It’s so disappointing how skinwalkers have gone from practitioners of bad medicine or evil magic that can shapeshift via wearing skin to just being some scary SpongeBob meme mimic. And the wendigos have gone from cannibalistic ice men to just some shrieking antler thing. For me, there are pretty much no accurate depiction of skinwalkers in media but there rare ones for wendigos (see Until Dawn and Hellboy)
From my recollection of the earliest stories (the ones that aren't basically demonizing "savage" native americans), the Wendigo is some kind of malevolent spirit, that drives men insane and they become the cannibalistic ice men. Much more terrifying than "a boogeyman" that physically attacks you... an unseen "feeling" of fear and hatred, accompanied by the torture that cold can bring with the paradoxical response to frostbite (you feel as if on fire) to drive you insane. Hard to run away from or fight back against that.
Until Dawn has the most accurate version of a wendigo. Mainly because they had Cree story tellers describe and tell the stories of the wendigo, Which is basically a cautionary tale of cannibalism during winter.
@@MechaOkami From what I remember that’s actually a much older mushing. Sirens were bird people in Ancient Greek art, but gradually transitioned to being half fish through the medieval period. Exactly why is unclear since it was so long ago. As for why the wendigo changed, there was a movie “about the wendigo” where the director later said that he’d only ever heard to word and used it to describe his otherwise completely original monster, literally not bothering to do any research until after the film was finished. Pretty cut and dry case of a white guy playing on racist Native American tropes.
The other thing I've noticed about most skinwalker stories is that most of them completely remove the human element to them. Online accounts in particular almost never mention the fact that they're supposed to be regular people who can shapeshift. Rather, they try to imply that they're a completely separate species from humanity, which I guess is an attempt to play up the uncanniness? But at that point why not just use a different cryptid...?
If think they’re trying to make a more realistic version of the skinwalker? Like they make up a more scientific and grounded version which is some rare undocumented animal instead of a witch
@@caucasoidape8838 Exactly. Sure, a creature that can become anything is scary; but a creature that KNOWS how to act like anything, and that can strategize if detected is a lot scarier than just a human screaming "HeEeEeElP"
Same deal with the wendigo. Personally I'm not even comfortable calling them cryptids, it seems like a disrespectful entertainment term in the cases like this.
to be clear: the creature in gemini home entertainment was never officially called a skinwalker. they're called woodcrawlers. people just steal the segment and try to call it a "skinwalker" because tiktok can't help 2 things: lieing and being unoriginal.
@@CodeeXD I think in the camp video when it talks about folklore they namedrop the legend of skinwalkers, implying that that's what the natives called the woodcrawlers
yes, finally. skinwalkers are a navajo thing and dont target non-natives. also skinwalker ranch. makes it very hard to search for actual navajo skinwalker stories without that dumb ranch coming up.
Something of note is that in 2013, when skinwalkers got big on 4chan, the stories blended together woth that of wendigos and goatmen, to the point that the three became nearly interchangable. Wendigo stories would usually have humanoids with antlers and goatman stories would have something with the head of a goat or goat legs, but the behavior would be about the same for all three. One thing of major importancein this is the role played by Algernon Blackwood's story The Wendigo, which hits most of the same beats as the skinwalker/wendigo 4chan greentexts and SomethingAwful stories. The Wendigo is also the first mention of wendigos having antlers/any relation to deer, as in the original algonquin myths wendigos act more like zombies or vampires.
From my remembrance Blackwood actually doesn’t say anything about it’s appearance, he only says that they are very large and have burning feet from the speed they travel. Though I could be wrong.
original wendigo stories talk about how it’s simply an evil spirit that takes on a physical form. i don’t know where the deer monster thing came from… or even where the cannibal thing came from, ngl.
@@honeycrispsnail4032 The spirit thing came from Algernon Blackwood’s The Wendigo and the deer monster thing came from Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. What do you mean the cannibalism thing came later?
@@troin3925 original wendigo stories don’t really mention cannibalism. it’s straight up just stories about how it’s an evil spirit. i live on a tribe far up in Minnesota, the wendigo is a common tale to tell children. i hadn’t heard of the “wendigo is a cannibal who turned into a monster” story until like.. 2 years ago. at least for my tribe, the wendigo is a bad spirit that takes the form of a physical creature. it has nothing to do with a human turning into one.
I'm glad this video exists bc damn it's so annoying how these originally very scary and culturally significant myths were turned into watered down internet memes
In GHE's defense, at least their "skinwalkers" are aliens and not actually meant to be skinwalkers. Story wise, the reason the Wood-crawlers were called that is simply because their ability to mimic humans *reminded people in-universe of the legend. Technically speaking, the idea of humans seeing something that's beyond our comprehension and comparing it to cultural beliefs in an attempt to make sense of it sounds like a perfectly reasonable horror concept. I would have a much easier time tolerating inaccurate skinwalker portrayals if they took a direction like THAT instead of the typical making-an-edgy-monster-OC-and-presenting-it-as-the-real-deal approach. * Only downside to this is the implication that the legendary skinwalkers shapeshift into humans when they're actually supposed to shapeshift into animals, but many have already pointed that out.
oh man I hate the skinwalker trend. Im part native ute tribe, was raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles they would tell us stories, they'd say not to go in the caves on hill or go out at night. but now its chills saying theres a skinwalker caught on a busy main street. not the writing type but ive been wanting to put this out there some were for a while now.
There are a few podcasts I had to stop listening to because the stories would be like "skinwalker encounter in London, England." Is it impossible for a skinwalker to somehow make its way to London? Technically, probably no, not these days. But it wouldn't happen. Real stories or not with terrifying encounters, at least try to make them accurate or plausible to legends.
Remember that in Gemini despite fans’ idioticy, the Skinwalkers aren’t Skinwalkers, they’re Woodcrawlers, they’re alien creatures from another planet (I think the fake moon) that attempt to replicate human life to invade the Earth’s population and slaughter it. In the story people thought they were Skinwalkers at first because of the shapeshifting to humans ideas but the story quickly establishes they’re different. I don’t know why people think they’re the same
To be fair, Gemini's monsters are called *"Woodcrawlers"* and are only compared to Skinwalkers once at the beginning, and even then, it's just to point out their small similarity with the legend, as even in universe, they're pretty different from one another
And I think that was mainly because of fans. Fans just continually called them Skinwalkers, enough people thought that was their genuine name, so now the creator uses it because at this point the snowball's too big to stop.
I like that Gemini actually separated them, and I find Woodcrawlers actually really scary in the context of the story, jut the fans ruined them by trying to make them “Skinwalkers” when they’re completely different creatures
@@dr.altoclef9255 I have no clue what or who Gemeni is, but what you just said had always pissed me off. Enough people start calling something wrong and then everyone else mindlessly does it, too. People are so fuckin annoying.
Here in Mexico we have our own "shape shifters", called Nahuales, however legends about them are as old as I can tell, way before the skinwalker meme. Also, in Yucatan, there's several legends about shamans and witches shapeshifting. The most famous one is "el uay chivo" (it's like our version of the goatman) and there's been several news reports about witnesses of this cryptid messing around with people or stealing, mostly chicken.
@@caucasoidape8838 Except Mothman was supposed to be its own unique entity. Even the Owlman which is the most similar to the Mothman doesn’t entirely look like an owl (for one, it doesn’t have a beak, just a “gaping maw”).
As far as I know, the goatman is not a native american story. It's an urban legend from Maryland, centering around a scientist working on a cancer cure who accidently spliced himself with goat dna. Mostly known since the 50s for legends of him killing peoples dogs.
