My favorite part of the “You wouldn’t steal a car” anti-piracy ad is that the creators were sued for not paying for the proper licenses to use the music, essentially pirating it.
@@sethberry9185 Bold of them to assume I'm not posting this comment from my phone inside a stolen 2018 Honda Accord V6 6MT coupe with Nevada registration
That DS video was uniquely scary in a way I cannot describe, but losing control over your system because of a relatively minor crime and then being prompted to report yourself for your sins feels extremely Kafkaesque like you said, wow.
@@camgreenee Well he did do a good job. You know you have succeeded with a video like this, when I'd rather smash up my DS right there and then than listen to any more of it.
You know this really strikes at my biggest anxieties, which are being caught by police or detained by border guards even despite doing nothing wrong. I’m deeply terrified of border crossings (which might even partly explain my fascination with borders) and being stopped by police on the streets, and having them not listen to me when I say I haven‘t done anything wrong. Probably doesn‘t help that both these scenarios have literally happened to me before
Police are terrifying, and generally of no use. I saw my very first payoff when i was nine or ten. Every time ive been robbed, they show up, take a few notes, and then disappear forever.
Funny you talked about TV test patterns. The end of day sign-offs in the 70s terrified me as a kid. It was usually late at night, and most other family members were in bed, so I'd sneak downstairs to watch something. Then the sign-off came and the TV left me all alone!
"the TV left me all alone" is a perfect way to describe that experience! waking up in a dark living room with that test pattern screen on the TV after you dozed off.. spooky.
Interestingly the Soviet Union had there own test pattern with the National anthem played before it's a bit less unsettling but not much, but at least the uplifting music and images beforehand make it easier
Same here. Sign-offs scared the hell outta me, and just thinking about them makes my insides want to scream and run away. Test pattern on its own, no problem. National anthem on its own, no problem. Add in the "end of..." announcement? AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!
Agreed, this is why I always look forward to his videos when the weekend comes. I always found those "alert" videos a bit unsettling growing up and it's interesting to see a guy break them down.
I remember reading a Spanish zombie novel where the protagonist witnessed his society crumbling as he took notes every day, and the scariest parts were all those descriptions of the panic through news channels and how they suddenly stopped broadcasting regular programs to the point where they were just broadcasting static imagery with military symphonies and, slowly but steadily, every web site, radio station or TV channel died.
@@benjaminbustamante7924 it's a trilogy called "Apocalipsis Z" by Manel Loureiro. The first book is the scariest in my opinion since most of the time is the protagonist alone till he bumps into people, the second and the third are interesting as well but the third takes some peculiar twists that at some point make it feel like a different story than the first book. Still, a nice reading that accompanied me through my bus trips in my first year of university.
It amazes me how this doesn’t seem to be an exclusive North American Middle Class thing. Me, a middle class Brazilian and everyone who shares the same social/economical background as I do find out all of this familiarly just as disturbing and creepy as you do. (I’m sending them this video right now and I’m sure that they’re gonna have the same goosebumps as me). Thanks for covering this topic, JJ!
How I would summarize this horror: It's gone. Your life of comfort is shattered. All you held dear has ended. Now. Your old world, free from struggle and starvation, is no more. Now you must survive. But how can you? You've never had to before. You don't know what is ahead. It's a bleak darkness of possibility as far as the eye can see. There is no escape. This is your life. And you're not ready.
I'd put it like this: You are off the map. You are in a place where not even the universal background noise of your society can reach you. Beyond here be dragons, or perhaps the Lord Humungus, the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla. There's a sense of being all by yourself that comes from these things.
Not to sound morbid, but this is what it must feel like for the citizens of Ukraine. The hardest thing to watch is the elderly cursing the Russians for bringing hell in the last days of their lives. When they are no longer physically, or mentally capable it handle it.
Someone should make a workplace game, maybe a food service setting, where your trainer abruptly leaves and you have to figure out how to do everything on your own with customers waiting. This could either be a fun challenge or panic-inducing lol
@@jonhanson8925 Ha! I only thought of food service because it's fast-paced and slightly more intuitive than, say, figuring out a computer program at a desk job
This happened to me with two jobs. The first one was a restaurant, but I wasn't the only one there, so I figured it out and made through the first day. The second was at a dry cleaners, where I was the only person in the building and the only phone number I had to call for help was for the store phone I was calling on. I definitely charged people wrong that day.
This description sort of reminds me of that classic I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel have to wrap chocolates on a line! For those who haven't seen it: ruclips.net/video/K3axU2b0dDk/видео.html
Filipino TV channels still 'shut off' every night. Our biggest TV channel, ABS-CBN, was forced off the air last 2020 due to political reasons and watching their last broadcast before shutting down was chilling. It really felt like someone died.
@@jonnathan1869 they probably won't be. it's rumored that the mastermind behind the shutdown will be appointed as the head of marcos jr.'s justice department. even if somehow abs-cbn is able to come back, their news department will probably avoid criticizing the administration in fear of being shut down again.
A few years ago a friend of mine confided in me that he'd briefly been wrongly arrested (a few minutes later the police realised he couldn't have committed the crime and unarrested him). My initial reaction was one of fascination - how interesting to get a chance to see the police in action! - before I realised that he was genuinely shaken by the experience. Both reactions were sides of the same middle-class coin: on my side it didn't occur to me to be concerned, since he hadn't done anything wrong and therefore (in my mind) could be in no danger; on his side even a brief encounter with the police, when he might otherwise have expected to live his whole life without ever crossing paths with them, was distressing and humiliating.
I was once handcuffed during a traffic stop because I behaved weirdly around the police, including by getting out of the car. Humiliating on two levels: being treated like a criminal, and not knowing the proper procedures and protocols for dealing with an authority figure.
I think this fear of aloneness/abandonment of authority extends into even more prevalent parts of society. For instance, it is oddly comforting when stores advertise that they are open 24/7. Or when you look out a city apartment window at 2am and see an illuminated skyline- that's very comforting for me at least. This demonstrates how the modern-day human mind is cautious of a time when our fight-or-flight response is necessary because we are so comfortable and dependent on our ability to have choices and the ability to have sufficient time to think through such choices.
Good point. I have to say that one of the unexpectedly disturbing element of the pandemic was the changes I saw at my local Walmart, first seeing bare shelves in the food aisle and then seeing the hours cut so that I could no longer reliably turn to them for all my late night needs. It was a stark reminder of the fragility of modern society.
That is such a good point. Feeling that certain institutions are stable and consistent is so important, especially when traveling or in an unfamiliar environment. Another good example of this would be fast food restaurants always strive to be consistent and serve the same food across all of their different stores, to provide a consistent and stable experience that you don’t have to gamble on.
I think this concept is one of the reasons that keeps 1984 by George Orwell relevant. Any time either American political party does something that the other side believes to be an “infringement on freedom,” they liken it to 1984, and claim that we will descend into that dystopia if we do not oppose. This horror is all based off of the fear of all dystopian futures, mostly imagined, but sometimes feeling real from the traumas of the Cold War nuclear struggles. I think that’s another reason why the “old tv” makes things even scarier or surreal. Great video JJ!
This is a great insight. I think 1984 was probably the first major work of literature that posted a theory in which the middle class could be enslaved.
What also keeps it relevant is the fact that it isn't so much fantasy as reality. Reading about life in the USSR, the state that inspired it, and current events in Russia and China make it shockingly clear how close to reality the book is. Really makes me appreciate my middle class life in a free country like the USA despite our myriad flaws.
@@JJMcCullough "1984" even emphasizes that the lower classes are in a sense more free--they're grindingly poor, but the state basically leaves them alone and allows them simple pleasures as long as they don't stray outside of narrow parochial concerns. It's the people with a little more privilege, the society's "knowledge workers", who have to be mentally under the boot 24/7.
@@JJMcCullough)I think most dystopias are about middle class (most protagonists from dystopian works are middle class) enslavement with, for example, Brave New World focusing on enslavement through materialistic contentment, 1984 through tyrannical oppression, Fahrenheit 451 through mass apathy and anti-intellectualism, etc. (If I'm not mistaken in all three books the lower class is depicted as some combination of dumb, ignorant, simple, and/or easily manipulated. Which is probably how most of the middle class view their poorer counterparts.)
An interesting horror that might be unique to US children I remember were commercials for personal injury lawyers. We used to have commercials about law firms asking if you experienced some form of Injury or disease as a result of workplace accidents or drugs.Since TV is not as popular, they aren't as widely circulated. The most famous commercial, the mesothelioma one, is a nostalgic example for many US young adults. A commercial I remember being creeped out by was an ad for parents who's babies suffered deformities like Spina Bifida or clubbed foot. Imagine a 6 year old being shown pictures of deformed babies while a stern narrator tells you about important adult stuff while creepily cheesy music plays in the background.
Ah yeah, Infomercials. Instead of the Test Patterns, usually what would happen is after a certain point and until a certain point the TV stations here would just run advertising for all sorts of products for anything from cookware to Girls Gone Wild.
You know what's _really_ weird? You'd still see commercials for things like medications and whatnot on Cartoon Network, during children's programming! I remember as a kid how there seemed to be a disconnect between the advertising and the actual demographic of the program that was airing.
As a Millenial - Gen-Z cut-off person (I was born in late 1997), primitive CGI from the Pre-Pixar days feels like a prime example of analogue horror. Middle class folks around my age grew up with the rise of Pixar and Dreamworks, so the older GCI stuff with their inferior technology often feels very unnerving. The background feel hyper-real, the lighting is all over the place, lots of creepy clowns and objects getting smushed around, everything just feels...Off.
Yes. I was in Disney plus the other day and was watching some early Pixar shorts from the 80s Tin Toy or Red's Dream I think and they are super unnerving. And I hate shitting on those shorts because I know so much hard work was put into them at the time and they laid the groundwork for the amazing CG animation we have today. But the shorts themselves they're still really disturbing and creepy. Heck as I get older movies like Toy Story (which I adored so much I wore out my VHS copy) are somewhat off-putting now too. I notice the animation limitations and errors of the time and it feels off.
This was a pretty interesting comment. I was born in 1987, and can _just about_ recall some of the CGI from my childhood in the 90's. Whenever I look at 90's media now, being a man in my mid-thirties, I'm always struck by just how badly aged and bizarre it is.
It certainly makes sense that Western middle class horror so often focuses on children's' media. I remember when I started watching RUclips for the first time on my own when I was around 11 or 12 I found those compilations of hidden adults jokes in kids shows/movies, which led me to the videos claiming to reveal hidden illuminati imagery in kids content. I think it was so fascinating to me because it evoked the idea that my carefree, innocent childhood outlook was a mirage and I was blinded to the evils and complexities of the world that were right in front of me.
One aspect of middle class horror is the fear of economic hardship. This economic horror is often seen in american horror stories where haunted houses embody the characters' anxieties and potential downfall. Good examples would be The Shining by Stephen King or The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.
When I was in high school I spent SO many hours watching fake EBSes on the internet about aliens, nukes, skinwalkers, everything. JJs middle class videos always strike a chord with me and are endlessly interesting!
This reminded me of being a kid in the mid 90s when home PCs were still pretty new and playing some game on my uncle's computer when it gave me an "illegal operation" error. I thought the cops were coming to arrest me and my uncle kept agreeing they would until I was sobbing and hysterical. My aunt had to tell him to leave me alone. Good times.
When i was little i was playing around that Pivot animator thingy and it suddendly blue screened, it also made a weird creepy noise, i almost had a heart attack
"Analog horror" has been a pretty fast-growing subgenre. It's considered an offshoot of found-footage fiction, and things like the mentioned EAS scenarios fit nicely into it as well. Besides Local58, a couple other great examples would be "The Mandela Catalogue" and "Gemini Home Entertainment", as well as the recent phenomena of "The Backrooms".
@@JJMcCullough They’re fictional stories about some sort of unimaginable, Lovecraftian-type horror told through the medium of VHS tapes. Most of them present themselves as training videos or informational until they take a dark twist into the horror aspect.
