:28

a popular kind of mascot guy

15:31

in the 80s, kind of like Spuds

15:33

McKenzie. But like, and he was an

15:35

actor who was like kitted

15:37

out in a way that made him look pretty uncanny.

15:40

Yeah. And let's watch a Max like an

15:43

actual Max Hedrum ad.

15:45

One, two, three. Hi,

15:48

Max Hedrum here with my

15:51

guest. You like to listen. Yeah.

15:54

I heard you were big time in the old pop is going

15:57

to take that as a no comment. So.

17:29

So

18:01

titled to say humming the tune to Clutch

18:03

Cargo.

18:06

My files. Wow. I

18:14

gotta say I find this a lot less scary than I used

18:16

to. And

18:18

that was it. Wow.

18:21

Yep. I mean, it is creepy, but

18:23

I what I didn't realize

18:25

is how much a part of it, the

18:27

creepiness of the Max Headroom mask is.

18:30

All right. Well, what did you experience? Like

18:32

what was going on while you were watching?

18:35

I mean, first of all, the incoherence

18:37

of well, okay. One of my first thoughts,

18:40

and I knew that they did this, but I hadn't really been thinking

18:42

about it, is that they have like these

18:44

wavy lines behind him, which is clearly

18:46

like a pretty spot on imitation

18:48

of the actual Max Headroom commercials. But it's someone

18:51

like tilting what looks like a piece of corrugated

18:53

metal back and forth. And

18:55

that actually from the beginning then

18:57

made it not that scary

18:59

to me because you're like,

19:01

this is like

19:02

a Max Headroom fan. Yeah. Yeah.

19:06

There's something very unsinister about being

19:08

like, we have to do the background though.

19:11

What this like kind of reminds me of for some

19:13

reason is, are you familiar with

19:16

like the numbers station? Yes. Yeah.

19:19

Tell us about that. Well, I think

19:21

that might still exist, but there are

19:23

certain like stations that

19:25

you can find on the radio

19:28

and it's just a woman reading

19:31

random numbers with like

19:33

static in the background like forever.

19:35

And it's like an automated thing, obviously.

19:38

And I don't really know, like I don't think people

19:41

really understood what they were for or

19:43

why. And there's like a lot of conspiracy theories about them, but

19:46

you know, it's just this sort of

19:49

like the creepiness of the unknown reason

19:52

that something like that would exist. Like what

19:54

makes the Max Headroom thing creepy

19:56

is just kind of like the why of it. Yeah.

21:59

And then it was

22:01

like

22:02

really weird because the

22:04

mics were picking up people in the

22:07

control room So it was just like watching

22:10

something that's supposed to be so shiny and so

22:12

perfect Yeah, kind of like falling

22:14

apart at the seams and it was like, I

22:16

mean, it was really exciting I wouldn't have had to any

22:19

other way Even though it's like

22:21

I've been here for two hours and everyone's so mad

22:23

and I was just like thrilled that we were all having an

22:25

experience together But

22:29

you know, you just don't get like you don't

22:31

get that very often anymore where there

22:33

is that vulnerability Whether

22:36

it be to just technological issues or something

22:38

as weird as a pirate Signal

22:41

hijacker, you know like there

22:43

are facts that I love that just like are

22:45

from another time and one of them is that like

22:48

I think when They aired the miracle

22:50

on ice in the 1980 Olympics

22:53

the hockey game it was broadcast in

22:55

either the US or Canada before the

22:58

other country, so you had like From

23:01

what I recall like people

23:04

having to relay the information personally.

23:06

Oh Okay,

23:09

okay. Yeah, so the miracle on ice

23:11

the miraculous extremely

23:13

lucky American victory in the 1980 hockey

23:16

game in the Olympics was broadcast

23:19

live on Canadian TV But held

23:21

back for primetime on American

23:24

TV. So like

23:24

you could learn what had happened, but only

23:27

by talking to a Canadian Oh

23:29

scary Just

23:32

kidding I was just in Canada they're all that's so

23:35

nice to be in Canada and not

23:37

feel the immense crushing

23:40

weight of The American

23:42

landscape, but

23:44

that's neither here I assume there are plenty

23:46

of Canadians who are like hey, we're being

23:48

crushed as well You know and I know you

23:50

are babes. I know I know So

23:53

yeah, okay, so I've like actually made

23:55

a major fear less scary to me and

23:57

that's really exciting another thing I find very

23:59

scary consistently and this

24:02

is used to great effect in Signs

24:06

and the Blair Witch project. I wonder

24:08

if you can you know what I'm talking about. Signs and

24:11

the Blair Witch. I just watched Signs recently and it scared

24:13

the shit out of me. I hadn't watched in

24:15

a long time and Miranda had

24:18

already fallen asleep and I continued to watch

24:20

it and it was really upsetting

24:23

to me. I've never even seen the whole thing

24:26

but I have seen the part where they're watching

24:28

a video of a child's

24:30

birthday party where

24:33

one of the aliens that they're looking for

24:35

like walks very quickly across the

24:37

frame. Yes, very scary. And

24:39

that absolutely scares the shit

24:42

out of me and I think he kind of looks

24:44

over while he's walking maybe.