There's multiple goatman stories in the US, there's the popelick monster, and a goatman in Texas too. There's prolly more then that too but at more local levels.
Another version of the Maryland Goatman depicts him as a human/goat hybrid slasher villain. He would have a double bladed axe and stalk teenagers in the woods.
there’s a lot of different “origin stories” of the Goatman of Goatman’s Bridge the one most prominent/popular one in my experience is the ккк lynching a black goat herder who then took revenge on the lynchers
What slightly annoys me is when I see videos about sightings of paranormal creatures or other cryptids, there’s always someone who automatically assumes that it must be a Skinwalker or a Wendigo, disregarding the origin/location/context of the folklore. Hypothetically if Skinwalkers are real, they would probably only be seen on Navajo land. Yet I’ve seen countless videos of creature sightings that take place anywhere else but Navajo land and people still automatically assume it must be a Skinwalker/Wendigo/etc. Unfortunately with social media and the internet, there’s bound to be all sorts of misconceptions on native folklore.
@@checkoffgames Probably a lot. Rather you’re a believer or a skeptic, it’s still interesting. I lean on the skeptical side myself, yet I still find myself fascinated by all the stories.
To take this a step further, what if they hear a noise and automatically assume it to be a Skinwalker because that's either the only cryptid they know or are the most interested in. But then, what if its not even a Skinwalker, but instead a Wendigo or Bigfoot? And this is assuming they exist and the Skinwalker existing or not doesn't really matter because its not what they heard (for the sake of this argument at least). In this case its even sillier that these videos just automatically assume its a Skinwalker or whatever else, because if 1 of these cryptids could be real, then any of them could potentially be and so if you are actually hearing a cryptid, its kind of dumb to assume it has to be that one in particular, as though you know the difference. In reality they hear a noise and just attach a cryptid of their choosing thoughtlessly for views. Also, bigfoot is the only one without any real supernatural elements to it, so its the most likely candidate for a cryptid that actually exists, so to assume it was actually something much more specific and unrealistic than any number of random cryptids or natural known animals making that noise is just silly to me.
@@GBDupree I think that’s the reason why a lot of people jump to those assumptions. I wholeheartedly agree. Another thing I would like to add. Assuming that these cryptids are real, how much do we really know about them and what they would sound like? Sure there’s folklore to go on, eyewitness accounts, and supposed audio evidence in documentaries/youtube videos but it still always comes down to speculation since there’s no concrete evidence. There’s still so much we don’t know about these creatures if they really are out there. I also find that aspect fascinating in itself.
@@benjalucian1515 exactly, the wendigo is simply an evil spirit. i have no idea where the deer monster thing came from… or even the winter cannibal thing, honestly.
A theory I heard is that people have been confusing the windy boys with the lore of other things (like the creature that’s not a deer) cuz visually the only depiction I’ve seen be accurate was from supernatural. Lore wise, can’t tell you cuz it’s still quite bastardized but visually it seems accurate as it’s like you said, they’re like ice men. From my understanding, they suffered from terrible greed, committed a great taboo, and then their hearts turned to ice, leaving them to forever hunger for more.
How the hell do people confuse Skinwalkers,the Wendigo and the Goatman.Skinwalkers are evil shapeshifting witches and shamans from Navajo legends.The Wendigo is a spirit from the legends of the Algonquin people,that possesses evil greedy cannibals and turns them into giant rotting ice ghouls .The Goatman is just a modern urban legend that has nothing to do with Native Americans.Btw,I always saw the Goatman as more of a Jersey devil type creature than anything else.He gives more satanic vibes since he literally looks like Satan.I’ve never confused these creatures because I learned about the from people who actually care about folklore and mythology and not from random horror fans from 4chan.
if anything 4chan was the more accurate place to find out about these things atleast compared to reddit and tiktok not a very high bar though I do understand
Seen it before. I think in large part the alterations came from ignorance. And that ignorance comes from the Navajo deciding to keep things secret. Isolating their culture to preserve it might be what they think is best. But, as time passes, that will make the people in the know smaller and smaller in numbers and lead to outsiders having only surface knowledge. Therefore they have no logical reason to complain. They contributed to the outside being ignorant.
@@medb1996 Good luck with that. How are you going to get it? Fighting the ones who live there now? Crying to daddy government to take the land of someone who doesn't even know why you're kicking him out if the place he lives in? The world isn't as it was when your ancestors got displaced. Unless you start buying land from the people living there, you're going to get as scattered as atomized as anyone else in that country. You won't have your ethno state. No one does. The people living in what was the land of your ancestors don't even know who lived there before. Old grudges won't get you anywhere.
@@SergioLeonardoCornejo It's something I've seen over and over again online "I want to see more accurate depictions of my people's folklore in the media." "That would be awesome, would you tell us about it?" "NO! IT'S NOT FOR OUTSIDERS TO KNOW! HOW DARE YOU EVEN ASK YOU EVIL RACIST!" it's like this catch-22 where the ignorance is disrespectful, but wanting to learn the real folklore so that you're no longer ignorant seems to be even more disrespectful
I have no relation to the skinwalker stories, but I've seen similar changes happen with things drawn from my cultural area. Both the vampire and krampus, like the skinwalker, were turned from their origins to something unrecognisable by people with no connection to the original stories. And it stings, seeing something of you grew up with be changed into an unrecognisable parody of itself.
The VAMPIRE? The fucking VAMPIRE has been 'bastardized'? Do you realize that pretty much since the dawn of time in basically EVERY culture and civilization there've been myths and legends about nightstalking creatures that feed on human blood? How exactly do you 'bastardize' a vague concept that's been reinterpreted since the dawn of history?
Yea I remember being younger and none of this stuff was really on the internet like that other than creepypasta. And even then it was something that there wasn’t a lot of
I think it's important to differentiate the Skinwalkers or Wendigos from their original cultures and from the internet, they are quite different and used of different purposes, but I think they are equally valid as scary Boogeyman
@@medb1996 they are fictitious scary monsters, literally have no value behind being used to scare people and tell moral tales, what does it matter that they are bastardized
I think the Skinwalker creepypasta is to blame for this. It was a Rake creepypasta that flat out states at the beginning that it's about The Rake and that the narrator's grandfather just named it after the Skinwalker since he's never used the internet before and wouldn't know about its actual name. It's like these people never actually read the story and just looked at thumbnails of readings of this creepypasta and just went "so that's what a Skinwalker looks like."
@@somethingcraft3148 I don’t know if RUclips would allow it but I’m gonna type this first. I just noticed that the creepypasta wiki version used The Rake’s name in the beginning while the creepypasta website didn’t mention it which is strange.
Thank you. I've always been interested in skinwalkers and wendigos but the internet has completely bastardized them into something unrecognizable. Don't get me wrong, I like some of the internet's take on these creatures. They're spooky. But at this point they're not even skinwalkers or wendigos.
@@catcadevwho tf cares lad, they're not real. They're just the uneducated ramblings of tribal people who didnt even understand medicine. Let people have their fun.
What happened to the skinwalker reminds me of what happened to Slenderman in a way. They both started off as genuinely disturbing and interesting cryptids, but were eventually ran down with unnecessary lore and edgy "OCs." I still really like both of these cryptids, but I kinda wish they stayed niche.