@@JJMcCullough Gemini Home Entertainment is a story about an alien disease that can possess planets and that can transform you into just your nervous system and bones while wearing your skin to pass off as you as a way to lure and infect other people told through informational and promotional VHS tapes made by the Gemini Home Entertainment company. It's very creepy stuff, and it's not as gory as it may sound like
@@JJMcCullough The Mandela Catalogue is essentially a collection of recordings both from official and non-official sources from the 90s to today of a phenomena that has been terrorizing the citizens of the county of Mandela by unknown beings known as "Alternates". It's genuinely terrifying at times. Gemini Home Entertainment is an archive of those 80s/90s style educational tapes, but with a deeply Lovecraftian bent to it. "The Backrooms" isn't one particular series but more of a general universe setting that coincides with another concept called "liminal spaces", which are generally these creepy in-between locations where something just feels off about it. There's a fantastic video called "The Backrooms (Found Footage)" that should give you a good idea of it.
@@JJMcCullough The backrooms specifically is a very interesting continuation of drawing fears from our current understanding of things. Specifically computers, videogames, and the existence of Simulation Theory. The latter of which argues that life is a computer simulation, and thus we can apply this "computer logic" to not only ourselves but also in situations we may find bizarre, paranormal, or unexplained. The Backrooms specifically were first described as a 6 hundred million square miles of mono-yellow wallpaper walls, the stink of moist carpet, and the maddening hum of florescent lighting. Seemingly an unfurnished office space that goes on forever**, where finding oneself there would assuredly mean death from isolation and madness as you're essentially trapped within a never ending maze. -- The never ending maze having been modeled off a "Liminal Space", which are their own rabbit hole that you should look into if you haven't already. But the major crux of the Backrooms is that in order to get there, one has to "NoClip" out of reality. NoClip in this instance being the same as when in videogames, characters or objects may clip/pass through walls unintentionally. -- Circling back around, the existence of The Backrooms implies that we are all in the Front Rooms, the stable and correct part of the simulation where the world exists as it should be, and so to enter The Backrooms is comparable to going to places the developers of this simulation never intended us to see. People have now taken this idea and run with it, now describing The Backrooms as having multiple levels, countless perhaps, with each one having varying degrees of intrigue and survivability. Much like a game. One that Includes search and discovery, helpful and hurtful items, as well as avoiding scary monsters. -Things that perhaps might not make sense to past generations, but is instantly understandable to those who have grown up playing videogames for our whole lives and wouldn't have to think twice about the jargon. Which makes total sense when you learn that the original meme/image that kicked off the idea was first posted to 4chan.
Personally, growing up in a middle-class suburb, I was always deeply unsettled by the sort of "suburban horror" featured in shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The idea that there could be something dangerous, sinister, or otherworldly lurking in the endless rows of quaint, "normal" middle-class homes always caused me a lot of anxiety in my childhood, but was also the subject of my morbid curiosity--I would have thoughts like, "I've never seen anyone enter or leave that toolshed; what if there's a monster chained up inside?" For that reason, I always really enjoyed Halloween; trick-or-treating was a fun way to confront those anxieties head-on.
I recommend David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" (1986). Perhaps you've seen it. That's what comes to mind when you mention "dangerous, sinister, or other worldly lurking" in the suburbs. If you haven't seen it, it is very violent, sexually sadistic, and bizarre. And it still is after 35 years.
I was one of the people who worked on Mario Party DS Anti Piracy. Wonderful to see people still talking about it and taking more of a deep dive 'philosophical' approach to the series' meaning rather than just surface level stuff. Great work and thanks for featuring Joey's videos :) Absolutely wild to see
@@JJMcCullough made up some lore and story for the series! if there's proof needed my name is in the end of the finale credits it was fun, I started producing an epilogue for it a little over a year ago
I've grown up lower middle class to poor in fluctuations. I've never been bought a video game, I've always pirated games when I was younger and still do to this day, I've never seen this stuff as scary but a lot of my friends seem too. I think it's just a difference in perspective.
It’s interesting that intertwined with this fear of authority is a kind of desire to defy it and rebel. That’s the whole gimmick of the Stanley parable and the spiritual predecessor of this dynamic between the player and detached authority voice: Portal. It’s the idea that if you tell someone not to do something, they are way more likely to do it. The Streisand effect and internet culture as a whole is a good example of this.
I'd specify that the desire is more to be contrarian that to openly rebel; to irreverently defy but within the boundaries of authority. To also use Stanley Parable as an example: the player doesn't actually want to break the game, but to go against the narrator within the established confines of the game.
14:21 What actually makes Analog Horror work is the fact that more modern technology [especially in the 2010s and onward] has been designed to have the potentially scary aspects be sanded off. For example, the Windows blue screen of death has, since the release of Windows 8 in 2012, featured a lighter, more peaceful shade of blue, less dramatic text, and a "):" emoticon.
I may be completely wrong, but a great example of Middle Class “Kafkaesque” horror is when we have to sign into an account in some website for something super important but the password is wrong for some reason, and we have to go through the long, frustrating, and somewhat confusing process of setting up a new password.
As a casual horror fan, I can say that this type of horror is without a doubt my favorite type. I’ve never found myself being scared of stereotypical horror-movie monsters because they’re rarely grounded in reality to the point of being believable. As a kid, I was don’t remember being scared of Doctor Who despite all the aliens and sci-fi scenarios- however, I was scared of the air-raid siren that would play at the end of the credits to British wartime comedy ‘Dads Army’. I think that fear is partially what lead me to love analogue horror and other creepy stories that feel more grounded in reality. Local 58, fake emergency alerts, etc. all feel like an exaggeration of something you’d wake up to in the middle of the night after falling asleep infront of the TV, and I love that vibe.
They used to play the Queen's coronation and god save the queen at the end of the broadcasting schedule everyday when I was a kid in Hong Kong. I suppose they want to make sure we know who's the boss.
As being a fourteen year old who grew up with qubo in the us, i was staying up when qubo was gonna go down that night playing call of duty and i had qubo in the living room tv playing and when the network went silent, i got really scared. the next week-ish i went on RUclips to see what happened and saw that creepypasta video and i stupidly i believed it and got scared even more later that night 😅
Funny, I always found the infomercials and re-runs that stations would play at like 3am to be creepy as a kid. The thought that I could be the only person in the world watching this soulless video feed filled me feelings of isolation, and unease because I'm watching something that feels like it wasn't meant to be seen.
My friend was freaking out and sweating bullets because we were in line behind a man in uniform at a gas station. We didn’t have drugs on us and we were stone cold sober. When we walk out he lets out a sigh and tells me how nervous he gets around cops. It was an EMT 😂
I remember a long while ago, hearing a theory that the location of certain horror genres reflected the societal guilt of the society that created it; that in some way it was a cultural manifestation of the subconscious anxieties of the people whose comfortable life came at the existence of others, but rather than examine it and try to relieve their guilt by doing right by the wronged party, they instead feared the inevitable retribution that they saw around every dark corner. The Victorian English feared Jack the Ripper because they had destroyed the humanity of the toiling classes in dark, urban factories. Americans fear horror in the wilderness, be it Sasquatch, alien abduction, or Jason Vorhees, because their suppressed cultural sin was the extermination of the peoples who once inhabited the wilderness. Likewise, the well-off suburbanites fear the urban poor generally, to a pathological degree, be it in the form of zombies, or the cackling street thugs of the 80s revenge flick- because on some level they fear that their comfortable existence is somehow unearned, or at the expense of people who had to suffer so they could have what they have. And that in some manner, they will come to claim what they believe has been taken from them, like a Haitian slave revolt. Regardless of whether one believes this to be actually true, it's a subconscious feeling that they experience, and it manifests as a near constant state of panic among otherwise placid members of the middle classes, often in their comical obsession with issues that really don't matter or which pose no real tangible threat to their material existence.
Hmmmmm. I guess there’s probably some truth in there. I definitely think fear of the fragility of middle-class life is a pretty omnipresent theme in a lot of psychological horror. But I also feel like a lot of that takes the form of some aspect of middle-class existence turning against the middle class heroes, as opposed to some manifestation of the lower classes invading their space or attacking them.
There's also a borderline masochistic aspect to it also, as personified in the fascination with dead malls. And the Victorian Italianate houses that fell into decay after one of America's many boom & bust cycles. These were the McMansions of their day, but transformed into the setting for American horror. I will also put this out there: I used to live in Transylvania, and no one kept wooden stakes in their homes for fear of vampires. But in America, many of my fellow countrymen stockpile an absurd amount of guns and ammo for "the zombie apocalypse." I don't know which is worse: the prospect that they are in any way serious about that, which is ludicrous obviously, or whether it's a coded way of referencing the above mentioned phenomenon. I can't help but think back to that wealthy couple in St. Louis some years ago, when the protesters used their street to transit to the next location of protest, they came out of their house brandishing an AR-15. And these people were known to be devout liberals until that moment. What I can see as a through line for all of this, in the middle class horror genre, is a tacit understanding that our civilization is very complex, and while that complexity makes it a marvel of human achievement, it also makes it into a very thin, very fragile veneer, which could shatter at any moment.
@@DanCapostagno Interesting. Wooden stakes. LOL! Dead malls. I was teenager in the early eighties. That was the apex of mall culture. Dead malls haunt me because they remind me of my youth. My youth is gone. I see my own mortality.
@@maxshea1829 Likewise. Grim to be sure. But on the upside, sometimes when I'm at the supermarket, the oldies radio they pipe into the background will play Haddaway's "What Is Love" or Technotronic's "Pump The Jam." So sometimes our decay can manifest in forms that are both surreal and magical. On a similar note, one more Romanian anecdote: I enjoy the music of Ace of Base, because it gives me feelings of intense nostalgia for my youth and reminds me of those more carefree times, but my Romanian friends are giant fans for an entirely different reason. During the early 90s, when the Sign was atop the charts, they were fighting a brutal street battle to oust their dictator, Ceausescu. After the tanks fell silent, and the people were free from totalitarianism, they turned their radios and publicly broadcast Western radio for the first time, and what they all heard was "I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes..." So to this day, they get the feels when they hear it, because it has a literal mental association with freedom to them.
this strikes even harder considering what has happened in the last few years, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns took away many things we took for granted, like going to a movie, going out with friends or simply riding a bike and that level of change takes a toll on people. Even in my country, where we had massive protests just before the pandemic began and had to experience things like soldiers on the streets, riots or curfews, many in the middle class felt like their everyday lives were falling apart.
I remember reading that Soviet media played Swan Lake whenever political tension was happening - it got to the point that seeing Swan Lake on Soviet TV was an indicator that something was happening at the Kremlin
Now I know why TV Rain, a Russian network forcibly shut down for "misinformation" earlier in 2022, played that as its final broadcast. ruclips.net/video/LL8mPJLfNC8/видео.html
I got an ad for this video featuring a guy getting caught on camera. How fitting. Speaking of which, I always found those "Smile you're on camera" slogans condescending and creepy rather than funny or amusing. Really liking the direction this channel is taking by the way.
One of my early and perhaps founding memories is that of being called to the office in primary school without any idea why, just a classmate saying "The principal wants you". When I got there the principal gave me a story of something that happened the Friday before, saying I did something wrong. Note: I was the kid that was always in his own little world, never really catching onto things, and most importantly not really good at remembering things (still not), so there I was with the principal, the principal's secretary to the side, being accused of something by an authority figure, in a story I had trouble following about something that happened at least three days prior. I was scared, confused, and uncertain of myself, trying to remember something that happened that day. I'm certain I denied wrongdoing throughout, which is when the moment that is to this day seared into my memory came: the principal, turning to the secretary, asks, "What do you think? Is he lying?". The secretary swivelled around to face us and replies something to the effect of, "Yes, he's lying". That day I got a number of lashes for something I pretty likely didn't do and to this day have no idea about. It wouldn't be the last time I'd be unsure of myself due to not remembering stuff, but I have developed methods to compensate. Nevertheless, I'm still scared to death of anything like that ever happening again.
Wow, really loved this one! Reminded me of the time my local Nebraska radio station went off the air in the late 90s. They played It's the End of the World as We Know it on a loop for an entire day. No DJs, no commercials. While saddened we were losing our favorite alt/indie station there was an air of excitement and wonder about the whole thing, based on the novelty alone. Can't help but think the actual end might have a hint of that, too.
How about the fear of customs when crossing borders. I find myself holding my breath when going into the USA even though I am not doing anything wrong.
