The Dangerous Bridge Between Paranormal And Conspiracy

Alright, this article may be contentious so right off the bat, I want to put a disclaimer here. The contents of this are not meant to be antagonizing. I’m simply trying to address what I feel can be problematic when it comes to the horror and paranormal spectrum. With that said, paranormal is a weird word because it implies something existing outside of nature. The problem with this is if something exists it is by default part of nature.

Therefore, things such as ghosts, aliens, fae even angels, deities, and the afterlife would all be part of the natural world. That is if concrete evidence of these things existed. I consider myself a casual true paranormal fan. I’m not neck-deep in it, but I do follow some channels on TikTok and YouTube that are. For the former, it’s users that post clip compilations of people’s supernatural experiences.

This varies. It could be someone hearing a noise in their house or seeing a moving shape. However, when they check it out there’s nothing there which is a repeating theme for a lot of those videos. Others involve people going into the woods and seeing signs of fae, but to be fair, only two fae videos have popped up on my feed so far. Imagine if Arthur Conan Doyle were still alive. He’d be all over this.

Anyway, skinwalkers and wendigos are popular when it comes to the paranormal in the great outdoors. This can either be someone hearing a noise they claim is one of the two or even being chased by them. Addressing the latter, for me, it’s listening to people’s stories. These usually come from different subreddits, r/Paranormal, r/GlitchInTheMatrix, and ones such as those. Otherwise, they’ll be viewer-submitted.

Between the two platforms, I tend to find TikTok more entertaining because that’s visual. While I am a big fan of listening to stories, for this particular subject matter, the enjoyment gets lessened when I feel like I have to go into them with the set bias that everything I’m hearing in them is factual. I’m not saying this is true of everyone who reads or listens to this sort of stuff.

It’s entertainment for a lot of people. Hell, that’s why I watch it on TikTok. I understand it’s performative and nothing more. The problem is that there are people who either seem unable or unwilling to grasp this. What tends to indicate this are the comment sections of these videos. Now, I get that plenty of them are just playing along.