@thebasedgodmax1163 I completely agree, but then again, people taking a creature unconected to the group and changing it into something completely different has been happening forever. I am personally most well equated with what happened to vampires, a predominantly slavic and wider eastern european phenomenon. They turned from returning corpses into Dracula knockoffs
My uncle who lives out in the boonies has plenty of stories frol both current and old same goes for my older brother who lives off the rez. Tbh my entire family has their fair share of stories too tell and all of them serve as a reminder not too be too curious on certain things and stuff are to be left well enough alone.
And the whole thing about skinwalkers turning into other humans is also kind of annoying. Their whole purpose is to become animals that aren't human, this is quite literally changing their entire being...
Yeah they got that thing from Gemini, which annoys me because those aren’t even Skinwalkers, completely different they’re Woodcrawlers, they’re aliens from a fake planet that replicates the moon, and their whole thing is too shape shift into humans and living life to disguise as beings on Earth to take over the population and slowly take it down, they don’t do any witchcraft or anything they’re simple mimicking creatures
The internet basically merged Skinwalkers and Fleshgaits into one thing, even though they’re separate entities. Paired that with these new “skinwalkers” resembling traditional Crawlers. Most of these “skinwalker” stories are basically Fleshgaits and/or Crawlers
I'm pretty sure the term Fleshgait was just made up to skirt around the fact that you're not supposed to say their real name, a little bit like how people will refer to Macbeth as "The Scottish Play" because it's supposed to be bad luck to say Macbeth in a theater. Of course going by this video "Skinwalker" isn't even a proper translation of their Navajo name so I can't help but think that if it "counts" for the purposes of the taboo so should other names made to skirt around it. There's also the fact that "creepy pasta skinwalkers" have about as much in common with the real folklore as Taco Bell has in common with Authentic Mexican cuisine, which honestly might just make the whole thing moot altogether. That said the same can probably be said about just about any modern version of a creature from traditional folklore, heck even Bram Stoker's Dracula was pretty different from traditional vampire folklore.
@@Enixon869 Also the fact that the Navajo people refuse to talk about skinwalkers so we know very little about them. Also the “creepypasta skinwalkers” are the crawlers that I was talking about. Fleshgaits are separate entities together. Skinwalkers, to what little we know, cannot fully turn into another person. Fleshgaits can do this. Skinwalkers do not smell like copper either, that was taken from Goatmen and Fleshgait stories.
Every time I listen to scary stories for entertainment, the minute someone guesses it must have been a wendigo or skinwalker I immediately roll my eyes and move on
Great video! As an Apache and Akimel O'odham from AZ I grew up pretty familiar with the traditional stories of skinwalkers and always found it weird how different the art and lore around "skinwalkers" was online. I really don't like the creepypasta-fied version even as a story, as it kind of feels like so many other generic online horror stories. The idea of real skinwalkers being cannibals, murderers, and necrophiles is much scarier to me, and I still get chills when I think of an "animal with human eyes." I'm not super religious and my family is far from "traditional" but these things are one of the very few things I'm superstitious about- I won't wear snakeskin even if I think it looks cool and I really appreciate you not saying the word aloud! Even if witchcraft isn't real and skinwalkers are just the way that cultures out here rationalized people doing heinous crimes, best not to test it out.
You can argue that what internet done to Skinwalkers is the same what Bran Stoker had done with vampires. In some regions of Eastern Europe, talking about vampires is still a taboo, and the locals don’t like to answer questions about it.
Yeah but skinwalkers are "cool" and new so people wanna act all high and mighty by defending the old tales and acting like just because it's from Native Americans you can't make parody None of these people actually care about the culture they just wanna be folklore hipsters
@@brendandonohue2398ll ive seen is people telling idiots that these arent actually skinwalkers or wendigos or X folklore creature. I mean, how annoying do we take fortnite kids saying the Predator, or Master Chief, is from fortnite? Its about the truth and bastardization of the subject
@@sandshark2 true go ahead and preach that I ain't saying the original shouldn't be valued but I'm saying is that people that go ballistic because a dude called something a name in their story because it sounds cool doesnt matter No one cares about parodies of religion or vampires or any other thing So no one should care about these :/ simple as that imo Once the fad dies nobody will be rushing to defend native American culture because it won't be hip
@@Based_Gigachad_001 bro I mean this politely shut the ever loving fuck up and cram a fucking beaker up your fedorah clad and unwashed asscrack till you taste glass
The cycle: 4chan does cool thing => becomes somewhat popular => kids find it => youtuber creates content to sell merch = RUclipsrs clickbait max by having Freddy Fazbear and Sirenhead fart on the once cool thing => total ruination as it becomes a joke
Nothing is sacred, truely, if it sparks any interest especially taboo it will be ran into the ground which is why i dont feel bad once something is a couple million copies down to the point the ink isnt even there i think whats wrong with one more, cant ruin something already gone
I prefer to think of these bastardized versions as 'The Fleshgait' myself. An amalgamation of what people think is scary combining aspects of the Goatman, Wendigo, Skinwalker and others
I'm not sure which one, but there was an SCP story on Skinwalkers. Its premise was that the notion of Skinwalkers was tainted through misinformation and ignorant fear. A big part of the story was the SCP Foundation's admission that their systematic extermination of Skinwalkers was their greatest blunder and stain on their organization's history. A Skinwalker being interviewed lambasted angrily one of the Foundation members who was descended from the Dine (or Navajo). This video kinda' reminded me of that story. The Skinwalkers were depicted as mindless monsters or men with antlers, etc. When in reality, they were actually practioners of ancient magics and medicine who had lived alongside the Native peoples since the earliest times. So the whole point of the story was that their conception was bastardized and misrepresented; and this led to their subsequent extermination by the SCP Foundation and local millitias.
Reddit and now TikTok really do just turn everything they touch into cringe. The one you showed had to even be told to make it scary and he still didn't manage it. I want to go back to the old pre Reddit and especially pre TikTok days.
Honestly what's sad is how instead of finding interesting cultural parallels between the various 'bad magic using shapeshifters of the world is totally lost due to the internet's obsession with Skinwalkers being, totally wrong. I.E. Europe's witches (In folklore, most witches participated in a 'wychrun' in which they, well, would turn into an animal by wearing its skin to gain power, or to turn others--similarly initiating via a witches coven created via vile acts. (please note: The idea of a modern witch is a miss-attribution due to 19th century/early 20th century poor history claiming historical pagan practices survived via a 'witch tradition' that was mostly manufactured. In truth most witch traditions come from pagan European legends and were adopted by Christianization, rather than growing out of Christian beliefs about pagan practices.) As an additional parallel, most pre-19th century Werewolf myths were also very much a form of 'witch', or often a minion of a witch given powers via the witches familiar after induction. Similar legends are in Central America (Nagual/Nahual) Skinwalkers (Navajo) and a whole pile that I'm not going to list off across most regions of the world. They all vary based upon local traditions and fears. The weirder one is Wendigos, because the 'internet' wendigo has a very blatant and obvious origin. It's D&D third edition's monster manual (I forget which number, it may have been fiend folio) In which a 'windygo' was a monster. An evil spirit of frozen death that drives people mad and, you guessed it, had a deer's skull. The odder parts was it was distinctly a hybrid of various folklore monsters. Such as an old American folk legend of how spirits lost in the wood would eventually go mad and 'keep running until their feet burned off' a trait it kept, as well as not keeping the cannibalistic portion. Part of this was it wasn't actually based on the Wendigo, and the name change was conscious. (It was talked about in a defunct article) it was literally 'Windy...go' as in, it 'goes in the wind' or 'comes in the wind' but the image for this monster was extremely striking. Its frost-bitten features, deer-like skull, flesh shank from frost-burn across its skin, burn stubs of legs--and you saw IMMEDIATELY people used it as a 'wendigo' image.