24:46

Okay so I want to

24:49

say and this is a show we've talked about I

24:51

loved and love the Disney Channel

24:53

show so weird.

24:55

It's an amazing show. It's about a girl who

24:58

is traveling around America

25:01

with her mother Mackenzie Phillips on

25:03

their band's bus along

25:06

with her brother and

25:07

I think the Lake Tour

25:09

manager's son,

25:10

Clue, played by Eric

25:13

Von Denton I'm pretty sure.

25:15

And in every episode

25:17

they're in a new part of America that looks

25:19

like Vancouver BC and

25:21

they have to solve

25:23

a regional paranormal thing and

25:26

it's very based on the X-Files fees

25:29

trying to connect with the ghost of her

25:31

dead dad. That's his Samantha

25:33

Mulder but it's also

25:36

just like a fun Monster of the Week show but

25:38

I think that when I was a kid I loved

25:40

it but genuinely scared me a lot

25:42

of the time and there was also in the opening

25:45

sequence there was like a little clip or just an

25:47

image of the Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot

25:49

film and I like could not watch it. I would

25:52

like look away. Wow okay

25:55

okay and for people who don't know

25:57

a lot of people are gonna realize

25:59

they do know what

25:59

it is when you describe it, but like what

26:02

is this piece of Bigfoot media? I

26:04

mean all it really is is like Bigfoot

26:06

walking kind of in the distance

26:09

or what we are supposed to believe

26:12

is Bigfoot and he's kind

26:14

of just got like this long stride with

26:16

his arms up like walking

26:18

like if he was like fast walking in

26:20

my this is my memory he's like a fast

26:23

walking mom from the 80s

26:25

and right at the moment or

26:27

like right at the moment that he's kind of like dead center

26:29

in the clip he turns and looks

26:32

at

26:33

the person with the camera and that's

26:35

basically my is that your general memory

26:38

of it? It's been a while. Yeah. Okay.

26:41

And then it's kind of a casual lope and there's like a lot of mysteries about

26:43

this film I think still like I think at least

26:45

one of the guys who made it said later that

26:47

he had made it but I think

26:50

there are things we don't know like I think there's

26:52

maybe some degree of disagreement about who's

26:54

actually in the suit. Okay. Things

26:56

like that I'm not sure but you know it's like

26:58

information gets lost to time and then you can use

27:01

that to support your theory that like Noah really

27:03

is Bigfoot but that

27:04

video was so

27:06

terrifying to me as a kid and

27:08

I think again this is something that like

27:10

seems pretty benign really

27:12

but I think was became such

27:15

a part of the American consciousness because

27:17

there is something very creepy about it. Yeah.

27:20

There is and sounds very true movies really rely on this

27:22

something that happens to you

27:25

when you know you're watching for something scary

27:27

but what you're watching is very boring like

27:29

you're in some kind of a heightened state where

27:32

like it's like adding salt. Yeah. Food

27:34

tastes better, scares scarier.

27:37

It's like we were what we were talking about in the other

27:39

episode where you like context actually

27:42

can like twist the way that you're perceiving

27:44

like your own vision. Yeah.

27:47

Yeah. And it's like

27:49

you do see the Bigfoot look over

27:52

and that is the scariest part. It

27:54

is and then the Blair Witch thing

27:57

is like and I guess I

27:59

love this part.

27:59

so much. I wouldn't change anything

28:02

about it where they run

28:04

out of the tent. This is kind of like a

28:06

part where things are really coming to a head like

28:09

the Blair Witch is like beating

28:12

their tent with sticks really you know

28:14

the director's friends but and they

28:16

they run out of their tent

28:18

and Heather's got the camera and she like

28:20

whips around and she's like what the

28:22

fuck is that? What the fuck is

28:24

that? And you can't see a goddamn thing in

28:27

the movie and I don't think and you were supposed to

28:29

be able to but I like that it didn't work out. Yeah

28:31

because it was actually someone dressed in like

28:33

all white I

28:34

think covered in like a white stocking and was

28:36

just like spanking. So that

28:38

was like real fear in Heather's voice as

28:41

we've talked about many times but yes

28:43

it is it's the monster problem I guess

28:45

in a way where it's like if you don't see

28:48

the monster thing you're imagining is always going

28:50

to be much scarier. And

28:52

you're right Bigfoot in this video

28:53

is doing the walk that like

28:56

people do when they have to get go into

28:58

target for just one item. Yeah

29:02

it's very human. It's a

29:04

very human walk. Yeah because

29:06

I will say when I was a kid Bigfoot was one

29:08

of my major fears like if you'd asked

29:10

me when I was 10 years old like Sarah

29:13

what are you most afraid of there's

29:15

a good chance I would have said Bigfoot. Wow.

29:17

And we lived in Hawaii so

29:20

that didn't really make sense. So why

29:22

do you think you were scared of Bigfoot? I think

29:24

there is really an element in a lot of what

29:27

we're talking about to like humans

29:29

seek to know so much and

29:31

for anything to evade our understanding

29:34

is kind of upsetting to us. And

29:36

I think that was part of it. That makes sense. And

29:38

also I guess the idea of like and it's funny because

29:40

I always remember the story I read once about

29:42

like a kind of friendly

29:45

Bigfoot encounter and I wanted to believe

29:47

that Bigfoot was friendly but for some reason I

29:49

guess not sure that he wasn't. Well

29:51

that's fair. You know I actually

29:54

got to go as part

29:56

of working

29:58

for the podcast.