It’s a good example. Border crossings and airports tend to give a lot of middle-class people anxiety because it is often the only times that they are forced to deal with state authority figures.
@@ShadowFireXX Whenever I hear an accidental sounding of the shoplifting alarm at a supermarket or big box store, I always immediately think "was it me?"
That “nearer my god to thee” clip put a knot in my stomach because knowing how the world is doing at this point in time, I feel its almost inevitable that that clip will need to be played sometime in the future. That’s why I feel it’s important that we move as 1 unit, 1 world, 1 race. So that things like that don’t need to be planned for.
The movie "Threads" about a post-nuclear world is an excellent example of this. It's one of the most harrowing films to watch from start to finish because of how easily it could unfold if the wrong people are in at the wrong time.
I was in the Army for a number of years. The overwhelming authority ever-present 24/7, caused me to realize how I had actually always been fearful of authority. However it also helped me to overcome it. I now have a shooting feeling of guilt when I catch myself being fearful in such a way. I often tend to attempt to push the boundary of "rules" in my everyday life.
Besides what J.J said about "Stanley Parable", the game is about game design. All games are designed by a game designer - the authority - who designs mechanics - rules/laws - with the intend of a certain respons - expectation - from the player. When the player is given choices, it is not only discussing / reflecting upon video games' interactive nature, but also mimicing what the middle class' fear of authority is about: Are you supposted to follow what the narrator - essentially the game designer(?) - says, are you maybe supposed to do the opposite, or does it really matter what he says?
I saw something that states how the game is also heavily centered around the intent of the artist vs the interpretation of the player. This is basically since the narrator wants to tell a story about Stanley rebelling by getting the good ending but creates narrative dissonance in making it so the player doesn’t feel like they themselves are since they have to listen to the narrator completely to do so. I do have to say it is crazy how much narrative depth is within such a seemingly simple game
One thing I appreciated about 'Portal' (video game) was the sudden twist in the game where you needed to disobey the guide for your own survival. The instructional section was the warmup, after the twist in the game, you needed to be skeptical of all the instructions.
So there's this interesting kind of middle class horror, I find, surrounding abandoned spaces, mainly schools or malls, the kinds of places that people typically associated with childhood memories. I think malls are a particular fascination because for people who grew up in the 90s and early 00s they were this big thing that is now dying out, and it serves as this reminder that we're not kids anymore and that the things that were cool and significant to us are decaying now and kids today have totally different interests and are moving away from what you thought was cool. It's interesting how it's tied to a lot of consumer things, like all of these pop culture things that you grew up with are about as cool as your parents.
It's interesting that abandoned malls, liminal spaces, anti piracy warnings, computer errors, TV sign offs and test patterns all seem to make people uncomfortable What is it about these things that have that effect? And why, as JJ suggests, do these things scare the middle class but not the working class?
I think the classic example of the “spooky kids show” or “lost episode of a show with a bunch of disturbing subliminal messaging” plays nicely at the intersection of your two videos on the subject. It’s both disturbing because it plays at our fear of disorder and bastardizes something familiar, but also because they imply that the broadcast stations or the artists who have been so “good” to you and have provided you with entertainment are in fact secretly malevolent and want to corrupt you in some way beyond your control (and of course, makes you question if that has been happening the whole time you’ve watched that programming without your knowledge or consent)
I never thought about authority being associated with the emergency broadcast system. When I was watching TailSpin and the EBS came on, I asked who changed the channel. Then my dad explained what it was. It made me wanna learn about hurricanes and tornados.
Oh, another middle class fear (albeit really quite tame) I have is being caught by police of driving above the speed limit in a speed trap zone when everyone else are driving 10 kmph above the limit already. I hate paying stupid fines lol
Those test patterns were absolutely creepy and I really hadn't thought of why before. Even here in Australia before the TV stations turned on and off for the day, there was always this strange patriotic song with visuals as well. I think the UK had the creepiest test pattern of all though - it was this little girl with a puppet, with the test colours in the background. There was something just so "innocently sinister" behind it and it gets referenced in quite a few TV shows from there. Man this video is such a strange, unnerving walk through my youth.
Not sure if it's necessarily "middle class horror" per se but The Backrooms are such a fascinating piece of internet horror to me. The idea of taking areas that are familiar to us and making them unnerving simply by removing the people in them is so effective for some reason. It's also the idea of "superstructures", of which I think The Backrooms is one. These inconceivably massive man-made buildings invoke some sense of fear about the overtaking of mankind over nature.
I like the backrooms stuff. It reminds me of the feeling I had when I had to stay late at school sometimes. Sure there would still be some teachers and janitor around but some areas were completed deserted and it's and erie feeling for sure.
@@Zekana0 same. I've been to events in the building where I went to middle school after dark, with the hallway lights off and the gym eerily empty and quiet. Like I remember these places but I remember them in certain contexts with certain emotions, and removing those contexts and emotions feels so wrong.
My favorite description of the backrooms is one I wrote that embodies the suffering I envision to be the most horrifying it could embody. I'll try to conjure it up right now. You wake up in a hallway. The walls and carpet are yellow. The air is a pleasant, neutral temperature. The carpet is slightly damp, but not mildewy. It's well-lit with the lights a cold white. There isn't another person in sight or earshot. As you wander, you find more halls, but no doors nor windows. You do not tire, you do not feel hunger or thirst. You do not feel hot or cold. In short, your body is maintained in perfect homeostasis and your mind in perfect wakefulness. This is your forever. Bland, empty, lonely. When and how do you break?
"Sleeping with the Television On" by Billy Joel employs the sound of the national anthem leading into test patterns, something I never really got until this video. Thanks JJ!
I remember as a child, I would consume a lot of apocalypse media, and the only thing that kept me grounded and assured that humanity still existed was turning on the TV and watching my favorite shows. Needless to say, when one night the TV cable got cut due to an accident, I went into a panic attack.
14:51 It's weird hearing outdoor sirens being referred to as 'old fashioned' when they're still frequently used in areas of the US that get a lot of tornadoes.
One of the things that I use to fear as kid that I think would fall under this thing is Out of Bounds areas in shooter games, just the idea of these abandoned areas with no players that you get killed for being in by the game itself rather than a player.
It's the silence in a lot of the emergency broadcasts once the siren or alarm has sounded which scares me the most. The concept of being alone in silence and the last thing you heard was that. It's like with the old Protect and Survive films from the 70s, the graphic would show at the beginning at the end, an ominous drone would play, and then it would just be silent.
JJ should watch Bob And Margret. It's about a middle-class English couple. It's very middle class in its themes. They also did a whole season where they move to Canada. I think JJ would also appreciate the very abrasive Canadian cousins to the Fishes. Very patriotic and ignorant of the outside world.
Wow! Didn't think this was going to get so creepy. Something that horrifies me is getting tangled with the law in another country. U.S laws are a mess for U.S citizen, to get caught doing something that puts you in the legal system of another country is nightmare fuel!
God those test screens before a network would start used to creepy me out! I don’t know if other places has this same one or just the UK but…. It was the same colour patterns and loud beeping but in the middle would be this girl drawing on a chalkboard and some puppet beside her. Looking back now it’s just kind of silly but as a kid it used to freak me out flipping through channels and then just this sudden loud noise with some girl and creepy clown staring at you.
I don't know if many British people are involved in the whole creepypasta community, but I'm honestly amazed British PSA's aren't as prevalent an inspiration in the field. I suppose we have that eerie "hauntological" music and philosophical fiction instead (like Andy Sharp or Richard Littler)
Adam Curtis' docu-series "I can't get you out of my Head" breaks down the looming paranoia and fear of authority that is prevelant in middle to lower middle class communities in America and across the world. Its great if you can stomach 9 hours of content
Hi J.J. I truly enjoyed this video. I'm 67 years old and when I was a kid, test patterns looked more like a bull's eye. "The Midnight Sector" reminded me of when I learned that Orson Welles had broadcast "The War of the Worlds" as a radio play on 30 October 1938. The presentation was done as a series of radio news bulletins and sounded very real. Some people who tuned in late were not privy to the fact that what they were hearing was a work of fiction. Some thought the Earth was actually being invaded by Martians and it's been said that several committed suicide. As a product of the boomer generation, I think a good source for examples of middle class horror "back in the day" would be the original Twilight Zone episodes produced by, and some written by, Rod Serling. It would be interesting to see a compare/contrast analysis of these horrors through the generations. Technology and mindsets have changed quite a bit (not all for the better) since I was a kid. With so many new developments and transitions in the last 70 years, have the horrors remained the same and has the middle class response altered at all? What new horrors will the current and future generations have to face? J.J., thank you for the time and research you put into your videos.
For me, this was the early days of COVID. Like March 2020. When we didn't know anything, but lockdowns were happening worldwide and we didn't know if this was a species killer. I immediately started to understand how fucked I would be if the power cut out, the water stopped flowing, all supply chains breaking down in a matter of weeks or days. I remember suggesting that all members of my family check in with each other daily on the phone, wondering how long the phone system would continue to function. For a few weeks, the end of the world was more nigh than we ever thought it would be in our lifetime. Our current reality is just a cosmic roll of the dice.
I remember that. At work my bosses were nonchalant and clueless and I actually had to straighten them out. They didn't want to send somebody home who was constantly coughing. After speaking to the manager I convinced him that he indeed had the authority to send people home and eventually he did. I knew that in light of such authority, compliance was key because the problem wasn't going to be solved for us.
@@professordogwood8985 "In light of such authority, compliance was key, because the problem wasn't going to be solved for us." Do you realize how terrifying that sentence is? This is the attitude that upholds tyranny.
I find this stuff fascinating - the sign-offs and sign-ons of TV stations I think as a middle-class person, the relaxing and familiar video played every day of a very familiar song then contrasts with the fact that your precious TV is gone. Not only that, the TV is pretty much telling you that you are up too late/early. How dare you? I live in the UK, and the death of the Duke of Edinburgh last year led to every TV channel on the BBC cutting in to a breaking news announcement and the national anthem, apart from the children's channels (CBBC and CBeebies), which showed a huge bar in the middle of the screen telling children to turn to the BBC News Channel "NOW" for a "developing news story". Other channels did the same, and the only channel not to do so, Channel 4, got barrages of criticism that it was being too "woke". How dare those lefties ignore his royal highness? In the Philippines, every channel has to re-apply for its license every few years, and a channel called "ABS-CBN" was too critical of the government and they then refused to grant them a license. When they turned off for the last time, the last programme was the news and they played a big montage of the brilliance of ABS CBN. Then they played a video with the national anthem, and finally they played a long message, including everywhere they broadcast, which seemed to be listing every town in the country. Finally, they switched off for good. Great video, it is the first time I have seen someone attempt to take on the culture in the 21st century, at least to a mainstream audience. Patrick
I think something that pairs with this obsession with archival of analog media is the interest in how analog tv stations around the US shut off during the great digital switch over of 2009 in the US. Some stations played really great send-offs with old test screens and bumpers, a message from an anchor about the transition, footage of a tv engineer shutting off the analog signal or even just a national anthem to go along with it. I highly recommend checking those out for some warm middle class nostalgia.
I feel like the fear of authority conspiring against us is such a specifically middle-class fear is because the upper class are the authorities or have the financial or societal power to escape them somewhat, and the lower class are more frequently confronted with authority actually oppressing them in broad daylight. The middle-class is aware that they can't escape authority, but aren't openly confronted with it as often, so the idea that their influence is simply hidden seems like a plausible notion.
You can be lower class and have things to lose. Maybe not as monetarily valuable, but stuff that is valuable to you. Especially in terms of survival or general comfort.
This stuff has absolutely been a theme in UK media for decades, most notably in the Mitchell & Webb "Remain Indoors" sketches, and in the presence of the Test Card Girl on the TV show Life is Mars.