Witches were usually hermit women who practiced medicine and were very hygienic. The church didn't understand why they got sick during plagues and witches didn't so they accused witches of causing those plagues.
this is the most informative comment ive found under this video, thanks a ton for this. its weird because ive always understood the origins of these ideas (including the rpgified wendigo) through various youtube videos and I assumed most others knew the same. the modern interpretation of the wendigos design is so common place _because_ wotc made an analogous creature which looked incredibly unique, so I don't blame people who use a similar depiction. however the cannibalistic nature of the wendigo is so ingrained into its origins and all around interesting I dont understand why people would willingly drop it. same goes for transformstion witches, a skinwalker being an idea which falls under a much larger and widespread concept across cultures as you stated. so many interesting stories could be told using said concept, yet it just isnt as commonplace today due to a shift in these cultural depictons, ie witches and vampires.
So glad somebody talked about this, every single creepy thing is a fuckin skinwalker or a wendigo, internet out here ruining culture 😂 shout out to the native homies
The only thing about the internet’s manifestation of skinwalkers is the legend’s association with three Courage The Cowardly Dog theories(the first of which with skinwalkers tie to the real life house, the old couple and dog who lived there and town of ‘Truth or Consequences’, New Mexico connecting to Nowhere, aside from the Courage is a mentally unstable dog and taking place in hell theories I also adore). Still, I give a bunch of shit towards the content on YT as well as other platforms like TikTok for using cryptids and paranormal forces to attract views than anything else, and that’s saying much from a person who’s fascinated with this kind of stuff but not the content farms milking it dry, like how I’m still appalled that 3am videos still exist on RUclips despite going against their guidelines. Remember when a creepypasta icon like Slenderman was all the rage and was popular in not only readings of the story, but it’s indie horror game that Let’s Play RUclipsrs delve into and got millions of views? The fad was right before Slenderman was no longer popular with the kids due to oversaturation, lack of relevance, the fanbase and shipping between Slenderman and Jeff the Killer(my god…) and the infamous stabbing incident from 2014 which is just plain disgusting. Slenderman was just an internet campfire tale right around the time cryptids and aliens/UFOs on the internet were a niche and still is until NASA worked on discovering other life outside Earth as of 2023. It’s a shame some lunatics had to ruin them, especially skinwalkers in a similar vein to Animal Planet’s cryptozoology “documentaries” during their slight network decay from 2009-2018.
Sacrow is sorta the glowing light in the creepy pasta community. Surround by the dark it is both welcoming and sad. I really like your videos Sacrow, they are really nostalgic!
lately, the whole wendigo and skinwalker lores not only get mixed up but also get brought up into ghost hunter channels, diluting/mingling or creating whole new lore for the mythology, along with uniquely creepypasta creatures getting dragged into their lores as well, making for a whole Frankenstein mess of real folklore.
I actually was one of the people that was misinformed about skinwalker lore. I was planning to write a villain into a story I was making who was a skinwalker. When I heard it might be offensive to some, I went on reddit and respectfully asked if it was and why. I proceeded to get absolutely blasted by comments calling me "stupid", "insensitive", and a "dumb American". I felt awful and deleted the post soon after. I never meant any form of malice, I was just ignorant and wanted to educate myself to make sure I didn't offend anyone. Obviously I scrapped the idea, but now I'm really aware of just how badly skinwalkers have been tainted by internet culture. Thanks for making this video, and hopefully less people will make similar mistakes.
As a Navajo it’s always funny seeing/hearing people tell me their depiction and experiences with a skinwalker… it’s always so outlandish and far from what the Navajo folklore is
I live right next to the Navajo Reservation. My mom's friend (who lives on the res and yes, she's Navajo) was distressed as a known skinwalker in the area had dug up the grave of a relative's baby that had died. The skinwalker took the baby's bones and ground them up into a 'death powder'. I'm rather annoyed with how the internet's bastardized them.
It’s my understanding of the folklore that they don’t literally change into an animal, they wear the skins to gain the abilities of the animal. They are still people just practicing “dark magic” or “bad medicine” and carrying out acts of evil
Glad that this is being brought up but people also have to remember that as time progresses, tales, legends and myths slowly change as well and from one era to the next and nothing is truly permanent. Back in the times of the Native Americans their tales and myths must’ve derived from something that wasn’t how we currently consider “accurate” depictions of said creatures this is a process that has and will repeat itself for as long as culture and storytelling exists. As someone who studies history I appreciate both depictions for what they are and what they depict, there is more than enough room for us to enjoy both depictions of this legend.
@@scurvyswashbucklingDMI mean, its more like historically (and continually) oppressed people groups being mad at their historical (and continual) oppressors take their legends and taboos and turn them into trendy stories that bastardize the legends mainly as a source of amusement. I doubt they'd mind as much if they weren't mistreated and exploited so much in the past and today.
@@RonnieNichols you aren't wrong in all senses, but madness, sadness and anger are irrelevant in the face of basic human societal storytelling behaviors (whether that is good or bad is a subjective point). Again, the Americans are yelling at the other Americans because Americans ruined America.
@@scurvyswashbucklingDM your point would be better if "american" was actually a single unified group, rather than a bunch of smaller groups made up primarily of people who were and/or are oppressed, and those who either used to, still do, or didn't but benefit from said oppression.
@@RonnieNichols Do you agree that, irrelevant of outcry or denial, that people (who you deem to somehow oppress in someway, who ever that is, and/or gain benefit from that oppression, whatever that is) will acquaint themselves with, live around, or otherwise converse with people (who you deem to be somehow oppressed in someway, by group number one), and, in doing so, will aide in the creation, manipulation, and change of folk tales (those being tales told among people, irrelevant of social stature or oppression) over time, and that this entire process will very rapidly be sped up by a worldwide interconnected network?
Monsters gets distorted over time by other cultures its natural. Vampiers didnt turn into bats they didn't just have two fangs they were also describe more as a bloated corpse rather then pale and skeletal and before Bram Stoker no one thought of Vlad Tepesh as a vampier there were notorious vampires but non of them were him. Heres another example, the Koblod is litteraly just the German word for Goblin thats what they were Goblins but you ask an English speaker and they'll tell you a Kobold is either a hyena person or a small lizard person that worships dragons non if that is true but its a cool creature so people like it. And my finaly example Zombies, Zombies were dead people brought back by voodo magic to be basically slaves with no free will non of that infecting people or being spread by a virus or causing an apocolips or any other modern Zombie shenanigans but do i see people complain about that? No because the modern zombie is a scary monster and a cool concept that srung from the original hailtian legend. Dose it suck when people bastardise your cultures monster? Yes, I come from Serbia the place were Vampiers originated and I still feel a twinge of annoyance at what they've become however, those changes only occurred because of how intriguing foring people found the original monster its something to be proud of sure it may not be accurate to the original descriptions of it but its still meant to be your cultures monster and now almost everyone around the world knows about it. And most importantly there is NOTHING stoping you from creating a story, movie, series, game, drawing ect. With a Wedigo or Skin walker or Vampier or Koblod or any other monster that you know has been changed over time, in which said monster, is accurate to the original folktale!!! You can do it no knes stopping you but you will never be able to stop anyone else from doing their own spin on things and you just have to live with that.