31:12

No

32:00

place more embodied than a frickin' forest,

32:02

I would argue. Oh yeah. And

32:05

in a way it feels like Bigfoot is like

32:08

the spirit of the forest. And

32:10

actually, I just did a corn maze

32:13

where one of, and you know how like in corn mazes

32:15

sometimes you can like answer questions and

32:17

it'll tell you which way to go if you get like a trivia

32:19

thing right. Oh my god, I've never seen that

32:21

in a corn maze but that's really fun. Yeah,

32:23

I really like it because I know a lot of trivia and

32:25

I really have terrible spatial

32:28

reasoning. It's your only hope.

32:30

Yeah, it's like oh my god, thank god,

32:32

there's like something I know how to do. And

32:35

so one of them was like when did Bigfoot

32:37

you know start showing up in the news or start

32:40

showing up as a figure a lot? And

32:42

I was like I know the answer, it's shockingly

32:44

late, it's like 1958. Because

32:48

wasn't this like it was on commercial logging

32:50

sites that people started theorizing Bigfoot?

32:53

Wow. Like you know that there had been Bigfoot

32:56

like figures you know in

32:58

all kinds of folklore you

33:00

know historically but that was when 20th

33:03

century white Americans came

33:05

up with our vision of Bigfoot. Like

33:08

he was some kind of like protector

33:10

of the forest? This is from the History

33:12

Channel website which I trust medium.

33:18

And this is by Becky Little, thank you Becky. What

33:20

exactly are the origins of the Bigfoot

33:22

or Sasquatch legend? In 1958

33:26

journalist Andrew Gonzoli of

33:28

the Humboldt Times highlighted

33:30

a fun if dubious letter from a reader

33:32

about loggers in Northern California who

33:35

discovered mysteriously large footprints.

33:38

Maybe we have a relative of the abominable snowman

33:40

of the Himalayas Gonzoli jokingly

33:43

wrote in his September 21st column alongside

33:45

the letter. Later Gonzoli

33:47

said he'd simply thought the mysterious footprints

33:50

quote made a good Sunday morning story but

33:52

to his surprise it fascinated readers.

33:55

In response Gonzoli and fellow Humboldt Times

33:57

journalist Betty Allen published followup articles

34:00

about the footprints reporting the name loggers

34:02

had given to the so-called creature who

34:04

left the tracks, Bigfoot,

34:07

and so a legend was born.

34:09

Wow.

34:10

Wow.

34:11

Yeah, that is, I mean, I don't know,

34:14

it makes sense in like a focal or sense for sure

34:16

where it's like the manifestation of the forest's,

34:21

you know, retaliation or it's

34:24

like an attempt at

34:26

creating a being that will stop

34:29

human destruction. It's like very, I love

34:31

it. I didn't know. I

34:33

didn't know. Isn't that great? Yeah,

34:35

they apparently quote loggers blame to acts

34:38

of vandalism on Bigfoot. Convenient.

34:41

And he just, you know, kind of passed into public

34:43

consciousness and the way we now

34:46

see him. And yeah, it's kind of

34:48

like gremlins in World War II, it seems like,

34:50

where like, if you're working with machinery,

34:52

like stuff is going to go wrong either because someone

34:55

is, you know, fucking

34:57

with you or not maintaining it properly or just

34:59

because these things happen.

35:02

And it's like you need a person, we need personifications

35:04

of the forces in our lives, I think. Yeah.

35:07

I mean, I would like to know what

35:10

being is tangling my cords.

35:14

Please, who's taking my socks? Who

35:18

is it?

35:19

And then my third

35:20

thing I wanted to talk about

35:22

for things that scare me as we dive

35:25

down into what causes our fears.

35:28

Also say speaking of the forest of the Pacific Northwest,

35:30

to paraphrase Stephen Fry, there's

35:33

nothing better than waking up in the forest

35:35

and there's nothing worse than going to sleep in

35:37

the forest.

35:39

Oh, I

35:41

like both. I know. It

35:43

is like

35:45

candy for my anxiety. If

35:47

I get into a certain frame,

35:49

every time you hear like a crick or a crack

35:52

or like a twig break, your

35:55

brain can easily interpret that as something scary

35:57

headed towards you. And the thing about being

35:59

in the woods

35:59

is that they're made out of wood, famously,

36:03

and twigs are gonna break all

36:05

the time. All night long. All night long.

36:08

Yeah, and like just little tiny sounds

36:11

that you can grow entire monsters out

36:13

of, which is a metaphor. Yeah,

36:16

I love stories on

36:18

like camping subreddits and stuff that people

36:20

tell about like, something basically like, I

36:23

heard someone walking around my tent all night long

36:25

and it turned out to be like a gopher eating

36:27

under my head. I gotta,

36:29

do you want a story? Yes, okay.

