As you likely know, I logged an entire career tracking media trends before the spooky life became a job. So I guess I have something to say about psychics and mediums attempting to contact Ozzy Osbourne in the afterlife, or trying to blame Annabelle for investigator Dan Rivera's death. Or gaining views because Ghost Adventures’ Aaron Goodwin's wife tried to hire a hitman to kill him.
I love that my job involves talking about folklore, history, ghost stories & paranormal theories. What I don't love is how some people become ghouls, jumping on tragedies and death to further their aims.
With regards to phenomena, I don’t always know what I “believe,” but I have lots of ideas, notions, theories. Still, I do know there are ethics within paranormal exploration.
Attempting to contact the spirit of a deceased celebrity within minutes of their death, for instance, is disgusting. It shows a lack of respect for the person, and their family (unless that family has reached out for assistance). Even if a person doesn’t believe in ghosts, this is straight-up crass. It’s a shameless grab for attention.
Connecting the death of a paranormal investigator with the story of a haunted doll is disrespectful to the deceased’s family as well. While it might be good clickbait for articles and social vids, it’s lazy. It shows a lack of serious examination into this phenomena to take the cheap thrill bait. Further, it reduces a person’s life to a scintillating element of a pop culture legend.
And it makes true investigators look bad, and susceptible to coincidental thinking. Instead of fact-based and data-driven research, it makes our interest the stuff of superstition and gullibility.
Taking on a tabloid headline approach to a news story about a paranormal personality’s attempted murder doesn’t serve to inform or share facts, but instead is a tactic to feed the public’s titillation. Unless it’s done in a serious-minded way, as opposed to the ick-factor strategy.
Feeling the need to weigh in on perceived feuds, or the very real mental health crisis of a location owner, or playing into scandals by creating reaction vids? It is all the same thing.
For that matter, as a point of ethics, reveling in tragedy, throwing around the notion of devils and demons, romanticizing the real-world injustices and brutality experienced by victims (most especially women, children, and marginalized groups), and even going so far as to wholesale make-up violent tales to beef up an investigation? It’s irresponsible, insensitive, and speaks to a person’s deficiency of character.
Plus, this behavior ultimately decays empathy. It may not seem like a big deal to make up a story, or attach oneself to tragedy, over time it becomes easier to do, and harder to maintain perspective (and easy to forget how your own family or loved ones might feel if they were at the receiving end of these actions).
The pursuit of the strange and unexplained is an odd one, despite captivating humanity for millennia. And those of us doing it are a bunch of weirdos. Thankfully, most of the folks I know are curious, ethical, lovable weirdos. Seeking to research and document the stories, and maybe even collect anomalies that might one day lead to “proof” of what’s out there is revelatory, insightful, and even exhilarating and fun.
But it doesn’t have to be a vulgar pursuit. As we seek to investigate the mysteries of life and the potential afterlife, let’s not abandon our own humanity by becoming ghoulish. Pursuing the dead doesn’t have to mean becoming dead inside. Exploring the possibility of the soul should not require becoming soulless.
And as fans and consumers of the paranormal, and spooky content overall, we should reserve the temptation to click the kind of garbage that offers nothing beyond an algorithm-driven cheap thrill.