I never knew much about Skinwalkers. I thought they were completely something different. This video popped up in my feed and I’ve always been interested in this kind of stuff. Hearing the story of the man with the dream of the coyotes freaked me out horribly. I live in Oklahoma. A larger area for Native Americans, not Navajo, but other tribes. I specifically live in Comanche area, I don’t if the Comanche tribe has a big thing with Skinwalker’s, and I’m no where near being Native American myself. To give some context, I work on an Oil rig, I’ll be home for 14 days and off work for 14 days. On my 14 days off I was at home, I still live with my parents as I’m only 19. My parents were out of town, they go to a casino about an hour away and spend weekends up there. It was around 11 PM at night and I just turned everything off to go to bed. Laying in the dark I hear coyotes off in the distance. I don’t think any turn of it as we hear coyotes around all the time, I live on 15 acres of country out in the middle of no where, About 15 minutes from my nearest town. A couple minutes later the howling is closer, still tho I’m not thinking anything of it. Then a little bit later even closer… I mean right on the outside of my property close. I’m now thinking that’s unusually strange for them. We have neighbors nearby with dogs that will go crazy if coyotes were this close. But I don’t hear any dogs barking, as a matter of fact it’s very quiet outside. No more crickets, it seemed even the wind went away. I close my eyes trying not to think anything of it. Then another howl. Right out by my house’s well house. We use well water out here, and about 30 yards from my window is our well house. After hearing this I am well freaked out and awake. I’m laying as still as I can as I feel pure fear in my chest. Trying not to even breath. I want to turn my light on but for some reason something in my bones was preventing me from even moving. Another howl, except this time I don’t even know how to describe it. It was so distorted I could barely recognize it was even a howl at all. I’m petrified at this point, I just heard something definitely not from our normal state of earth. Just a few seconds later, the howling was right outside of my window, under my wrap around porch, I could hear something walking, no not walking, scraping and crawling on the cement foundation of the porch. At this point I crawl off my bed and go into my closet where I keep a single shot 20-gauge shotgun with a whole box of shells. I sit in my closet, in my underwear for a good five minutes as this continuous horrific noise goes on for what felt like inhumanly too long for me. Finally it stopped, the wind apparently came back. But still no animals, no noise other than the wind for the rest of the night. Oddly enough later that night I hear Black Hawk helicopters flying and circling over my house. Which isn’t too out of the ordinary as I live close to Ft. Sill, and the national guard will do routine flying missions at night over my family’s property. But it did stir fear back in my heart as why that night? Why that night did they have to fly circles around my house? The next morning I waited all day for my parents to get home. I tried calling my brother but my phone wouldn’t call out to him. Just “call failed”. Then my girlfriend tried to call me. “Call failed” even if I answered it. I tried calling my cousin, same thing. My phone just seemingly had an aneurism and wasn’t working anymore. I had to get a completely new one. I chalked it up to some weird radio frequency I heard as I’m a good 3 miles away from a radio tower. But I did notice a deer skull had been hung on my driveway’s barbed wire fence line. Right on a T-post. We do have a shared driveway, the neighbors could’ve put it up. Still scared the shit out of me.
Rad video. Exactly what I needed for another late-nite dinner, after work. Truly dig your channel. I'm shocked you didn't have the recent video with the guy filming while his friend drove & the "skinwalker" ran alongside them - it was in a city.
Finally someone covered this topic, I would also like to add how many times skinwalkers are often confused with fleshgaits while being similar they have big differences
I honestly don’t care about this too much. 4Chan skinwalkers were my first introduction to the idea of a shapeshifting humanoid monster that hunts people and is immune to low caliber bullets. Maybe that’s kinda disrespectful to natives in a sense but as far as I can tell skinwalkers in green texts tend to be pretty distinct entities only partially inspired by folklore. I’m sure tiktok and Twitter have watered down these things to certain extent because they’ve taken the sort of long game of internet telephone but personally I really enjoy some of the more modern skinwalker stuff.
One creature the skinwalker (along with the wendigo and goat man) inspired is the Fleshgait, which was basically a fusion of the three and is all the things the internet wants the three to be.
It's interesting to think of how common play these stories of people supposedly running into supernatural things just by going into a random forest has become. Considering also how a lot of these stories are very US centric (down to pilfering from various native peoples cultures to create just boogeymen of the week, though that sadly isn't a US only ugly habit), makes me somewhat also confused as to why are forests in the US somehow such "mystical nexuses" in the minds of many? It seems very rare for a story to point out they aint from the US if it takes place in a dark forest. Can't help but also wonder if with there being a big ol wave of anti-scientific thinking and sentiment going on, will there be an unholy wedding of that plus "forest monsters go bump in the night" sort of thinking occurring sooner or later.
Not that I don't find the idea of groups of grown people shivering in fear of the woodland monsters somewhat an entertaining premise. But probably best not have large groups of folk start believing there are supernatural things running around in forests to the degree simply stepping into them is enough to have an encounter. As surely if it was that easy, these would be quite easy phenomena to study and already be known factors. Any randos running around with cameras catching glimpses of spooky monsters means more qualified folk would easily start documenting them for study.
Because western cultures in general often see the wilderness as something to be feared. Which to be fair it is. The wilds are dangerous, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. American culture is just extremely dominant in the world and especially on the internet, doubly so if the only language you speak is English, as the US is the largest native Anglophone country.
No people just like telling scary stories about mythical creatures. Also if you go anywhere around the world you will probably find a couple of legends about the forests near you.
I'm not sure if this is a complete answer to why so many US Americans find the forests creepy, but it might be a partial one. Growing up in the US the main places I'd hear scary stories as a kid were sleepovers, and around a campfire when camping. For the sleepovers we'd read creepy stories out of books, and they'd have a variety of settings, but when camping the settings were almost exclusively forests. The exact forest you were camping in, even. Having the idea of a killer just beyond the tree line in the darkness was terrifying as a kid, and the stories supposedly having happened right where you were camping made it all feel a lot more real. I imagine even if you don't go camping the stories get passed around completely seperated from the added theatrics of actually being around a campfire, and the forest setting has just become a common part of scary stories in the US. As a personal example, I was in Girl Scouts, and the camp I went to had a story of a pyromaniac arson girl named Cindy. She also sometimes had a chainsaw depending on who was telling the story. The counselors would point to an old cooking shelter that looked like it might have burn damage and say something about Cindy being the culprit. When you asked questions they'd then promise to tell you the story around the campfire at night. The story went that she burned down her cabin killing her fellow campers, as well as herself. After her death she roamed the woods looking for her next target. With her love of fire she'd be drawn to the campfires lit by campers at nightfall. She may even be just out of sight in the trees behind us, waiting to snag her next victim. Inevitably, while sitting around the fire something would then rustle in the darkness, somebody would say "it's Cindy!" and we'd shriek and huddle together.
I think of it less of corruption and ruining and more as internet culture growing and changing as it usually does. Its important to keep in mind where the inspirations for these neo-skinwalker/wendigo tales originally were based in American mythos as well as similar stories from around the world mixing creating something new
@@fotismanolopoulos1098 It is a shame that its lost its original identity in the mass public. My family is Yucatec so k’uk’ulkan is almost a lost name in media. Many people prefer Quetzalcoatl and call it a sun god. Its really the god of life and storms with Knich Ahau being combined with k’uk’ulkan in modern media
still corruption though, as they aren't just some fairytale. they're real things part of real people's cultures. people who had their culture erased super badly.
It isn't erased though, people can still read old legends and tales of the original Skinwalkers. What has happened is natural for almost every culture's legends and myths. It is changing it's shape due to new cultures telling stories that are a little different every time.