36:32

This feels relevant. So,

36:34

okay. I'm like 10

36:37

or 11, maybe,

36:39

yeah, I'm like 11 and I'm

36:42

camping with my dad,

36:44

my stepmom,

36:47

basically my brother, Johnny, and

36:51

we are like drifting off to sleep and basically

36:53

we have pulled off the

36:56

high, like a highway or a forest

36:58

service road, just down a dirt road,

37:01

cause you know, you

37:02

didn't wanna pay for camping. So we just kind of like,

37:04

you know, parked in a random place and

37:07

all night, teenagers were like partying

37:10

around us and like getting stuck in the mud

37:12

in their cars and like screaming

37:14

and drinking and it was like, you know, unnerving,

37:17

but it was okay. And then at some

37:19

point, as we're drifting off to

37:21

sleep, we start hearing footsteps

37:24

coming up to the tent and

37:27

my dad is asleep and so is my stepmom.

37:29

And I'm like, dad, dad,

37:32

dad, you know how a dad sleeps. So he won't wake

37:34

up. Oh my God. And finally I'm like,

37:36

dad. And then he's just like, what? And then

37:38

I was like, listen. And then we

37:40

like all were quiet and we could hear

37:42

the footsteps like walking around the

37:44

tent. And I am, this is

37:46

like one of

37:49

those times where my knees are shaking.

37:51

Like that's when I know that I'm really, really, really

37:53

scared as I'm like a little like Italian

37:56

puppet and my knees

37:57

are like shaking platter together.

37:59

And yeah,

38:02

he just

38:02

heard this happen, and then my dad

38:04

was like, okay. And then out of nowhere pulls

38:06

a pistol, bursts

38:09

out the front of the tent, and we're like, oh my

38:11

God. And then he's just gone for a hot minute,

38:14

and then comes back and he's like, there's nothing out

38:16

there. And then we go back, you

38:18

know, we start to go back to sleep and it happens again.

38:21

And it happened like multiple times.

38:23

And he went out there and we just never, never

38:27

figured out what it was. And you know, I mean,

38:29

that's the memory as it stands in my 11 year

38:31

old head.

38:32

And I will keep it

38:34

that way. Maybe I'm exaggerating,

38:36

I don't know, but it was definitely like, I

38:39

will tell you my knees were knocking

38:41

together and it was definitely a pistol.

38:44

Yeah. And do you think

38:46

there was someone walking around or could it have been like

38:48

something that sounded like that? I mean, I

38:52

think, also

38:54

by the way, this was all compounded by the

38:56

fact that when we first pulled into

38:59

this like dirt

39:01

road, we went far

39:03

down the dirt road until we got

39:05

to the end where again, in my

39:07

memory, there was an old house

39:09

with a man standing there looking at

39:11

us holding a pitchfork.

39:13

And we were like,

39:14

we'll just like flip a you. And

39:17

then we went like halfway back in camp.

39:19

So it's like, there were like many things

39:22

happening that could have set this mood, but it's

39:24

like, it had to have just been an animal, we

39:28

always were like, it was ghosts. That's

39:30

what we settled on. But like,

39:32

why were they haunting my

39:34

tent? I don't know. But

39:38

anyway, I love camping.

39:40

I also think there's something really nightmare

39:42

fuel about it because it's like, you

39:45

have the illusion

39:46

of security. You have protection from like

39:48

the elements kind of and from rain and

39:50

stuff, but like nothing protects

39:53

you from the rest of the world,

39:55

but a thin layer of nylon. It's

39:58

such a joke. It's

40:00

nuts. And so if you have this like,

40:02

and it's kind of weird, it feels like tents are kind

40:04

of like that we don't know how to process

40:06

them because we have this feeling of containment

40:08

and security and like this cozy little home

40:11

and we're warm and dry or at least kind of dry

40:13

in there while it's like soppy

40:16

outside. So like we feel protected,

40:18

but like

40:19

if anyone

40:20

violent came along, you know,

40:22

be like a scary person or a

40:24

bear or whatever, then like the tent is nothing.

40:27

No. What is the tent? Yeah,

40:29

I'm like pretty anti-tent. I'm either like

40:32

under the stars or in my car

40:34

or truck with

40:37

my mattress. And I don't know,

40:39

there's something about a tent that, I mean, A,

40:41

you wake up, you're sweaty, it's hot. It's

40:44

gross. Although I will say I have a

40:46

tent that has a mesh, that's mesh. And

40:48

I love that because it's like, I want to see, I

40:50

want to be able to see while

40:53

I'm inside of the thing. Like I feel like

40:55

not being able to see is not smart, but

40:58

that also contributes to the feeling of vulnerability.

41:01

Right, because the reason you don't know who's

41:03

walking around outside your tent is because you can't see

41:05

outside your tent. Exactly, but if I had a mesh

41:07

tent, I would see. And maybe that

41:09

would be better. Maybe it would be worse, but

41:12

at least I would know. My mom has one of those

41:14

for her cats so they can still enjoy

41:16

the outdoors.

41:17

Yeah, I wouldn't be wondering two decades

41:19

later, what the hell that

41:21

was, you know?

41:22

That is a scary story to me because

41:25

it is like, it's kind of the Schrodinger's

41:27

cat thing in a way. If

41:30

I can feel free to misunderstand

41:32

math for a second here, where like, if

41:34

you don't know who or what is out there, if

41:37

anything, then like it could be an ax murderer

41:39

and it could be a terrier

41:42

and it's always all things that

41:45

it could be until you see it.

