"Why do you like to be scared?" (Patreon)

Happy Halloween, my dear goblins, ghouls, and ghosties. Today you can listen to a brand-new You're Wrong About episode featuring Dana Schwartz talking about Catherine the Great, which is in keeping with the season's theme inasmuch as it's about how history, helped by propaganda, can flatten any spirit into a Spirit Halloween Store character poncho. Boo!

I have some more seasonal content coming your way--for the greater Halloween/All Souls' Day/November gloom bonanza--but in the mean time, I have a question. Well, a couple of questions, actually:

1. Do you get in the Halloween spirit by trying to scare yourself or others in any way? 

2. If so, why do you do it? What do you get out of it?

I'm putting together a newsletter on the question of why some of us--or maybe all of us, but in that case certainly some more than others--like to feel scared, and what kinds of fear we try to access, whether seasonally or all the time. I'm doing this partly because I feel like people ask me fairly often what I get out of watching horror movies all the time. I've loved them since I was a teenager, and, more recently, they've become a major pandemic coping strategy for me. In a broader sense the kind of research I do for this show even falls into that category, I think. Delving into awful human behavior and then trying to figure out how the people involved believed it to be a good idea at the time, or what else kept them from making better choices, is a little like watching a Pennywise makeup tutorial: the effect is different when you feel you understand how it was made. 

And even that sentence is probably a better explanation than whatever I say in the moment when people ask me why I like horror, why I like scary stories, what I get out of being scared. I'm working on a better answer, but I want your help with it. If you seek out scary feelings or experiences, what are they, and why do you think you do it? Comment your answer on this post; I can't wait to hear your thoughts.

Creepily,

Sarah

PS--I included the wonderful opening theme to PBS' Mystery!, based on Edward Gorey's art, because it was the most delightfully terrifying thing I had ever experienced when I was about seven. As a YouTube commenter noted: "I find we all have at least three things in common. 1. Remember seeing this as kids in elementary school. 2. Watched with our Mothers. 3. The intro is awesome and memorable.   That you PBS!"