I use the internet regularly, and have never encountered this trend. It's probably just a niche that some random 20-somethings picked up on and used to get views from easily scared children.
My favorite thing about skinwalkers is how they are completely against destructive entry. It doesn't matter how thin your glass panes are, as long as you lock the door, you're fine! You could put a Cheeto in the deadbolt, and the skinwalker would walk away.
In my culture we also have a shape shifting beast called Nagual/Nahuals. This beast is limited in its shape shifting powers as it can only shift into its own animal counterpart. It’s similar in theme to the skin walkers/goat man stories.
21:49 I love Che Jim! He has great horror short films, Don’t Let Me In gives me chills every time. He also has horror comedy videos that are just jokes. He’s indigenous and lives in the Appalachian region.
Thank you for the well researched intro. Always bugged me how things are appropriated by pop culture. It can be hard to get a solid information on skin walkers since the Dine (what the Navajo people call themselves) people are very mum about it. Part superstitious as to not draw their attention and thus their hexes and partially because its a need to know thing. And outsiders don’t need to know.
While I can somewhat understand the frustration of how the internet can bastardize things. This is one where while it may be sad, it's something that can and will happen same with ANY folklore given time and exposure so I can't say I feel at all bad about it. Humans tell stories and stories shift and change, there's zero point in trying to "protect" old legends by preventing shift in how it's shown in media The best way to maintain the original version isn't lost, isn't to insult and demean those who are only aware of the modern versions but to actually make content about the old versions to ....ya know expose it to new audiences But eh, acting like your superior and going "ACTUALLY THE WENDIGO DOESNT HAVE DEER LIKE FEATURES AHAHAHAHAHA" like those people that only drink Absinthe and watch black and white films is way easier and much more pleasing to the ego
It’s so annoying that any creature that is tall and pale-white-gray is automatically called a skinwalker when skinwalkers are literally nothing like that.
24:55 In defense of that decision, what you described in the earlier in the video sounds a lot like the very old European legends about Werewolves. Down to it being a form of Witch that eats human flesh. Biggest difference is no one's selling their soul for the power to shapeshift, and there doesn't seem to be a Devil figure involved. The similiarities are downright remarkable, but I guess it can be chalked up to parallel anxieties, of wild animals, your fellow man and degradation of civility in general.
Occording to randos on the internet, any dog that has a "weird face" is automatically a skinwalker. Granted some of these are memes, but then there's people in those forums and social media comments that are dead serious It just seems like Reddit, Tiktok, Twitter, and 4chan's X have pretty much ruined what made the concept of a Skinwalker scary to even adults. The Wendigo is a whole other can of frozen worms
On the navajo rez, you cannot mention the S name. It is terrible luck and bad energy. Those trying to look them may say they believe in the S name. But they wouldn't be seeking them out if they did believe in them.
Its kinda shitty how the internet turned native legends that are different to each tribe to some stupid ass horror story and not a legend that many take seriously and treat with respect >:/
@@Based_Gigachad_001I want to facepalm as hard as I can right now, I swear... The kraken isn't a Greek myth, it's Scandinavian in origin, and probably referred to giant squid or similar sorts of creature sightings. The only reason it is associated with Greece at all is because of the clash of the titans movie.
huh. I've always hated the skinwalker as just a generic shapeshifter, but learning the proper folklore of it, it's much more interesting then I realized. Sadly a lot of cool monsters get their most interesting traits shaved off.
"The first time skinwalkers appeared in media was on THE X-FILES." ??? If by "media" you mean "TV," then maybe. But Tony Hillerman published SKINWALKERS (a novel) in 1986 --- long before the X-Files. Hillerman did a lot to popularized Navajo culture amongst the masses. It would not surprise me even a little if Hillerman's novel was the inspiration for the X-Files episode.
Hillerman's books are great. IIRC there's an incident with a self-proclaimed "skinwalker" (quotes there because he's really just a murderer, but he believes he's a skinwalker and keeps a skin with him anyway) hunting one of the leads that's one of the only times the novels that something which could be interpreted as supernatural occurs. The guy tracks someone (Chee, I think) who's hiding, and knows where they're hiding IMMEDIATELY after finding a single track left far away from the hiding spot...crossing over hardened rocks and among a set of pueblos that honestly he could've been hiding in any of.
I tend to believe that the times animals act weird and people think they're skinwalkers could easily be an animal with something like Rabies or CWD (or some other prion disease) Edit: YAY Gemini rep, one of the best analog horror series ever.
yeah no. rabies and prion diseases are incredibly rare. animals act weird sometimes just bc they’re weird. when someone describes wildlife going completely silent, that’s usually because the animals sensed a predator
But can it be considered that the "corrupted" skinwalkers can be a separate entity to the original? I think they can because they're so different now they share a basic concept and name only. I think it's important to make that distinction between the original and unrelated new stuff. I think the original will hold more sway and longevity, always, than the new fad ones. The internet skinwalkers will fade and die out. But the legend will most definitely remain.
I think of them like a creature named after skinwalkers for their percieved similarities, like how romero zombies are named after voodoo zombies despite having little in common with them
I lo e skinwalkers, the original Navajo folklore I mean. Witches and medicinemen that turned evil, it makes for great cautionary tales. But I do think we look at the shape-shifting thing a bit too literally, and from what I could gather the Navajo tend to think of it as a more mental transformation as well... I just wish more people looked at it like that instead of "my dog is acting weird, must be a skin walker"
@Sacrow would you be interested in hearing stories from my Navajo grandma about skinwalkers? I will have to ask if she is up for it, but she lived on the res for years and has stories. Again it might not work out because she might not want to share about it, but I will have to ask her to know or sure though.
I have a complicated feeling towards how Wendigos and skinwalkers have "Evolved" recently. But I'll make it short, to say the least. I like Wendigo's new design but I would like it if people knew that's not how they look, and for skinwalkers, I don't like how we have butchered such a creature and yet we've kept the Wendigo the same just the appearance and some details have been adjusted. I am fine with people changing how something looks, but I would like them to note that "Oh yea, wendigos don't actually look like tall people with antlers but creepy ice ghouls." and for skinwalkers, I need someone to just come out and say "No you idiots they aren't ghost entities or some interdimensional creatures, just killers that wear the skin of animals they chose to turn into." This has been my Ted Talk, have a good night.
Angels, demons, golems, vampires etc etc in popular culture are nothing like their origin. This isnt an internet thing, it is a completely normal human thing that has and will always happen. Ridiculous to complain about lol
I am by no means an Aboriginal American or even an American, but I find disgusting as well just plain weird the way in which the internet and culture as a whole has corrupted the folklore (true or not) around it. It is even worse when you consider how often media or so-called 'true-stories' veer so off the, albeit limited to the outside world, information regarding them. I just don't get the perverse fascination with them outside of its original cultures. It's exoticism at it's worst
Imagine being some old Navajo man with a life full of unfair hardships out of your control and some pimply white doofus asks you about shape shifting murder monsters for 3 and a half hours
"Some" old navajo man? Is that what those ppl are? Just some group for you to use in your disdain of another race? Ur not navajo I bet just an egotistic clown who thinks you're standing up for navajao
It’s so disappointing how skinwalkers have gone from practitioners of bad medicine or evil magic that can shapeshift via wearing skin to just being some scary SpongeBob meme mimic. And the wendigos have gone from cannibalistic ice men to just some shrieking antler thing. For me, there are pretty much no accurate depiction of skinwalkers in media but there rare ones for wendigos (see Until Dawn and Hellboy)
this reminded me of the creepypasta "do skinwalkers laugh like spongebob"
From my recollection of the earliest stories (the ones that aren't basically demonizing "savage" native americans), the Wendigo is some kind of malevolent spirit, that drives men insane and they become the cannibalistic ice men. Much more terrifying than "a boogeyman" that physically attacks you... an unseen "feeling" of fear and hatred, accompanied by the torture that cold can bring with the paradoxical response to frostbite (you feel as if on fire) to drive you insane.