41:47

Yeah, but it's always either

41:49

an ax murderer or a terrier. A

41:52

terrier

41:54

with a tiny little ax. Yeah, it's

41:56

little paw. Why not both? But

42:01

yeah, I mean, that's like a bigger, it's

42:03

obviously like a bigger metaphor for so many things

42:07

that we cover too. It's like, it's either

42:09

an axe murderer or a terrier. It's either

42:11

like the most frightening thing

42:14

that you could ever imagine or more likely

42:16

it's

42:17

nothing at all. And also

42:20

I think what both of our shows is about is like

42:23

how we can at least within all this try

42:25

and get more information from analyzing

42:27

the American tendency to confuse axe

42:30

murderers with terriers. Yeah. And

42:33

vice versa. Because we're like, so it's 1982. We

42:36

are prosecuting lesbians for

42:39

daring to work in daycare centers. But

42:42

go right ahead, father. You seem

42:44

fine. Yeah, exactly. So

42:47

camping, camping is scary. I'm

42:49

with you. I think it's nice

42:51

to sleep and

42:54

we went camping recently and I slept

42:57

in my car and had the hatchback open.

42:59

Yeah. And it's like, it's

43:02

very, that's a feeling of security.

43:04

Absolutely. It really is. And

43:06

like, I never sleep better than

43:09

when I'm like

43:10

in my car with the hatchback

43:13

open. It's like, I don't know.

43:16

I sleep great.

43:17

Because you're like, you know, you're, you've opened yourself

43:20

to nature, but you have an exoskeleton.

43:22

Yeah, definitely. And that's one of the things

43:24

humans really lack. I think that's why we love our cars

43:26

so much partly. We like to have an exoskeleton.

43:28

Wow, that's really smart. Right?

43:31

That's really smart. I never thought of that, but like that's,

43:33

yeah, it feels great. We also act more

43:36

like insects when we're in our car.

43:38

We're just like reactive and

43:41

have no real empathy or soul.

43:43

Yeah. And

43:46

we swarm, you know, swarm around.

43:48

Oh yeah, we sure do. One thing

43:50

that really creeps me out is a really

43:53

big frog.

43:54

Yeah, of course. Of

43:56

course. How could I forget?

43:59

They just, I find it upsetting. Have

44:02

you seen a big frog? No. Okay,

44:05

so this is like, is there a big frog in some

44:07

media? Or like, how did you? Well, there'll

44:09

be like the Daily Mail, you know,

44:11

how they have to like print

44:13

every upsetting thing they can think of every day.

44:16

So they print a lot of stuff that definitely

44:18

isn't news.

44:19

And there

44:21

was, you know, every so often, I feel like the Daily

44:23

Mail will be like, here's a picture of a Chinese

44:25

toddler holding up a gigantic frog

44:28

that they found. And they're like the same

44:30

size. And I just find there to be something

44:32

incredibly menacing about

44:35

frogs above a certain, really, I think

44:37

a frog, if it's bigger than

44:39

a coin purse, I don't

44:41

want it anywhere near me. I just don't. I

44:44

don't blame this, but like,

44:46

I did

44:48

grow up with family in Australia. And

44:50

so you then hear about cane toads,

44:53

which actually do sound very dangerous.

44:56

Cane toads, I think like if a dog eats a cane

44:58

toad, they can die like they're poisonous.

45:01

Oh, okay. And they were brought over, I think, as

45:03

some kind of like colonialist folly

45:05

and then took over. And I think it's like,

45:09

at least in the past was a thing, especially

45:11

if you grew up on a farm that you would like, you

45:14

know, just like kill a bunch

45:17

of cane toads for your

45:19

chores.

45:19

Yeah, okay. Well, yeah, they are big boys.

45:22

They're big boys. Yeah,

45:24

I gotta say Sarah, this doesn't scare me.

45:27

This scares these frogs. But that's so

45:29

interesting. I mean, and it's interesting because I

45:32

know that you and I have had this like

45:34

running joke about

45:36

how like, where did all the tiny tree

45:38

frogs of our childhood go? Because

45:40

like, I feel like every day I found

45:43

a tiny frog. There were just tiny frogs everywhere.

45:46

And I don't see them anymore.

45:47

Sorry, I just looked up really big frog

45:49

and I'm gonna send you the results. It's really horrifying.

45:52

I know, and every time I see a little frog,

45:54

I send you a video of it. Yeah, I just wanna

45:57

emphasize a

45:58

little frog. There is no.

45:59

nothing better than a little frog.

46:02

She just wants to say hashtag not all

46:04

frogs.

46:04

Or

46:07

like, you know what else I feel uncomfortable with?

46:10

Koi. Koi? Yeah.

46:13

Like the fish? Yeah.

46:16

You know, I kind of get that.

46:19

Look at the search results

46:19

for really big frog. I

46:22

sent you a link. There's a New York Post headline

46:24

that says giant frog as big as quote

46:27

human baby. And

46:29

I'm just going to let you look at this because I literally

46:31

can't look at the frogs any longer.

46:34

Like the image is the child holding

46:36

the frog like under its armpits

46:39

essentially. And when you see

46:41

this frog stretched out, you really start

46:43

to see the resemblance to the human form.