Whenever I need a horror show I personally just read about the UK's continuity of government plans or the film Threads. Both as so utterly depressing that it can shock you into a certian understanding of the here and now. That someone had to soberty think up this solution to the most incomprehensible problem it's scary
I'd have to argue on the principles of Analogue Horror you listed JJ. I've been in the ARG/Unfiction realm of media for over a decade at this point, and seeing the rise of Analogue Horror as a genre stems from even the older lost footage/lost games style of horror (with other influences, of course.) But I think a very key this is the perceived permanence of analogue film media. To a lot of modern audiences, a VHS or CRT screen able recording isn't alterable like most modern digital mediums. Obviously anything can be doctored, but the presence of a physical tape or other medium presents inherently high levels of difficulty in editing them. And why would someone spend the time to do so on some old news broadcast? It helps with the suspension of disbelief quite a bit. Additionally Local58 and Gemini Home Entertainment (both stand out stars of the genre) have followable story beats and a plot to them, when you look beneath the surface. Which adds to their level of mystique and inherent uncanniness.
I would also add that it's about the "found footage" nature of the material. It's the same principle that a book is scarier if it's old and decaying rather than looking new and fresh off the printing press. Anything that gives it a sense of history adds to the mystique.
I wonder how you might think of a "lower class" or "working class" horror? I suppose that if materialism is central to middle class horror, that might be less true for a lower class, which could substitute it for something supernatural or generally violent. I recall hearing a while ago that zombies are a version of "upper class" horror because it concerns the "bloodthirsty masses" coming to literally eat you, despite the best efforts of all the world's institutions.
I will leave it to somebody who is more familiar with upper or lower class life to do that. But I think that zombie take is a fair one! I think it’s harder to explain zombie horror through a middle class lens. I guess that’s why stuff like The Walking Dead tends to focus more on the collapse of civilization angle.
For those middle Americans who are major 2nd amendment advocates. I hear a lot of people say that a gun is insurance for “if the government falls” or some other downfall of society into chaos. So I think that fact seriously applies here to the idea of “middle class horror” and a concern of being abandoned
The thing is, many of us 2A advocates are not middle class, not materialistic and have no such fears. We do for ourselves because we have to. We know the law, what laws are enforced and what laws are ignored. We know how to deal with threats from those who would abuse us and often that abuse comes from various government agencies. They make guns illegal, we'll make them ourselves. Many of us already do for fun already anyway. We'd turn the bans into money makers as there is a market to fill, starving mouths at home to feed, machine tools and we have skills. Middle class is so very unaware of what lays outside of their protected bubbles. We are the ones that facilitate that comfort you enjoy. We make the stuff you love and keep your houses working.
I work at a movie theater. There are times when i'm working concession and notice that the customer i'm serving brought in a drink from outside, which our theater doesn't really care about. Regardless, one of my favorite things to do is ask "did you bring that from outside?", wait for them to say yes, then turn to the side and say "security!" I always immediately tell them i'm kidding, but the looks on their faces before the reveal are priceless, and it always gets a big laugh out of them when they realize i'm joking. (This bit also works best on customers who come in high)
It's so quaint the things that concern the petit bourgeois. Imagine not knowing if you'll be able to eat that week. That's true anxiety. The middle class may fear government authorities conspiring against them, but we know they do.
A memorable experience that I had was during Boy Scout camp as a kid. There were sirens, similar to the siren head noise, that could be heard loudly, but muffled by thunder and the heavy downpour. We had radios on and we’re were all huddled in the only solid building around us, an outhouse. We were in the middle of the woods, the furthest troop away from the center of camp. We heard a tree fall loudly next to us, it almost landed on two scouts and crushed their tent. We let them borrow one of ours and every one was thankfully ok, but it was one of the creepiest nights of my life.
One time when I was like 19 my friend called me in the middle of the night asking me to come get him from jail. I broke out in a cold sweat and my anxiety was through the roof. To this day it still freaks me out.
I think the creepiest versions of these broadcasts are the ones that are real and are detailing actual apocalyptic seeming moments in recent history. There was a really ominous Japanese one but I don’t remember the event it was for
I think other thing so compelling about analog horror is the concept that today's technology is so intertwined, if I turn on my video game I feel like I'm not alone as other people may also be using their console, social media made technology a lot more social (who could guess?). However when I play a SNES, for example, I feel alone, my friends don't know what I'm doing neither I know what they're doing, I'm all by myself. I think that this sense of loneliness is also a compelling matter of analog horror
I think fear of authority works best not when you lack authority but when authority is too overbearing, you mentioned local 58 and my favorite from them is contingency, it kinda ties in as well with the end of day national anthem things but when patriotism is overblown it can get creepy and cultist real fast
You might have mentioned the Michael Douglas film about the collapse of normalcy, Falling Down. Michael Prescott wrote a haunting time-travel novel The Street, back to 1970s suburban New Jersey to discover who committed a horrific murder in that normal environment.
I remember watching Cartoon Network when I was younger and getting interrupted by a warning broadcast about a kidnapped child. It understandably creeped me out.
I appreciated the extra bit of context you provided about the "you wouldn't download a car" video where you explained how it was played before movies in theatres and disc
It seems similar to the creepiness of tv idents you get between different programmes particularly on the BBC channels. The mix of pre-recorded video often having been used for many years all while an unseen and unknown voice narrates what is about to happen. As a viewer the authority is all out of your hands and instead with this disembodied narrator. The end of tv channel's creepiness also seems similar to when a tv channel temporarily breaks down. Often to go to screen is a moving blob of colours while unrecognisable featureless music plays in the background. In those moments for a short while it feels as if no one has control not even the trusted disembodied voice. At least for me this has always seemed intensely creepy. Great video as always!
ah yes, my favorite show. JJ's "non-left" critique of the class structures and unique neurosis of the system he believes is the best of all worlds, that is somehow more on point, clear, and well reasoned than anything "left". The mind boggles every time. Keep it up. Your insight is always very keen even if I do not understand the conclusions you reach from it, politically.
I think the idea is that their are going to be certain neurosis associated with any group in any society and so examining the neurosis of the modern west doesn’t necessarily entail it being less desirable than alternatives
It really never occurred to me that the specific type of “internet horror” that I was exposed to in my adolescent years (2007-2014 roughly) was so specific to middle class America. This is one of my favorite vids that you’ve done!
Omg whyyyyy did I watch this video JJ 😅 super interesting but super unsettling. I have anxiety disorder which makes any sort of horror or suspense tv/movies very uncomfortable to watch. But I just couldn't resist this 😅 I THOUGHT I WAS READY AND I WAS NOT 🤣😅 gotta watch some GBBO now to cleanse my mind palate lol. Love your channel!
I remember when the "Emergency warnings" were framed as a warning of an attack, and that "if this was a real emergency" we would be instructed to tune our AM radios to 640 or 1240 for further instructions. The radios of the day all had little marks on the tuner corresponding to 640 and 1240 so you could find it quickly.
Great vid JJ. I find that analyzing the fears, aspirations, and culture of a society does much to describe our underlying psychology and perhaps our political conflicts.
Stanley Parable is also about gamers (players of video games for the uneducated) being limited to the developers (makers of video games) designed paths much like office workers are limited to doing what their boss says
Yeah, it's interesting how a fear of authority manifests in different ways for the people, especially the middle class. For me, it's the fear of being stuck in a job with a pain in the ass boss where I MUST remain because of A. Lack of money, B. Lack of other job prospects, or C. The time it takes to get another job. While I don't consider myself conservative, I also really don't like people telling me what to do and me having no say in something, particularly if I rely on that something for surviving.
"while I don't consider myself conservative, I'm kind of afraid of capitalism"... yeah, don't worry, I don't think that comes off as conservative, these days at the least, lmao :)
@@ByzantineDarkwraith Well, that's not where I was going with that thought. Typically conservatives don't like regulation by the government (I.e., not liking the government telling them what to do whether it be about taxes, regulations, gun laws, etc.), that's why you often hear they are fans of 'small government'. That's all I was saying bruv.
I love your videos about middle class culture because, possibly due to growing up in the lower middle class, I've never really associated any culture with it. It and "American culture" were synonymous to me and wealthy or poor cultures were different from that.
As someone born and raised in Africa, I find this really weird. Having seen the actual breakdown of authority and not having the material wealth to have the latest and greatest, this horror is not something I can relate to and it seems to be something unique to North America. I have a nostalgic love for old technology, completely different perspective on authority and find it hard to relate to this topic. JJ, I’d like to see you do a video on how the rest of the world sees these things. I see other comments from outside NA saying they do relate, so maybe it’s an age / generational thing.
@@JJMcCullough totally get that, but you’ve done some great videos before where you shared insights from your viewers… like, Jake in Namibia says “we eat pineapple on our pizza’s too”… that kind of thing can be very insightful and I think this topic can benefit from some of that. It might be a niche audience though. ;-)
Oh my god JJ your analysis in this case was spot on, I cannot agree with all of your views but your lense became an incredible filter for this particular topic. Thanks
I feel like another more modern example is when a website goes down. Everyone shares the same experience but doesn't know what to do and just sits there. Also I remember when club penguin shut down for the last time!
Finally someone is able to put to words my very specific phobia I've had since I was young!! I have always been scared of tech unintentionally or unexpectedly glitching, starting way back in the day when I was
@@JJMcCullough Seems almost like anti- nostalgia. Instead of provoking the wonder of childhood it provokes the helplessness and fear of authority of childhood.
Old time folk music (Circa 1800s) is actually kind of dark. It’s the music of working class Americans who lived through some pretty rough times (E.g Slavery, the Civil War, Westward Expansion, etc).
My favorite part of the “You wouldn’t steal a car” anti-piracy ad is that the creators were sued for not paying for the proper licenses to use the music, essentially pirating it.
Bold of them to assume I wouldn't steal a car
@@sethberry9185 Bold of them to assume I'm not posting this comment from my phone inside a stolen 2018 Honda Accord V6 6MT coupe with Nevada registration
@@Julianna.Domina is your phone a stolen iphone 7?
Gsl
@@sethberry9185😊
That DS video was uniquely scary in a way I cannot describe, but losing control over your system because of a relatively minor crime and then being prompted to report yourself for your sins feels extremely Kafkaesque like you said, wow.
It’s fake. It was made by a RUclipsr named Joey Perleoni. He made a ton of fake videos of the anti-piracy screens. It even tricked JJ
@@camgreenee Well he did do a good job. You know you have succeeded with a video like this, when I'd rather smash up my DS right there and then than listen to any more of it.
We need this IRL. There isn't enough stigma against piracy.
i kind of shat myself too
@@camgreenee it didn’t trick me, I called the segment “phony anti piracy screens”
You know this really strikes at my biggest anxieties, which are being caught by police or detained by border guards even despite doing nothing wrong. I’m deeply terrified of border crossings (which might even partly explain my fascination with borders) and being stopped by police on the streets, and having them not listen to me when I say I haven‘t done anything wrong. Probably doesn‘t help that both these scenarios have literally happened to me before
It’s because you wear that silly hat all the time.
@@joshuataylor3550 this fear is still in people who are white.
@@joshuataylor3550 He is very white... and god damn I need to catch up on my boy's videos, holup
hello
Police are terrifying, and generally of no use. I saw my very first payoff when i was nine or ten. Every time ive been robbed, they show up, take a few notes, and then disappear forever.
Funny you talked about TV test patterns. The end of day sign-offs in the 70s terrified me as a kid. It was usually late at night, and most other family members were in bed, so I'd sneak downstairs to watch something. Then the sign-off came and the TV left me all alone!
"the TV left me all alone" is a perfect way to describe that experience! waking up in a dark living room with that test pattern screen on the TV after you dozed off.. spooky.
I remember wanting to have the TV turned off before the end of the National Anthem so I didn’t have to experience the test pattern.
Interestingly the Soviet Union had there own test pattern with the National anthem played before it's a bit less unsettling but not much, but at least the uplifting music and images beforehand make it easier
Your profile picture terrified me as an adult
Same here. Sign-offs scared the hell outta me, and just thinking about them makes my insides want to scream and run away. Test pattern on its own, no problem. National anthem on its own, no problem. Add in the "end of..." announcement? AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!
The way JJ studies culture is almost existential. It's fascinating how he derives insights and strong emotions from the mundane and often overlooked.
Agreed, this is why I always look forward to his videos when the weekend comes. I always found those "alert" videos a bit unsettling growing up and it's interesting to see a guy break them down.
I remember reading a Spanish zombie novel where the protagonist witnessed his society crumbling as he took notes every day, and the scariest parts were all those descriptions of the panic through news channels and how they suddenly stopped broadcasting regular programs to the point where they were just broadcasting static imagery with military symphonies and, slowly but steadily, every web site, radio station or TV channel died.