Hard to run away from or fight back against that.
Lost Tapes of all media had what I think is a pretty good depiction of a skinwalker. I’d check it out, it shoudl be on RUclips.
Until Dawn has the most accurate version of a wendigo. Mainly because they had Cree story tellers describe and tell the stories of the wendigo, Which is basically a cautionary tale of cannibalism during winter.
@@brendanbeardy9190 true. I forgot to mention that, I know a lot of people were very happy with their depiction.
The internet also bastardized the wendigo legend
Whites gotta take what we have and then take even the crumbs
Actually Hollywood bastardized it first, then the internet proceeded to make it worse
Not surprised
Same with mistaking mermaids with sirens
@@MechaOkami From what I remember that’s actually a much older mushing. Sirens were bird people in Ancient Greek art, but gradually transitioned to being half fish through the medieval period. Exactly why is unclear since it was so long ago.
As for why the wendigo changed, there was a movie “about the wendigo” where the director later said that he’d only ever heard to word and used it to describe his otherwise completely original monster, literally not bothering to do any research until after the film was finished. Pretty cut and dry case of a white guy playing on racist Native American tropes.
The other thing I've noticed about most skinwalker stories is that most of them completely remove the human element to them. Online accounts in particular almost never mention the fact that they're supposed to be regular people who can shapeshift. Rather, they try to imply that they're a completely separate species from humanity, which I guess is an attempt to play up the uncanniness? But at that point why not just use a different cryptid...?
Having a human mind makes them scarier in my opinion.
If think they’re trying to make a more realistic version of the skinwalker? Like they make up a more scientific and grounded version which is some rare undocumented animal instead of a witch
@@caucasoidape8838 Exactly. Sure, a creature that can become anything is scary; but a creature that KNOWS how to act like anything, and that can strategize if detected is a lot scarier than just a human screaming "HeEeEeElP"
@@caucasoidape8838 I'd say human mind makes them less scary
Same deal with the wendigo. Personally I'm not even comfortable calling them cryptids, it seems like a disrespectful entertainment term in the cases like this.
to be clear: the creature in gemini home entertainment was never officially called a skinwalker. they're called woodcrawlers. people just steal the segment and try to call it a "skinwalker" because tiktok can't help 2 things: lieing and being unoriginal.
Yeah it's literally an alien life form idk how they got skinwalkers
@@CodeeXD I think in the camp video when it talks about folklore they namedrop the legend of skinwalkers, implying that that's what the natives called the woodcrawlers
@@coolgreenbug7551 yeah still doesn't mean they are skinwalkers just what a native tribe confused them as
@@CodeeXD how old are you ?
@@ronnieDaking that's irrelevant to the conversation
yes, finally. skinwalkers are a navajo thing and dont target non-natives.
also skinwalker ranch. makes it very hard to search for actual navajo skinwalker stories without that dumb ranch coming up.
Too bad they ain't real anyways
Well something was happening at the ranch the people died
@@tfordham13 People die everywhere, sometimes people just like to make stories about it
@@jacyaug these stories came from the people who lived there
@@tfordham13 Doesn't mean skinwalkers are real 💀
Something of note is that in 2013, when skinwalkers got big on 4chan, the stories blended together woth that of wendigos and goatmen, to the point that the three became nearly interchangable. Wendigo stories would usually have humanoids with antlers and goatman stories would have something with the head of a goat or goat legs, but the behavior would be about the same for all three.
One thing of major importancein this is the role played by Algernon Blackwood's story The Wendigo, which hits most of the same beats as the skinwalker/wendigo 4chan greentexts and SomethingAwful stories. The Wendigo is also the first mention of wendigos having antlers/any relation to deer, as in the original algonquin myths wendigos act more like zombies or vampires.
From my remembrance Blackwood actually doesn’t say anything about it’s appearance, he only says that they are very large and have burning feet from the speed they travel. Though I could be wrong.
I thought it was Pet Sematary that first mentions a deer head.
original wendigo stories talk about how it’s simply an evil spirit that takes on a physical form. i don’t know where the deer monster thing came from… or even where the cannibal thing came from, ngl.
@@honeycrispsnail4032 The spirit thing came from Algernon Blackwood’s The Wendigo and the deer monster thing came from Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. What do you mean the cannibalism thing came later?
@@troin3925 original wendigo stories don’t really mention cannibalism. it’s straight up just stories about how it’s an evil spirit.
i live on a tribe far up in Minnesota, the wendigo is a common tale to tell children. i hadn’t heard of the “wendigo is a cannibal who turned into a monster” story until like.. 2 years ago. at least for my tribe, the wendigo is a bad spirit that takes the form of a physical creature. it has nothing to do with a human turning into one.
Yeah they turned Skinwalkers into that dude yelling HEEELP, HELP ME, HEEEEELP in the parking lot
average day in arizona tbh these fentanyl addicts are getting wilder by the day
That’s just a hobo…or wood-crawlers. Which is what the internet’s skinwalker should be called.
@@jackcouch8322 A hobo would be better off if he could transform into an animal. lol
@@jackcouch8322the only diference between a hobo, a wood crawler and a addict is that two of them want your wallet and the other just want your skin
I'm glad this video exists bc damn it's so annoying how these originally very scary and culturally significant myths were turned into watered down internet memes
That happens to everyone. Look at how popular culture treated gods like Thor, Zues, or Anubis.
That’s kinda funny though. The original entity still exists, so what’s the big deal?
@@Raptor810Blue This.
@@Raptor810Blueso what are you trying to say
@@Darunia_s I’m saying who cares if people alter the original idea.
In GHE's defense, at least their "skinwalkers" are aliens and not actually meant to be skinwalkers. Story wise, the reason the Wood-crawlers were called that is simply because their ability to mimic humans *reminded people in-universe of the legend. Technically speaking, the idea of humans seeing something that's beyond our comprehension and comparing it to cultural beliefs in an attempt to make sense of it sounds like a perfectly reasonable horror concept. I would have a much easier time tolerating inaccurate skinwalker portrayals if they took a direction like THAT instead of the typical making-an-edgy-monster-OC-and-presenting-it-as-the-real-deal approach.
* Only downside to this is the implication that the legendary skinwalkers shapeshift into humans when they're actually supposed to shapeshift into animals, but many have already pointed that out.
oh man I hate the skinwalker trend. Im part native ute tribe, was raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles they would tell us stories, they'd say not to go in the caves on hill or go out at night. but now its chills saying theres a skinwalker caught on a busy main street. not the writing type but ive been wanting to put this out there some were for a while now.
and the titles are always like: skinwalker found stealing from walmart in suburbs at 3 am and smoking all your weed story time scary horror 3 am
Well skin walkers are/were humans so they can go anywhere
There are a few podcasts I had to stop listening to because the stories would be like "skinwalker encounter in London, England." Is it impossible for a skinwalker to somehow make its way to London? Technically, probably no, not these days. But it wouldn't happen.