46:46

That's creepy. You really do. And

46:48

that's creepy. I also just to speak

46:50

to how my brain works, I'm drinking out of a big

46:52

thermos. And I just went to take a sip

46:54

and my brain went, what if there was a frog in here?

46:57

Ew. And it put me off my water. No,

47:00

I mean, that makes me feel like my water is going

47:02

to be like slimy. And I don't like that

47:04

at all. Are you looking at giant frog

47:06

eats tiny rodent? Um, yeah.

47:10

Yeah. Yeah. This is how it

47:12

started with me and frogs. I remember reading

47:15

like something in a National

47:16

Geographic when I was a kid about it, like a frog

47:18

that eats bats or like frogs that eat

47:20

birds. And I was like, no, that

47:23

is not okay. And I was interested

47:25

even at the time about why to me there was something

47:27

so clearly monstrous about

47:29

a frog eating like outside

47:32

of its place in the food chain, which I realize

47:35

is kind of a construct. But

47:37

like I did not like it. Frogs

47:39

eat bugs.

47:40

Were you scared of their like

47:42

tongues that are like those 25

47:45

cent sticky hands? I'm actually

47:47

not afraid of the tongues, but I guess feel like

47:49

if frogs get any bigger, they're going to come eat

47:51

the humans.

47:53

That's interesting. Do you think it could have anything to do

47:55

with like that idea that we're

47:58

like creeped out? And I mean, what? I talked

48:00

about spiders in our other episode, and

48:03

I think the stance for them too is like

48:05

how they share

48:07

very few traits in common with

48:09

humans. So like they are

48:12

by nature like very foreign to

48:14

us, which would make them, you know,

48:16

more unnerving. Yes. And

48:18

with frogs, maybe there is an uncanniness because you can see

48:21

more of a human resemblance. You can.

48:23

And also they start off as fish.

48:25

What the fuck is that? That is weird.

48:29

Well, not only that Sarah, but they start

48:31

out as like a slimy

48:33

like cloud of eggs. Yeah.

48:36

Well, you know, we probably basically, you know,

48:38

yeah, it's not fair. Yeah. But

48:42

yeah, there's just I don't know. There's something about

48:44

frogs. I can't handle it. Never

48:47

bring me a big frog. That's all I'm

48:49

gonna do. Don't do it. Don't bring her

48:52

a big frog. But

48:55

I love a lot of animals that people generally

48:58

don't like. And an animal I love

49:00

is the possum. Oh yeah. And

49:03

I'm not saying get me a possum because I'm not

49:05

responsible enough. But like possums can't

49:08

go wrong with I don't care how big that possum

49:10

is. They will always be cute. I

49:13

giant possum so cute. Which

49:15

is really funny because I was scared

49:17

of possums as a kid because

49:19

one time my dog was going absolutely

49:22

freaking nuts barking at

49:25

like this little area

49:27

under our house. And my stepdad

49:30

was like got a light and

49:32

shined it under there. And I was with him

49:34

and it was just like, you know, the possum

49:36

space, which is like very human.

49:39

That is scary. It's very human. And

49:41

I just remember he got a broom to try to get it out

49:44

from under the house. And I can still

49:46

see it. He was like poking at it and

49:48

it was just like barely hitting it in the mouth

49:51

and it wasn't going anywhere. So it was just like it's

49:53

like lips were just kind of like

49:55

being like poked

49:57

by this person.

49:59

remember. Just like come

50:02

get me old man. He's like I don't

50:04

think so. Oh my god.

50:06

See that's just I like that. Yeah it's

50:08

not scary in retrospect.

50:12

Sarah do you want to tell me about your final

50:15

fear? I would love nothing more

50:18

and I will preface this by saying this is from the

50:20

Jezebel Scary Stories contest

50:23

which is one of my favorite things. Do you read

50:25

this contest? No. Okay so

50:27

I'm pretty sure they're still doing it but for at least many

50:30

years Jezebel had an annual

50:32

reader submitted scary story contest and

50:34

the rules were that they had to be true and some

50:37

of them are paranormal and some are not

50:40

and I really enjoy reading them every year and I

50:42

also enjoy being a big sickler about

50:45

what I will like admit

50:47

to being scared by

50:48

because

50:50

for example I've noticed that a lot of people

50:52

who post ghostly encounter

50:54

stories

50:55

it's like I fell asleep and I woke up

50:57

and I saw a ghost and I went back to sleep. When

50:59

you're like sleep paralysis. Yes or something

51:03

you know and I'm not saying that you didn't see a ghost but I'm

51:05

just saying like for me personally

51:07

to take that ghost story seriously

51:09

I need you to be wide awake when that ghost shows

51:12

up. Yeah but there are some that

51:14

have really creeped me out and stuck with me to this day

51:16

and the one that has the most is called

51:19

a little hole in the wall by someone whose username

51:21

is 4000 of them and

51:23

it's about someone who is working

51:26

in news, moved to Cincinnati, read

51:29

the first-floor apartment, has

51:32

a big dog, is kind of settling into life there

51:35

and then one day comes home from shopping

51:38

and the toilet seat is up and

51:40

she's like well the guy

51:43

I've been hanging out with probably

51:45

did that so that's probably not anything and

51:48

then you know other

51:50

little things start happening along

51:53

those lines and then

51:56

she comes back from a trip and

51:59

everything is covered covered in dust. And

52:02

she's like, that's incredibly weird, but

52:04

I have no idea what that's about.