Do you have the book name? If so please tell us, sounds like a sweet read.
@@benjaminbustamante7924 it's a trilogy called "Apocalipsis Z" by Manel Loureiro. The first book is the scariest in my opinion since most of the time is the protagonist alone till he bumps into people, the second and the third are interesting as well but the third takes some peculiar twists that at some point make it feel like a different story than the first book. Still, a nice reading that accompanied me through my bus trips in my first year of university.
Looks like it was translated in to English too
Why was that happening? Does it ever say? Is it because since people were dying there wasn’t anybody to manually update
@@41052 as far as I remember, yes.
It amazes me how this doesn’t seem to be an exclusive North American Middle Class thing. Me, a middle class Brazilian and everyone who shares the same social/economical background as I do find out all of this familiarly just as disturbing and creepy as you do. (I’m sending them this video right now and I’m sure that they’re gonna have the same goosebumps as me). Thanks for covering this topic, JJ!
I’ve seen a compilation of emergency alarm systems recently. We Brazilians were represented in it too. ruclips.net/video/TjBnDsTOGug/видео.html
The channel Harvester that JJ mentioned features a video on Brazil too
I'm scared of the Brazilian authority too
@@felipeitoanuatti it’s too creepy for me to watch it LOL
oh dang you nooob
How I would summarize this horror:
It's gone.
Your life of comfort is shattered.
All you held dear has ended.
Now.
Your old world, free from struggle and starvation, is no more.
Now you must survive.
But how can you?
You've never had to before.
You don't know what is ahead.
It's a bleak darkness of possibility as far as the eye can see.
There is no escape.
This is your life.
And you're not ready.
I'd put it like this: You are off the map. You are in a place where not even the universal background noise of your society can reach you. Beyond here be dragons, or perhaps the Lord Humungus, the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla. There's a sense of being all by yourself that comes from these things.
We're DOOOOOOMED!
It's fear of change and the fear of the unknown
Not to sound morbid, but this is what it must feel like for the citizens of Ukraine. The hardest thing to watch is the elderly cursing the Russians for bringing hell in the last days of their lives. When they are no longer physically, or mentally capable it handle it.
I can summarize this into 3 words: growing wealth inequality
Someone should make a workplace game, maybe a food service setting, where your trainer abruptly leaves and you have to figure out how to do everything on your own with customers waiting. This could either be a fun challenge or panic-inducing lol
I thought you were jokingly describing 5 Nights at Freddie's until you got to the point where you mentioned the customers.
@@jonhanson8925 Ha! I only thought of food service because it's fast-paced and slightly more intuitive than, say, figuring out a computer program at a desk job
This happened to me with two jobs. The first one was a restaurant, but I wasn't the only one there, so I figured it out and made through the first day. The second was at a dry cleaners, where I was the only person in the building and the only phone number I had to call for help was for the store phone I was calling on. I definitely charged people wrong that day.
This description sort of reminds me of that classic I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel have to wrap chocolates on a line!
For those who haven't seen it: ruclips.net/video/K3axU2b0dDk/видео.html
That's just papa's pizzeria
Filipino TV channels still 'shut off' every night. Our biggest TV channel, ABS-CBN, was forced off the air last 2020 due to political reasons and watching their last broadcast before shutting down was chilling. It really felt like someone died.
watching the shutdown "goodbye" card felt chilling lol. IDK why
do you think abs cbn will be back on the air sometime in the future?
@@jonnathan1869 they probably won't be. it's rumored that the mastermind behind the shutdown will be appointed as the head of marcos jr.'s justice department. even if somehow abs-cbn is able to come back, their news department will probably avoid criticizing the administration in fear of being shut down again.
Can’t wait till next 2020
That’s interesting! I think if the CBC shut down in Canada I would be singing songs of joy.
A few years ago a friend of mine confided in me that he'd briefly been wrongly arrested (a few minutes later the police realised he couldn't have committed the crime and unarrested him). My initial reaction was one of fascination - how interesting to get a chance to see the police in action! - before I realised that he was genuinely shaken by the experience.
Both reactions were sides of the same middle-class coin: on my side it didn't occur to me to be concerned, since he hadn't done anything wrong and therefore (in my mind) could be in no danger; on his side even a brief encounter with the police, when he might otherwise have expected to live his whole life without ever crossing paths with them, was distressing and humiliating.
I was once handcuffed during a traffic stop because I behaved weirdly around the police, including by getting out of the car. Humiliating on two levels: being treated like a criminal, and not knowing the proper procedures and protocols for dealing with an authority figure.
I think this fear of aloneness/abandonment of authority extends into even more prevalent parts of society. For instance, it is oddly comforting when stores advertise that they are open 24/7. Or when you look out a city apartment window at 2am and see an illuminated skyline- that's very comforting for me at least. This demonstrates how the modern-day human mind is cautious of a time when our fight-or-flight response is necessary because we are so comfortable and dependent on our ability to have choices and the ability to have sufficient time to think through such choices.
Good point. I have to say that one of the unexpectedly disturbing element of the pandemic was the changes I saw at my local Walmart, first seeing bare shelves in the food aisle and then seeing the hours cut so that I could no longer reliably turn to them for all my late night needs.
It was a stark reminder of the fragility of modern society.
That is such a good point. Feeling that certain institutions are stable and consistent is so important, especially when traveling or in an unfamiliar environment.
Another good example of this would be fast food restaurants always strive to be consistent and serve the same food across all of their different stores, to provide a consistent and stable experience that you don’t have to gamble on.
I think this concept is one of the reasons that keeps 1984 by George Orwell relevant. Any time either American political party does something that the other side believes to be an “infringement on freedom,” they liken it to 1984, and claim that we will descend into that dystopia if we do not oppose.
This horror is all based off of the fear of all dystopian futures, mostly imagined, but sometimes feeling real from the traumas of the Cold War nuclear struggles. I think that’s another reason why the “old tv” makes things even scarier or surreal. Great video JJ!
This is a great insight. I think 1984 was probably the first major work of literature that posted a theory in which the middle class could be enslaved.
What also keeps it relevant is the fact that it isn't so much fantasy as reality. Reading about life in the USSR, the state that inspired it, and current events in Russia and China make it shockingly clear how close to reality the book is.
Really makes me appreciate my middle class life in a free country like the USA despite our myriad flaws.
Same thing with a handmaid's tale.
@@JJMcCullough "1984" even emphasizes that the lower classes are in a sense more free--they're grindingly poor, but the state basically leaves them alone and allows them simple pleasures as long as they don't stray outside of narrow parochial concerns. It's the people with a little more privilege, the society's "knowledge workers", who have to be mentally under the boot 24/7.
@@JJMcCullough)I think most dystopias are about middle class (most protagonists from dystopian works are middle class) enslavement with, for example, Brave New World focusing on enslavement through materialistic contentment, 1984 through tyrannical oppression, Fahrenheit 451 through mass apathy and anti-intellectualism, etc.
(If I'm not mistaken in all three books the lower class is depicted as some combination of dumb, ignorant, simple, and/or easily manipulated. Which is probably how most of the middle class view their poorer counterparts.)
An interesting horror that might be unique to US children I remember were commercials for personal injury lawyers. We used to have commercials about law firms asking if you experienced some form of Injury or disease as a result of workplace accidents or drugs.Since TV is not as popular, they aren't as widely circulated. The most famous commercial, the mesothelioma one, is a nostalgic example for many US young adults.
A commercial I remember being creeped out by was an ad for parents who's babies suffered deformities like Spina Bifida or clubbed foot. Imagine a 6 year old being shown pictures of deformed babies while a stern narrator tells you about important adult stuff while creepily cheesy music plays in the background.
Ah yeah, Infomercials. Instead of the Test Patterns, usually what would happen is after a certain point and until a certain point the TV stations here would just run advertising for all sorts of products for anything from cookware to Girls Gone Wild.
You know what's _really_ weird? You'd still see commercials for things like medications and whatnot on Cartoon Network, during children's programming! I remember as a kid how there seemed to be a disconnect between the advertising and the actual demographic of the program that was airing.
@@movezig5 made you realize this isn't your world
@@movezig5 Gotta target the demographic that's stuck watching the kids show I guess?
@@movezig5 Same. Like seeing the anti-drug PSAs on Nickelodeon. Would anti-drug PSAs be counted as middle-class horror?
As a Millenial - Gen-Z cut-off person (I was born in late 1997), primitive CGI from the Pre-Pixar days feels like a prime example of analogue horror. Middle class folks around my age grew up with the rise of Pixar and Dreamworks, so the older GCI stuff with their inferior technology often feels very unnerving. The background feel hyper-real, the lighting is all over the place, lots of creepy clowns and objects getting smushed around, everything just feels...Off.
Yes. I was in Disney plus the other day and was watching some early Pixar shorts from the 80s Tin Toy or Red's Dream I think and they are super unnerving. And I hate shitting on those shorts because I know so much hard work was put into them at the time and they laid the groundwork for the amazing CG animation we have today. But the shorts themselves they're still really disturbing and creepy. Heck as I get older movies like Toy Story (which I adored so much I wore out my VHS copy) are somewhat off-putting now too. I notice the animation limitations and errors of the time and it feels off.
Yeah, anything pre-toy story seems jarring to look at. I'm just a year older than you btw.
I remember being put off whenever I saw an episode of Re-Boot growing up.
This was a pretty interesting comment. I was born in 1987, and can _just about_ recall some of the CGI from my childhood in the 90's. Whenever I look at 90's media now, being a man in my mid-thirties, I'm always struck by just how badly aged and bizarre it is.
I was born in 98, and I don't find early CGI that creepy. It's weird, but also kind of fascinating.
It certainly makes sense that Western middle class horror so often focuses on children's' media. I remember when I started watching RUclips for the first time on my own when I was around 11 or 12 I found those compilations of hidden adults jokes in kids shows/movies, which led me to the videos claiming to reveal hidden illuminati imagery in kids content. I think it was so fascinating to me because it evoked the idea that my carefree, innocent childhood outlook was a mirage and I was blinded to the evils and complexities of the world that were right in front of me.
One aspect of middle class horror is the fear of economic hardship. This economic horror is often seen in american horror stories where haunted houses embody the characters' anxieties and potential downfall. Good examples would be The Shining by Stephen King or The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.
When I was in high school I spent SO many hours watching fake EBSes on the internet about aliens, nukes, skinwalkers, everything. JJs middle class videos always strike a chord with me and are endlessly interesting!
I remember watching one about some guy going on a rampage and becoming too angry to die
One that I personally love, is the radio warnings in black mesa about the resonance cascade, they are so realistic and frigtening.
This reminded me of being a kid in the mid 90s when home PCs were still pretty new and playing some game on my uncle's computer when it gave me an "illegal operation" error. I thought the cops were coming to arrest me and my uncle kept agreeing they would until I was sobbing and hysterical. My aunt had to tell him to leave me alone. Good times.
At least in my language it is translated as "neplatná operace" (invalid operation) so it doesn't sound so terrifying
Lol here in mexico is "operacion invalida" i dont know if i could survive the 90s
Blue Screen of Death will invoke horror in older Millennials/younger Xers. Much more real visceral horror than the crappy effects used by Hollywood.
DOS is scary AF. From the old days of dual boot Windows...if something went wrong and it switched to DOS on you that was horrifying.
When i was little i was playing around that Pivot animator thingy and it suddendly blue screened, it also made a weird creepy noise, i almost had a heart attack
"Analog horror" has been a pretty fast-growing subgenre. It's considered an offshoot of found-footage fiction, and things like the mentioned EAS scenarios fit nicely into it as well.
Besides Local58, a couple other great examples would be "The Mandela Catalogue" and "Gemini Home Entertainment", as well as the recent phenomena of "The Backrooms".
Can you tell me a bit about those things
@@JJMcCullough They’re fictional stories about some sort of unimaginable, Lovecraftian-type horror told through the medium of VHS tapes. Most of them present themselves as training videos or informational until they take a dark twist into the horror aspect.