52:06

So I guess I'll just clean it up and deal with it. And

52:09

she's also moved in a bunch of furniture including,

52:11

quote, a huge yellow hutch,

52:14

which it took me a while to figure out what that was. But I think

52:16

it's like, you know, one of the pieces of furniture

52:18

that we have like 50 different words for. So like

52:20

a sideboard, a buffet, like an

52:22

armoire. It's like a big cabinet

52:26

that you would like put like china

52:28

plates in. So she cleans up the dust

52:32

and things again like calm down for a while.

52:34

Pictures are arranged on a table.

52:38

She comes back from a trip and all her food is gone,

52:40

just like all kinds of creepy stuff for

52:43

a really long time. Mail

52:45

disappears, more food,

52:48

alcohol disappears, just like stuff keeps

52:50

disappearing that she brings into the house.

52:53

And so the story

52:55

reads, other stuff disappears

52:57

over time. A collection of coins my dad has

52:59

given me from the places he's visited, more food,

53:02

any drop of alcohol I buy. But

53:04

nothing ever happens to me. No one breaks in

53:06

when I'm home. There are no menacing figures at the

53:08

window, no creepy feelings at night. The

53:11

longer things are normal, the more it fades. I

53:13

barely sleep. It makes everything feel even dreamier.

53:16

And then one night I'm getting dressed cute to go

53:18

out. I use the blackness of the long windows

53:20

to check my reflection. I

53:22

put on my shoes and one turns white. It's

53:24

dust again. It's not all over like before.

53:27

It's concentrated around my huge hutch.

53:29

I get out the vacuum and get to work teetering in

53:31

heels, but it's piled around the side of the hutch,

53:34

which is hard to move. I turn

53:36

off the vacuum, brace my legs against the couch

53:38

and push the hutch out toward the center of the room.

53:41

In the wall as a whole, the size of a man. The

53:45

dust, of course, had been from the sawing.

53:47

I have chills as I'm reading this. My

53:49

company put me up in a hotel after that until

53:52

I could move. My landlord let me break the

53:54

lease. Later, during the process of

53:56

getting a felony conviction, I learned that

53:58

two men did all that stuff specifically for the to

54:00

scare me, that they sat peeping

54:02

through the gap at the back of the hutch for months. One

54:05

lived in the apartment next door. The wall

54:07

opened into a little pocket between the apartment

54:09

stairwell and the basement. They hid it with plywood.

54:12

My neighbor described it all for me in court, smiling

54:15

at me. They watched me check myself out

54:17

in the full-length mirror, cook meals, watch

54:19

sad movies, flirt with guys on

54:21

the phone, do sit-ups, talk to

54:23

my dog, have the occasional cry, go

54:26

to the bathroom, everything. They kept

54:28

a hoard of snacks from my kitchen in the wall to

54:30

enjoy while they passed the time. My

54:32

long kitchen knife was found in the wall, plus

54:34

a boning knife I didn't recognize. But

54:37

they didn't want to come in while my dog was home, and I

54:39

was never without her.

54:40

Every morning on the way to work for six months,

54:42

I had driven past a wanted billboard featuring one

54:45

of their faces.

54:46

I have never lived alone again. Ooh, yeah,

54:49

yeah,

54:50

yeah.

54:52

Miranda and I have been watching Frogging,

54:55

P-H-R-O-G-G-I-N-G,

54:57

which brings us back to frogs as well

55:00

for you, which is like double the fucking care.

55:02

But the real theme is emerging. Yeah. But that's

55:04

the phenomenon of someone. The reason it's

55:06

Frogging is like someone who hops from

55:08

house to house, living in the house

55:10

without the person knowing. So

55:13

it's like a real phenomenon. There's a whole true crime

55:15

show about it. And so

55:17

sorry, not to make your fears come to life.

55:20

But generally, it's not quite so sensational

55:22

as someone just enjoying watching you

55:25

through the wall. That's like very urban legend,

55:27

like, yeah, babysitter

55:29

in the man upstairs type of stuff, it feels

55:32

like. There's something very primal

55:34

about it. And we I think we also talked

55:36

in that bonus about like, the

55:38

home as a place where

55:40

it feels eerier

55:43

than in other places to be, you

55:45

know, to be in danger, because our home

55:47

is where we have to try and trust

55:49

that we'll be safe. We have to have a space where

55:51

we can do that. And also with the story,

55:54

you know, naturally, I have like,

55:56

try to find news about it, because this is described

55:59

as happening. And since and couldn't

56:01

find anything. And I feel like that, I

56:03

don't know, that doesn't really make

56:06

the story more or less real

56:08

because that is the kind of, like I can see

56:11

very easily two guys doing that

56:14

and also that being considered like not terribly

56:16

newsworthy. Yeah, yeah, it's totally

56:19

possible. And I mean, was it presented

56:21

as a real story, even though it's firmly?

56:23

Yeah, the rule is that you have to submit real stories,

56:26

although, you know, God knows people

56:28

have tried to circumvent that.