@@JJMcCullough Gemini Home Entertainment is a story about an alien disease that can possess planets and that can transform you into just your nervous system and bones while wearing your skin to pass off as you as a way to lure and infect other people told through informational and promotional VHS tapes made by the Gemini Home Entertainment company. It's very creepy stuff, and it's not as gory as it may sound like
@@JJMcCullough The Mandela Catalogue is essentially a collection of recordings both from official and non-official sources from the 90s to today of a phenomena that has been terrorizing the citizens of the county of Mandela by unknown beings known as "Alternates". It's genuinely terrifying at times.
Gemini Home Entertainment is an archive of those 80s/90s style educational tapes, but with a deeply Lovecraftian bent to it.
"The Backrooms" isn't one particular series but more of a general universe setting that coincides with another concept called "liminal spaces", which are generally these creepy in-between locations where something just feels off about it. There's a fantastic video called "The Backrooms (Found Footage)" that should give you a good idea of it.
@@JJMcCullough The backrooms specifically is a very interesting continuation of drawing fears from our current understanding of things. Specifically computers, videogames, and the existence of Simulation Theory. The latter of which argues that life is a computer simulation, and thus we can apply this "computer logic" to not only ourselves but also in situations we may find bizarre, paranormal, or unexplained.
The Backrooms specifically were first described as a 6 hundred million square miles of mono-yellow wallpaper walls, the stink of moist carpet, and the maddening hum of florescent lighting. Seemingly an unfurnished office space that goes on forever**, where finding oneself there would assuredly mean death from isolation and madness as you're essentially trapped within a never ending maze. -- The never ending maze having been modeled off a "Liminal Space", which are their own rabbit hole that you should look into if you haven't already.
But the major crux of the Backrooms is that in order to get there, one has to "NoClip" out of reality. NoClip in this instance being the same as when in videogames, characters or objects may clip/pass through walls unintentionally. -- Circling back around, the existence of The Backrooms implies that we are all in the Front Rooms, the stable and correct part of the simulation where the world exists as it should be, and so to enter The Backrooms is comparable to going to places the developers of this simulation never intended us to see.
People have now taken this idea and run with it, now describing The Backrooms as having multiple levels, countless perhaps, with each one having varying degrees of intrigue and survivability. Much like a game. One that Includes search and discovery, helpful and hurtful items, as well as avoiding scary monsters. -Things that perhaps might not make sense to past generations, but is instantly understandable to those who have grown up playing videogames for our whole lives and wouldn't have to think twice about the jargon. Which makes total sense when you learn that the original meme/image that kicked off the idea was first posted to 4chan.
Personally, growing up in a middle-class suburb, I was always deeply unsettled by the sort of "suburban horror" featured in shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The idea that there could be something dangerous, sinister, or otherworldly lurking in the endless rows of quaint, "normal" middle-class homes always caused me a lot of anxiety in my childhood, but was also the subject of my morbid curiosity--I would have thoughts like, "I've never seen anyone enter or leave that toolshed; what if there's a monster chained up inside?" For that reason, I always really enjoyed Halloween; trick-or-treating was a fun way to confront those anxieties head-on.
I recommend David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" (1986). Perhaps you've seen it. That's what comes to mind when you mention "dangerous, sinister, or other worldly lurking" in the suburbs. If you haven't seen it, it is very violent, sexually sadistic, and bizarre. And it still is after 35 years.
@@maxshea1829 Thanks for the recommendation! I've heard good things about that film, guess I'll check it out!
tfw the thin mask over your normal world slips off.
I was one of the people who worked on Mario Party DS Anti Piracy. Wonderful to see people still talking about it and taking more of a deep dive 'philosophical' approach to the series' meaning rather than just surface level stuff. Great work and thanks for featuring Joey's videos :) Absolutely wild to see
Worked on in what sense
@@JJMcCullough made up some lore and story for the series! if there's proof needed my name is in the end of the finale credits
it was fun, I started producing an epilogue for it a little over a year ago
I've grown up lower middle class to poor in fluctuations. I've never been bought a video game, I've always pirated games when I was younger and still do to this day, I've never seen this stuff as scary but a lot of my friends seem too. I think it's just a difference in perspective.
Exactly! Makes me wonder if there are horror that is specific to lower class America. You know, other than food scarcity and other obvious things.
This video was soooo good. New favorite creator! Amazing!
life noggin?
favourite*
@@justawful8404 favorite is the american english way of spelling it
Life noggin? Wut
It’s interesting that intertwined with this fear of authority is a kind of desire to defy it and rebel. That’s the whole gimmick of the Stanley parable and the spiritual predecessor of this dynamic between the player and detached authority voice: Portal. It’s the idea that if you tell someone not to do something, they are way more likely to do it. The Streisand effect and internet culture as a whole is a good example of this.
I'd specify that the desire is more to be contrarian that to openly rebel; to irreverently defy but within the boundaries of authority. To also use Stanley Parable as an example: the player doesn't actually want to break the game, but to go against the narrator within the established confines of the game.
You're onto something with that Streisand effect, but I can't be sure anyone else knows who she is anymore.
14:21 What actually makes Analog Horror work is the fact that more modern technology [especially in the 2010s and onward] has been designed to have the potentially scary aspects be sanded off.
For example, the Windows blue screen of death has, since the release of Windows 8 in 2012, featured a lighter, more peaceful shade of blue, less dramatic text, and a "):" emoticon.
I may be completely wrong, but a great example of Middle Class “Kafkaesque” horror is when we have to sign into an account in some website for something super important but the password is wrong for some reason, and we have to go through the long, frustrating, and somewhat confusing process of setting up a new password.
I wonder about voting machines malfunctioning being Middle Class Horror.
i hate when that happens
@@zerotwoisreali even had to change passwords.
As a casual horror fan, I can say that this type of horror is without a doubt my favorite type. I’ve never found myself being scared of stereotypical horror-movie monsters because they’re rarely grounded in reality to the point of being believable. As a kid, I was don’t remember being scared of Doctor Who despite all the aliens and sci-fi scenarios- however, I was scared of the air-raid siren that would play at the end of the credits to British wartime comedy ‘Dads Army’. I think that fear is partially what lead me to love analogue horror and other creepy stories that feel more grounded in reality. Local 58, fake emergency alerts, etc. all feel like an exaggeration of something you’d wake up to in the middle of the night after falling asleep infront of the TV, and I love that vibe.
I wonder if this sentiment led to the popularity of true crime, creepy pastas, and icebergs.
They used to play the Queen's coronation and god save the queen at the end of the broadcasting schedule everyday when I was a kid in Hong Kong.
I suppose they want to make sure we know who's the boss.
As being a fourteen year old who grew up with qubo in the us, i was staying up when qubo was gonna go down that night playing call of duty and i had qubo in the living room tv playing and when the network went silent, i got really scared. the next week-ish i went on RUclips to see what happened and saw that creepypasta video and i stupidly i believed it and got scared even more later that night 😅
also i dont think jj would see this but i love your videos about horror type stuff
Funny, I always found the infomercials and re-runs that stations would play at like 3am to be creepy as a kid. The thought that I could be the only person in the world watching this soulless video feed filled me feelings of isolation, and unease because I'm watching something that feels like it wasn't meant to be seen.
My friend was freaking out and sweating bullets because we were in line behind a man in uniform at a gas station. We didn’t have drugs on us and we were stone cold sober. When we walk out he lets out a sigh and tells me how nervous he gets around cops.
It was an EMT 😂
I remember a long while ago, hearing a theory that the location of certain horror genres reflected the societal guilt of the society that created it; that in some way it was a cultural manifestation of the subconscious anxieties of the people whose comfortable life came at the existence of others, but rather than examine it and try to relieve their guilt by doing right by the wronged party, they instead feared the inevitable retribution that they saw around every dark corner. The Victorian English feared Jack the Ripper because they had destroyed the humanity of the toiling classes in dark, urban factories. Americans fear horror in the wilderness, be it Sasquatch, alien abduction, or Jason Vorhees, because their suppressed cultural sin was the extermination of the peoples who once inhabited the wilderness. Likewise, the well-off suburbanites fear the urban poor generally, to a pathological degree, be it in the form of zombies, or the cackling street thugs of the 80s revenge flick- because on some level they fear that their comfortable existence is somehow unearned, or at the expense of people who had to suffer so they could have what they have. And that in some manner, they will come to claim what they believe has been taken from them, like a Haitian slave revolt. Regardless of whether one believes this to be actually true, it's a subconscious feeling that they experience, and it manifests as a near constant state of panic among otherwise placid members of the middle classes, often in their comical obsession with issues that really don't matter or which pose no real tangible threat to their material existence.
Hmmmmm. I guess there’s probably some truth in there. I definitely think fear of the fragility of middle-class life is a pretty omnipresent theme in a lot of psychological horror. But I also feel like a lot of that takes the form of some aspect of middle-class existence turning against the middle class heroes, as opposed to some manifestation of the lower classes invading their space or attacking them.
Oh, definitely. Look at the context in which "The Walking Dead" got popular!
There's also a borderline masochistic aspect to it also, as personified in the fascination with dead malls. And the Victorian Italianate houses that fell into decay after one of America's many boom & bust cycles. These were the McMansions of their day, but transformed into the setting for American horror.
I will also put this out there: I used to live in Transylvania, and no one kept wooden stakes in their homes for fear of vampires. But in America, many of my fellow countrymen stockpile an absurd amount of guns and ammo for "the zombie apocalypse." I don't know which is worse: the prospect that they are in any way serious about that, which is ludicrous obviously, or whether it's a coded way of referencing the above mentioned phenomenon.
I can't help but think back to that wealthy couple in St. Louis some years ago, when the protesters used their street to transit to the next location of protest, they came out of their house brandishing an AR-15. And these people were known to be devout liberals until that moment.
What I can see as a through line for all of this, in the middle class horror genre, is a tacit understanding that our civilization is very complex, and while that complexity makes it a marvel of human achievement, it also makes it into a very thin, very fragile veneer, which could shatter at any moment.
@@DanCapostagno Interesting. Wooden stakes. LOL! Dead malls. I was teenager in the early eighties. That was the apex of mall culture. Dead malls haunt me because they remind me of my youth. My youth is gone. I see my own mortality.
@@maxshea1829 Likewise. Grim to be sure. But on the upside, sometimes when I'm at the supermarket, the oldies radio they pipe into the background will play Haddaway's "What Is Love" or Technotronic's "Pump The Jam." So sometimes our decay can manifest in forms that are both surreal and magical.
On a similar note, one more Romanian anecdote: I enjoy the music of Ace of Base, because it gives me feelings of intense nostalgia for my youth and reminds me of those more carefree times, but my Romanian friends are giant fans for an entirely different reason. During the early 90s, when the Sign was atop the charts, they were fighting a brutal street battle to oust their dictator, Ceausescu. After the tanks fell silent, and the people were free from totalitarianism, they turned their radios and publicly broadcast Western radio for the first time, and what they all heard was "I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes..." So to this day, they get the feels when they hear it, because it has a literal mental association with freedom to them.
this strikes even harder considering what has happened in the last few years, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns took away many things we took for granted, like going to a movie, going out with friends or simply riding a bike and that level of change takes a toll on people.
Even in my country, where we had massive protests just before the pandemic began and had to experience things like soldiers on the streets, riots or curfews, many in the middle class felt like their everyday lives were falling apart.
State media playing Swan Lake as the Soviet Union fell was my favorite example of this kind of thing from the other side of the world
I remember reading that Soviet media played Swan Lake whenever political tension was happening - it got to the point that seeing Swan Lake on Soviet TV was an indicator that something was happening at the Kremlin
Now I know why TV Rain, a Russian network forcibly shut down for "misinformation" earlier in 2022, played that as its final broadcast. ruclips.net/video/LL8mPJLfNC8/видео.html
I got an ad for this video featuring a guy getting caught on camera. How fitting. Speaking of which, I always found those "Smile you're on camera" slogans condescending and creepy rather than funny or amusing. Really liking the direction this channel is taking by the way.
One of my early and perhaps founding memories is that of being called to the office in primary school without any idea why, just a classmate saying "The principal wants you". When I got there the principal gave me a story of something that happened the Friday before, saying I did something wrong. Note: I was the kid that was always in his own little world, never really catching onto things, and most importantly not really good at remembering things (still not), so there I was with the principal, the principal's secretary to the side, being accused of something by an authority figure, in a story I had trouble following about something that happened at least three days prior. I was scared, confused, and uncertain of myself, trying to remember something that happened that day. I'm certain I denied wrongdoing throughout, which is when the moment that is to this day seared into my memory came: the principal, turning to the secretary, asks, "What do you think? Is he lying?". The secretary swivelled around to face us and replies something to the effect of, "Yes, he's lying".
That day I got a number of lashes for something I pretty likely didn't do and to this day have no idea about. It wouldn't be the last time I'd be unsure of myself due to not remembering stuff, but I have developed methods to compensate. Nevertheless, I'm still scared to death of anything like that ever happening again.
Wow, really loved this one! Reminded me of the time my local Nebraska radio station went off the air in the late 90s. They played It's the End of the World as We Know it on a loop for an entire day. No DJs, no commercials. While saddened we were losing our favorite alt/indie station there was an air of excitement and wonder about the whole thing, based on the novelty alone. Can't help but think the actual end might have a hint of that, too.
How about the fear of customs when crossing borders. I find myself holding my breath when going into the USA even though I am not doing anything wrong.
It’s a good example. Border crossings and airports tend to give a lot of middle-class people anxiety because it is often the only times that they are forced to deal with state authority figures.
Wearing guns & frowns.
I've always been afraid of thief detectors at the store exit even though I've never stolen.
@@ShadowFireXX Whenever I hear an accidental sounding of the shoplifting alarm at a supermarket or big box store, I always immediately think "was it me?"
That “nearer my god to thee” clip put a knot in my stomach because knowing how the world is doing at this point in time, I feel its almost inevitable that that clip will need to be played sometime in the future. That’s why I feel it’s important that we move as 1 unit, 1 world, 1 race. So that things like that don’t need to be planned for.
I could see it playing before the world ends. Like in case of CNN being forcibly shut down by a military junta for being "fake news"
The movie "Threads" about a post-nuclear world is an excellent example of this. It's one of the most harrowing films to watch from start to finish because of how easily it could unfold if the wrong people are in at the wrong time.
I was in the Army for a number of years. The overwhelming authority ever-present 24/7, caused me to realize how I had actually always been fearful of authority. However it also helped me to overcome it. I now have a shooting feeling of guilt when I catch myself being fearful in such a way. I often tend to attempt to push the boundary of "rules" in my everyday life.
Besides what J.J said about "Stanley Parable", the game is about game design.
All games are designed by a game designer - the authority - who designs mechanics - rules/laws - with the intend of a certain respons - expectation - from the player. When the player is given choices, it is not only discussing / reflecting upon video games' interactive nature, but also mimicing what the middle class' fear of authority is about:
Are you supposted to follow what the narrator - essentially the game designer(?) - says, are you maybe supposed to do the opposite, or does it really matter what he says?
I saw something that states how the game is also heavily centered around the intent of the artist vs the interpretation of the player. This is basically since the narrator wants to tell a story about Stanley rebelling by getting the good ending but creates narrative dissonance in making it so the player doesn’t feel like they themselves are since they have to listen to the narrator completely to do so.
I do have to say it is crazy how much narrative depth is within such a seemingly simple game
@@plugshirt1762, true!
One thing I appreciated about 'Portal' (video game) was the sudden twist in the game where you needed to disobey the guide for your own survival.
The instructional section was the warmup, after the twist in the game, you needed to be skeptical of all the instructions.
So there's this interesting kind of middle class horror, I find, surrounding abandoned spaces, mainly schools or malls, the kinds of places that people typically associated with childhood memories. I think malls are a particular fascination because for people who grew up in the 90s and early 00s they were this big thing that is now dying out, and it serves as this reminder that we're not kids anymore and that the things that were cool and significant to us are decaying now and kids today have totally different interests and are moving away from what you thought was cool. It's interesting how it's tied to a lot of consumer things, like all of these pop culture things that you grew up with are about as cool as your parents.
It's interesting that abandoned malls, liminal spaces, anti piracy warnings, computer errors, TV sign offs and test patterns all seem to make people uncomfortable
What is it about these things that have that effect?
And why, as JJ suggests, do these things scare the middle class but not the working class?
I think the classic example of the “spooky kids show” or “lost episode of a show with a bunch of disturbing subliminal messaging” plays nicely at the intersection of your two videos on the subject.
It’s both disturbing because it plays at our fear of disorder and bastardizes something familiar, but also because they imply that the broadcast stations or the artists who have been so “good” to you and have provided you with entertainment are in fact secretly malevolent and want to corrupt you in some way beyond your control (and of course, makes you question if that has been happening the whole time you’ve watched that programming without your knowledge or consent)
That’s so true, this idea that the “secret forbidden banned episode” or whatever somehow represents the TRUE agenda of the producers.
Check out the Garfield comic strip where it’s just him alone in an abandoned house and he can’t get out.
I never thought about authority being associated with the emergency broadcast system. When I was watching TailSpin and the EBS came on, I asked who changed the channel. Then my dad explained what it was. It made me wanna learn about hurricanes and tornados.
Oh, another middle class fear (albeit really quite tame) I have is being caught by police of driving above the speed limit in a speed trap zone when everyone else are driving 10 kmph above the limit already. I hate paying stupid fines lol
Those test patterns were absolutely creepy and I really hadn't thought of why before. Even here in Australia before the TV stations turned on and off for the day, there was always this strange patriotic song with visuals as well. I think the UK had the creepiest test pattern of all though - it was this little girl with a puppet, with the test colours in the background. There was something just so "innocently sinister" behind it and it gets referenced in quite a few TV shows from there. Man this video is such a strange, unnerving walk through my youth.
if you find a video of it can you link it?
@@Anonymous-bi5pv Here's the British test card that is being referred to
ruclips.net/video/48nvjatSFdY/видео.html
@@Anonymous-bi5pv upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Testcard_F.jpg
Not sure if it's necessarily "middle class horror" per se but The Backrooms are such a fascinating piece of internet horror to me. The idea of taking areas that are familiar to us and making them unnerving simply by removing the people in them is so effective for some reason. It's also the idea of "superstructures", of which I think The Backrooms is one. These inconceivably massive man-made buildings invoke some sense of fear about the overtaking of mankind over nature.
I like the backrooms stuff. It reminds me of the feeling I had when I had to stay late at school sometimes. Sure there would still be some teachers and janitor around but some areas were completed deserted and it's and erie feeling for sure.
@@Zekana0 same. I've been to events in the building where I went to middle school after dark, with the hallway lights off and the gym eerily empty and quiet. Like I remember these places but I remember them in certain contexts with certain emotions, and removing those contexts and emotions feels so wrong.
My favorite description of the backrooms is one I wrote that embodies the suffering I envision to be the most horrifying it could embody. I'll try to conjure it up right now.
You wake up in a hallway. The walls and carpet are yellow. The air is a pleasant, neutral temperature. The carpet is slightly damp, but not mildewy. It's well-lit with the lights a cold white. There isn't another person in sight or earshot. As you wander, you find more halls, but no doors nor windows. You do not tire, you do not feel hunger or thirst. You do not feel hot or cold. In short, your body is maintained in perfect homeostasis and your mind in perfect wakefulness.
This is your forever. Bland, empty, lonely. When and how do you break?
"Sleeping with the Television On" by Billy Joel employs the sound of the national anthem leading into test patterns, something I never really got until this video. Thanks JJ!
i was thinking of that song too!
Was thinking of that as well--great song!!
I remember as a child, I would consume a lot of apocalypse media, and the only thing that kept me grounded and assured that humanity still existed was turning on the TV and watching my favorite shows.
Needless to say, when one night the TV cable got cut due to an accident, I went into a panic attack.
14:51 It's weird hearing outdoor sirens being referred to as 'old fashioned' when they're still frequently used in areas of the US that get a lot of tornadoes.
One of the things that I use to fear as kid that I think would fall under this thing is Out of Bounds areas in shooter games, just the idea of these abandoned areas with no players that you get killed for being in by the game itself rather than a player.
It's the silence in a lot of the emergency broadcasts once the siren or alarm has sounded which scares me the most. The concept of being alone in silence and the last thing you heard was that. It's like with the old Protect and Survive films from the 70s, the graphic would show at the beginning at the end, an ominous drone would play, and then it would just be silent.
JJ should watch Bob And Margret. It's about a middle-class English couple. It's very middle class in its themes. They also did a whole season where they move to Canada. I think JJ would also appreciate the very abrasive Canadian cousins to the Fishes. Very patriotic and ignorant of the outside world.
Wow! Didn't think this was going to get so creepy. Something that horrifies me is getting tangled with the law in another country. U.S laws are a mess for U.S citizen, to get caught doing something that puts you in the legal system of another country is nightmare fuel!
God those test screens before a network would start used to creepy me out! I don’t know if other places has this same one or just the UK but…. It was the same colour patterns and loud beeping but in the middle would be this girl drawing on a chalkboard and some puppet beside her. Looking back now it’s just kind of silly but as a kid it used to freak me out flipping through channels and then just this sudden loud noise with some girl and creepy clown staring at you.
I don't know if many British people are involved in the whole creepypasta community, but I'm honestly amazed British PSA's aren't as prevalent an inspiration in the field. I suppose we have that eerie "hauntological" music and philosophical fiction instead (like Andy Sharp or Richard Littler)
Adam Curtis' docu-series "I can't get you out of my Head" breaks down the looming paranoia and fear of authority that is prevelant in middle to lower middle class communities in America and across the world.
Its great if you can stomach 9 hours of content
Hi J.J. I truly enjoyed this video. I'm 67 years old and when I was a kid, test patterns looked more like a bull's eye. "The Midnight Sector" reminded me of when I learned that Orson Welles had broadcast "The War of the Worlds" as a radio play on 30 October 1938. The presentation was done as a series of radio news bulletins and sounded very real. Some people who tuned in late were not privy to the fact that what they were hearing was a work of fiction. Some thought the Earth was actually being invaded by Martians and it's been said that several committed suicide. As a product of the boomer generation, I think a good source for examples of middle class horror "back in the day" would be the original Twilight Zone episodes produced by, and some written by, Rod Serling. It would be interesting to see a compare/contrast analysis of these horrors through the generations. Technology and mindsets have changed quite a bit (not all for the better) since I was a kid. With so many new developments and transitions in the last 70 years, have the horrors remained the same and has the middle class response altered at all? What new horrors will the current and future generations have to face? J.J., thank you for the time and research you put into your videos.
For me, this was the early days of COVID. Like March 2020. When we didn't know anything, but lockdowns were happening worldwide and we didn't know if this was a species killer. I immediately started to understand how fucked I would be if the power cut out, the water stopped flowing, all supply chains breaking down in a matter of weeks or days. I remember suggesting that all members of my family check in with each other daily on the phone, wondering how long the phone system would continue to function. For a few weeks, the end of the world was more nigh than we ever thought it would be in our lifetime. Our current reality is just a cosmic roll of the dice.
I remember that. At work my bosses were nonchalant and clueless and I actually had to straighten them out.
They didn't want to send somebody home who was constantly coughing. After speaking to the manager I convinced him that he indeed had the authority to send people home and eventually he did. I knew that in light of such authority, compliance was key because the problem wasn't going to be solved for us.
@@professordogwood8985 "In light of such authority, compliance was key, because the problem wasn't going to be solved for us."
Do you realize how terrifying that sentence is? This is the attitude that upholds tyranny.
@@RianeBane Yes, tyranny that saves lives. I embraced my inner tyrant during the pandemic.
I find this stuff fascinating - the sign-offs and sign-ons of TV stations
I think as a middle-class person, the relaxing and familiar video played every day of a very familiar song then contrasts with the fact that your precious TV is gone. Not only that, the TV is pretty much telling you that you are up too late/early. How dare you?
I live in the UK, and the death of the Duke of Edinburgh last year led to every TV channel on the BBC cutting in to a breaking news announcement and the national anthem, apart from the children's channels (CBBC and CBeebies), which showed a huge bar in the middle of the screen telling children to turn to the BBC News Channel "NOW" for a "developing news story". Other channels did the same, and the only channel not to do so, Channel 4, got barrages of criticism that it was being too "woke". How dare those lefties ignore his royal highness?