56:29

But I mean, that is,

56:32

it's entirely possible that that

56:34

happened. It's not something that will probably

56:36

happen more than once a

56:39

decade, you know, but I

56:41

don't know. It's

56:43

terrifying to me to think about, I think. And

56:46

there's also this idea of like, you

56:48

know, that women living alone are

56:50

like by definition doing something either

56:53

dangerous to society

56:55

or to themselves or probably just both.

56:57

And the idea that like any freedom you have

57:00

is highly conditional where crimes like

57:02

that kind of feel like,

57:05

you know,

57:06

part of the creepiness is kind of the implicit

57:08

message of like, you were never really free,

57:11

you were never really safe. Like you're always subject

57:13

to my whims. Yeah, I was always here.

57:17

So I guess my greatest fear

57:18

is a

57:21

giant frog glancing over casually

57:23

at me as it hops by and

57:26

then I go to try to fall asleep

57:28

in the forest and I wake up

57:30

and the giant frog has been in my tent the entire

57:32

time and I didn't realize.

57:33

And then the broadcast of your

57:36

camping trip is interrupted by

57:39

an 80s newsman

57:41

mask. One

57:43

of the themes that I can see here is like not

57:46

realizing that you're in danger when you are.

57:51

Yeah, that's really,

57:54

really, really scary. Which

57:56

is weird because that's like, it's an unconscious

57:58

fear. So it's like you're, bye.

57:59

definition you're saying like you don't know

58:02

that

58:03

you're afraid of the thing that's

58:05

happening so it's like a really weird

58:08

phenomenon. I have to move

58:10

my bed because I have like windows like

58:13

where my head goes when I sleep and like

58:15

I think I would sleep much better if I

58:18

did not have my head near windows where I have

58:20

this kind of subconscious fear of like somebody who

58:22

I can't see but can see but also

58:24

my bed is too big and I don't know

58:27

where else to fit it. I

58:28

wish

58:32

you'd move

58:34

it but you know if you don't know where to put it I

58:37

think you know you've talked to

58:38

about like your fear of people

58:41

under the bed. Yeah

58:43

someone under my bed someone

58:45

grabbing my feet just anybody under

58:47

there was clearly bad news and I was also

58:50

very freaked out by I watched

58:52

it the other day and it is like so

58:54

campy and I'm amazed that it scared

58:56

me so much as a kid but the episode of Are

58:59

You Afraid of the Dark where this

59:01

family moves in next door to these kids and

59:03

they decide that it's vampires and

59:06

there's like a nightmare the girl has where like

59:08

she's sleeping with her neck exposed and a

59:10

vampire is like leaning down to bite her

59:12

neck and as a consequence of that I

59:14

like made sure to cover my

59:17

neck with blankets extremely thoroughly

59:19

until I was like 12. Yeah,

59:22

Tale of the Nightly Neighbors I know it well. Yes.

59:25

When I was reading about like

59:28

why kids

59:31

are scared of the dark you know and

59:33

and why we would be scared of something under

59:35

our bed it was very much like just

59:37

the primal fear that every child

59:40

has of like dangerous

59:43

predators lurking in the dark and so

59:45

it has nothing to do with like

59:48

anything about your child other than

59:50

like this biological necessity

59:53

that they are possessing to be

59:55

like I don't have protection right now

59:57

I don't understand my primitive

59:59

brain doesn't understand that I'm safe in

1:00:01

a house. My primitive brain thinks I'm

1:00:03

in a cave and my protectors

1:00:07

are not here, you know? And so it's like

1:00:09

it makes sense and I think that that just spreads

1:00:12

to all kinds of different things, even

1:00:14

if you're an adult because like you're

1:00:17

saying, it's like you're afraid of the thing

1:00:19

you can't see. Yeah,

1:00:21

yeah. And we haven't even talked about your

1:00:23

historical fear of alien abduction, but

1:00:26

it feels in line with all that. Yeah, I'm

1:00:28

terrified of aliens and we'll have

1:00:30

to save that for another time, I guess. It's

1:00:33

just amazing how as a kid you can watch

1:00:35

something that is like made very

1:00:38

poorly and hastily by some

1:00:40

guy who like never

1:00:42

wanted to be making like stupid

1:00:46

alien paranormal cable TV

1:00:48

segment that it can like be

1:00:50

more influential to you than the

1:00:52

greatest art. It's so

1:00:55

true.

1:00:56

And then it makes you wonder

1:00:58

what really is great art?

1:01:12

And that is our episode.

1:01:13

And those are my fears.

1:01:17

Thank you

1:01:17

so much to Chelsea Weber

1:01:20

Smith, who is such

1:01:22

a fun and generous conversation

1:01:24

partner in all things. And

1:01:27

I hope we got to the bottom

1:01:29

of some stuff. I hope that next

1:01:31

year I touch a frog.

1:01:35

Thank you so much to Carolyn

1:01:37

Kendrick for producing this show, for

1:01:40

putting this episode together, for making

1:01:42

me a less fearful person all the time.

1:01:44

And thank you to Louise

1:01:47

Bicken for editing. That's

1:01:51

our episode. See

1:01:52

you all in two weeks.

1:02:00

You You