In the Philippines, every channel has to re-apply for its license every few years, and a channel called "ABS-CBN" was too critical of the government and they then refused to grant them a license. When they turned off for the last time, the last programme was the news and they played a big montage of the brilliance of ABS CBN. Then they played a video with the national anthem, and finally they played a long message, including everywhere they broadcast, which seemed to be listing every town in the country. Finally, they switched off for good.
Great video, it is the first time I have seen someone attempt to take on the culture in the 21st century, at least to a mainstream audience. Patrick
I think something that pairs with this obsession with archival of analog media is the interest in how analog tv stations around the US shut off during the great digital switch over of 2009 in the US. Some stations played really great send-offs with old test screens and bumpers, a message from an anchor about the transition, footage of a tv engineer shutting off the analog signal or even just a national anthem to go along with it. I highly recommend checking those out for some warm middle class nostalgia.
I feel like the fear of authority conspiring against us is such a specifically middle-class fear is because the upper class are the authorities or have the financial or societal power to escape them somewhat, and the lower class are more frequently confronted with authority actually oppressing them in broad daylight. The middle-class is aware that they can't escape authority, but aren't openly confronted with it as often, so the idea that their influence is simply hidden seems like a plausible notion.
Not only is the authority inescapable but also necessary to climb the societal ladder.
I feel that this fear might also manifest in the lower strata of society.
"Middle class" means having things to lose.
You can be lower class and have things to lose. Maybe not as monetarily valuable, but stuff that is valuable to you. Especially in terms of survival or general comfort.
@@seleluxoutlower,middle,we all have things to lose,which explains why we're susceptable to horror(really just fucking terror)
17:56 is crazy. “due to the negligence and selflessness” - don’t they mean selfishness? hastily written LOL
This stuff has absolutely been a theme in UK media for decades, most notably in the Mitchell & Webb "Remain Indoors" sketches, and in the presence of the Test Card Girl on the TV show Life is Mars.
Whenever I need a horror show I personally just read about the UK's continuity of government plans or the film Threads. Both as so utterly depressing that it can shock you into a certian understanding of the here and now. That someone had to soberty think up this solution to the most incomprehensible problem it's scary
I'd have to argue on the principles of Analogue Horror you listed JJ. I've been in the ARG/Unfiction realm of media for over a decade at this point, and seeing the rise of Analogue Horror as a genre stems from even the older lost footage/lost games style of horror (with other influences, of course.) But I think a very key this is the perceived permanence of analogue film media. To a lot of modern audiences, a VHS or CRT screen able recording isn't alterable like most modern digital mediums. Obviously anything can be doctored, but the presence of a physical tape or other medium presents inherently high levels of difficulty in editing them. And why would someone spend the time to do so on some old news broadcast? It helps with the suspension of disbelief quite a bit. Additionally Local58 and Gemini Home Entertainment (both stand out stars of the genre) have followable story beats and a plot to them, when you look beneath the surface. Which adds to their level of mystique and inherent uncanniness.
I would also add that it's about the "found footage" nature of the material. It's the same principle that a book is scarier if it's old and decaying rather than looking new and fresh off the printing press. Anything that gives it a sense of history adds to the mystique.
I wonder how you might think of a "lower class" or "working class" horror? I suppose that if materialism is central to middle class horror, that might be less true for a lower class, which could substitute it for something supernatural or generally violent.
I recall hearing a while ago that zombies are a version of "upper class" horror because it concerns the "bloodthirsty masses" coming to literally eat you, despite the best efforts of all the world's institutions.
I will leave it to somebody who is more familiar with upper or lower class life to do that. But I think that zombie take is a fair one! I think it’s harder to explain zombie horror through a middle class lens. I guess that’s why stuff like The Walking Dead tends to focus more on the collapse of civilization angle.
Lower class horror is 99% of Hollywood horror. Explosion go boom monster go bite thing go bump in night.
For those middle Americans who are major 2nd amendment advocates. I hear a lot of people say that a gun is insurance for “if the government falls” or some other downfall of society into chaos. So I think that fact seriously applies here to the idea of “middle class horror” and a concern of being abandoned
The thing is, many of us 2A advocates are not middle class, not materialistic and have no such fears. We do for ourselves because we have to. We know the law, what laws are enforced and what laws are ignored. We know how to deal with threats from those who would abuse us and often that abuse comes from various government agencies. They make guns illegal, we'll make them ourselves. Many of us already do for fun already anyway. We'd turn the bans into money makers as there is a market to fill, starving mouths at home to feed, machine tools and we have skills. Middle class is so very unaware of what lays outside of their protected bubbles. We are the ones that facilitate that comfort you enjoy. We make the stuff you love and keep your houses working.
I work at a movie theater. There are times when i'm working concession and notice that the customer i'm serving brought in a drink from outside, which our theater doesn't really care about. Regardless, one of my favorite things to do is ask "did you bring that from outside?", wait for them to say yes, then turn to the side and say "security!" I always immediately tell them i'm kidding, but the looks on their faces before the reveal are priceless, and it always gets a big laugh out of them when they realize i'm joking. (This bit also works best on customers who come in high)
It's so quaint the things that concern the petit bourgeois. Imagine not knowing if you'll be able to eat that week. That's true anxiety. The middle class may fear government authorities conspiring against them, but we know they do.
A memorable experience that I had was during Boy Scout camp as a kid. There were sirens, similar to the siren head noise, that could be heard loudly, but muffled by thunder and the heavy downpour. We had radios on and we’re were all huddled in the only solid building around us, an outhouse. We were in the middle of the woods, the furthest troop away from the center of camp. We heard a tree fall loudly next to us, it almost landed on two scouts and crushed their tent. We let them borrow one of ours and every one was thankfully ok, but it was one of the creepiest nights of my life.
One time when I was like 19 my friend called me in the middle of the night asking me to come get him from jail. I broke out in a cold sweat and my anxiety was through the roof. To this day it still freaks me out.
I think the creepiest versions of these broadcasts are the ones that are real and are detailing actual apocalyptic seeming moments in recent history. There was a really ominous Japanese one but I don’t remember the event it was for
I think other thing so compelling about analog horror is the concept that today's technology is so intertwined, if I turn on my video game I feel like I'm not alone as other people may also be using their console, social media made technology a lot more social (who could guess?). However when I play a SNES, for example, I feel alone, my friends don't know what I'm doing neither I know what they're doing, I'm all by myself.
I think that this sense of loneliness is also a compelling matter of analog horror
Thanks!
I think fear of authority works best not when you lack authority but when authority is too overbearing, you mentioned local 58 and my favorite from them is contingency, it kinda ties in as well with the end of day national anthem things but when patriotism is overblown it can get creepy and cultist real fast
You might have mentioned the Michael Douglas film about the collapse of normalcy, Falling Down.
Michael Prescott wrote a haunting time-travel novel The Street, back to 1970s suburban New Jersey to discover who committed a horrific murder in that normal environment.
I remember watching Cartoon Network when I was younger and getting interrupted by a warning broadcast about a kidnapped child. It understandably creeped me out.
Amazing video J.J, I am always amazed by your range of topics. Please keep up the good work!
being in the lowwer class myself I never found these things scary we always knew how to deal with police
Exactly
Being in the upper class, these things were never scary either as I knew the police were there to protect my property.
@@soulfuzz368 see
its my own cool middle class fear
😎
I appreciated the extra bit of context you provided about the "you wouldn't download a car" video where you explained how it was played before movies in theatres and disc
When I was a kid, I was SO terrified of my parents old fashioned weather radio, it sounded so creepy. That’s what analog horror reminds me of now.
It seems similar to the creepiness of tv idents you get between different programmes particularly on the BBC channels. The mix of pre-recorded video often having been used for many years all while an unseen and unknown voice narrates what is about to happen. As a viewer the authority is all out of your hands and instead with this disembodied narrator. The end of tv channel's creepiness also seems similar to when a tv channel temporarily breaks down. Often to go to screen is a moving blob of colours while unrecognisable featureless music plays in the background. In those moments for a short while it feels as if no one has control not even the trusted disembodied voice. At least for me this has always seemed intensely creepy. Great video as always!
ah yes, my favorite show. JJ's "non-left" critique of the class structures and unique neurosis of the system he believes is the best of all worlds, that is somehow more on point, clear, and well reasoned than anything "left". The mind boggles every time. Keep it up. Your insight is always very keen even if I do not understand the conclusions you reach from it, politically.
I think the idea is that their are going to be certain neurosis associated with any group in any society and so examining the neurosis of the modern west doesn’t necessarily entail it being less desirable than alternatives
It really never occurred to me that the specific type of “internet horror” that I was exposed to in my adolescent years (2007-2014 roughly) was so specific to middle class America. This is one of my favorite vids that you’ve done!
Omg whyyyyy did I watch this video JJ 😅 super interesting but super unsettling. I have anxiety disorder which makes any sort of horror or suspense tv/movies very uncomfortable to watch. But I just couldn't resist this 😅 I THOUGHT I WAS READY AND I WAS NOT 🤣😅 gotta watch some GBBO now to cleanse my mind palate lol. Love your channel!
I remember when the "Emergency warnings" were framed as a warning of an attack, and that "if this was a real emergency" we would be instructed to tune our AM radios to 640 or 1240 for further instructions. The radios of the day all had little marks on the tuner corresponding to 640 and 1240 so you could find it quickly.
@@rogerdarthwell5393 Yes!
Great vid JJ. I find that analyzing the fears, aspirations, and culture of a society does much to describe our underlying psychology and perhaps our political conflicts.
Stanley Parable is also about gamers (players of video games for the uneducated) being limited to the developers (makers of video games) designed paths much like office workers are limited to doing what their boss says
Yeah, it's interesting how a fear of authority manifests in different ways for the people, especially the middle class. For me, it's the fear of being stuck in a job with a pain in the ass boss where I MUST remain because of A. Lack of money, B. Lack of other job prospects, or C. The time it takes to get another job. While I don't consider myself conservative, I also really don't like people telling me what to do and me having no say in something, particularly if I rely on that something for surviving.
"while I don't consider myself conservative, I'm kind of afraid of capitalism"... yeah, don't worry, I don't think that comes off as conservative, these days at the least, lmao :)
@@ByzantineDarkwraith Well, that's not where I was going with that thought. Typically conservatives don't like regulation by the government (I.e., not liking the government telling them what to do whether it be about taxes, regulations, gun laws, etc.), that's why you often hear they are fans of 'small government'. That's all I was saying bruv.
A person with a red “Fire Warden” helmet during an emergency could order people around no questions asked
I love your videos about middle class culture because, possibly due to growing up in the lower middle class, I've never really associated any culture with it. It and "American culture" were synonymous to me and wealthy or poor cultures were different from that.
As someone born and raised in Africa, I find this really weird. Having seen the actual breakdown of authority and not having the material wealth to have the latest and greatest, this horror is not something I can relate to and it seems to be something unique to North America. I have a nostalgic love for old technology, completely different perspective on authority and find it hard to relate to this topic. JJ, I’d like to see you do a video on how the rest of the world sees these things. I see other comments from outside NA saying they do relate, so maybe it’s an age / generational thing.
It’s difficult for me to share a perspective other than my own
@@JJMcCullough totally get that, but you’ve done some great videos before where you shared insights from your viewers… like, Jake in Namibia says “we eat pineapple on our pizza’s too”… that kind of thing can be very insightful and I think this topic can benefit from some of that. It might be a niche audience though. ;-)
Oh my god JJ your analysis in this case was spot on, I cannot agree with all of your views but your lense became an incredible filter for this particular topic. Thanks
I feel like another more modern example is when a website goes down. Everyone shares the same experience but doesn't know what to do and just sits there. Also I remember when club penguin shut down for the last time!
Finally someone is able to put to words my very specific phobia I've had since I was young!! I have always been scared of tech unintentionally or unexpectedly glitching, starting way back in the day when I was
Analog horror might also explain why certain kinds of folk music is oftentimes portrayed in a scary way.
That’s a good insight! Banjos, fiddles…. Even classical music really
@@JJMcCullough Seems almost like anti- nostalgia. Instead of provoking the wonder of childhood it provokes the helplessness and fear of authority of childhood.
Old time folk music (Circa 1800s) is actually kind of dark.
It’s the music of working class Americans who lived through some pretty rough times (E.g Slavery, the Civil War, Westward Expansion, etc).