Real stories or not with terrifying encounters, at least try to make them accurate or plausible to legends.
Remember that in Gemini despite fans’ idioticy, the Skinwalkers aren’t Skinwalkers, they’re Woodcrawlers, they’re alien creatures from another planet (I think the fake moon) that attempt to replicate human life to invade the Earth’s population and slaughter it. In the story people thought they were Skinwalkers at first because of the shapeshifting to humans ideas but the story quickly establishes they’re different. I don’t know why people think they’re the same
To be fair, Gemini's monsters are called *"Woodcrawlers"* and are only compared to Skinwalkers once at the beginning, and even then, it's just to point out their small similarity with the legend, as even in universe, they're pretty different from one another
And I think that was mainly because of fans. Fans just continually called them Skinwalkers, enough people thought that was their genuine name, so now the creator uses it because at this point the snowball's too big to stop.
I like that Gemini actually separated them, and I find Woodcrawlers actually really scary in the context of the story, jut the fans ruined them by trying to make them “Skinwalkers” when they’re completely different creatures
@@dr.altoclef9255 I have no clue what or who Gemeni is, but what you just said had always pissed me off. Enough people start calling something wrong and then everyone else mindlessly does it, too. People are so fuckin annoying.
Here in Mexico we have our own "shape shifters", called Nahuales, however legends about them are as old as I can tell, way before the skinwalker meme. Also, in Yucatan, there's several legends about shamans and witches shapeshifting. The most famous one is "el uay chivo" (it's like our version of the goatman) and there's been several news reports about witnesses of this cryptid messing around with people or stealing, mostly chicken.
Shapeshifting monsters are equally as dangerous as the ogres, and all of our tribes fear the owls
Duende
@@TheAbsol7448 nah those are little people more than they are witches
Witches taking the form of large owls, makes me think of the Mothman.
@@caucasoidape8838 Except Mothman was supposed to be its own unique entity. Even the Owlman which is the most similar to the Mothman doesn’t entirely look like an owl (for one, it doesn’t have a beak, just a “gaping maw”).
As far as I know, the goatman is not a native american story. It's an urban legend from Maryland, centering around a scientist working on a cancer cure who accidently spliced himself with goat dna. Mostly known since the 50s for legends of him killing peoples dogs.
There's multiple goatman stories in the US, there's the popelick monster, and a goatman in Texas too. There's prolly more then that too but at more local levels.
Another version of the Maryland Goatman depicts him as a human/goat hybrid slasher villain. He would have a double bladed axe and stalk teenagers in the woods.
there’s a lot of different “origin stories” of the Goatman of Goatman’s Bridge
the one most prominent/popular one in my experience is the ккк lynching a black goat herder who then took revenge on the lynchers
What slightly annoys me is when I see videos about sightings of paranormal creatures or other cryptids, there’s always someone who automatically assumes that it must be a Skinwalker or a Wendigo, disregarding the origin/location/context of the folklore. Hypothetically if Skinwalkers are real, they would probably only be seen on Navajo land. Yet I’ve seen countless videos of creature sightings that take place anywhere else but Navajo land and people still automatically assume it must be a Skinwalker/Wendigo/etc. Unfortunately with social media and the internet, there’s bound to be all sorts of misconceptions on native folklore.
I wonder how many people who pay attention to claimed cryptid sightings are adults.
@@checkoffgames Probably a lot. Rather you’re a believer or a skeptic, it’s still interesting. I lean on the skeptical side myself, yet I still find myself fascinated by all the stories.
To take this a step further, what if they hear a noise and automatically assume it to be a Skinwalker because that's either the only cryptid they know or are the most interested in. But then, what if its not even a Skinwalker, but instead a Wendigo or Bigfoot? And this is assuming they exist and the Skinwalker existing or not doesn't really matter because its not what they heard (for the sake of this argument at least). In this case its even sillier that these videos just automatically assume its a Skinwalker or whatever else, because if 1 of these cryptids could be real, then any of them could potentially be and so if you are actually hearing a cryptid, its kind of dumb to assume it has to be that one in particular, as though you know the difference. In reality they hear a noise and just attach a cryptid of their choosing thoughtlessly for views.
Also, bigfoot is the only one without any real supernatural elements to it, so its the most likely candidate for a cryptid that actually exists, so to assume it was actually something much more specific and unrealistic than any number of random cryptids or natural known animals making that noise is just silly to me.
I've heard and "seen" one before
@@GBDupree I think that’s the reason why a lot of people jump to those assumptions. I wholeheartedly agree. Another thing I would like to add. Assuming that these cryptids are real, how much do we really know about them and what they would sound like? Sure there’s folklore to go on, eyewitness accounts, and supposed audio evidence in documentaries/youtube videos but it still always comes down to speculation since there’s no concrete evidence. There’s still so much we don’t know about these creatures if they really are out there. I also find that aspect fascinating in itself.
You should make a video on the corruption of the Wendigo, that it's not a tall deer monster ghoul thing as shown in many creepypastas and video games.
The true story of the Wendigo is way more interesting and scary
Original folklore of wendigo isn't a creature at all. It has no physical form.
@@benjalucian1515 exactly, the wendigo is simply an evil spirit. i have no idea where the deer monster thing came from… or even the winter cannibal thing, honestly.
I thought the wendigo was a southern dude with a luxurious beard who talked about icebergs, analog horror, and biblical lore
A theory I heard is that people have been confusing the windy boys with the lore of other things (like the creature that’s not a deer) cuz visually the only depiction I’ve seen be accurate was from supernatural. Lore wise, can’t tell you cuz it’s still quite bastardized but visually it seems accurate as it’s like you said, they’re like ice men. From my understanding, they suffered from terrible greed, committed a great taboo, and then their hearts turned to ice, leaving them to forever hunger for more.
How the hell do people confuse Skinwalkers,the Wendigo and the Goatman.Skinwalkers are evil shapeshifting witches and shamans from Navajo legends.The Wendigo is a spirit from the legends of the Algonquin people,that possesses evil greedy cannibals and turns them into giant rotting ice ghouls .The Goatman is just a modern urban legend that has nothing to do with Native Americans.Btw,I always saw the Goatman as more of a Jersey devil type creature than anything else.He gives more satanic vibes since he literally looks like Satan.I’ve never confused these creatures because I learned about the from people who actually care about folklore and mythology and not from random horror fans from 4chan.
if anything 4chan was the more accurate place to find out about these things atleast compared to reddit and tiktok not a very high bar though I do understand
Those stupid paranormal twins
Seriously, most skinwalker stories blow because the title can be changed to a different creature and the story would remain the same
@@tescobag5704I hate trailcam videos of like skinny alien looking things where the comments are like “oh that’s a skin walker!!!!!1!!11”
@@mrakisotnelar.8009 exactly, just makes it hard to enjoy anything scary now. Could show somebody scp 096 and they'd call it a skinwalker
Finally a mainstream RUclips that talks about the corruption of the skinwalke4, from witch to shape-shifting creature
Seen it before. I think in large part the alterations came from ignorance. And that ignorance comes from the Navajo deciding to keep things secret.
Isolating their culture to preserve it might be what they think is best. But, as time passes, that will make the people in the know smaller and smaller in numbers and lead to outsiders having only surface knowledge. Therefore they have no logical reason to complain. They contributed to the outside being ignorant.
@@SergioLeonardoCornejowe're not gonna be scattered isolated tribes forever so we hold info close to our chest, til we get our homelands back
@@medb1996 Good luck with that. How are you going to get it? Fighting the ones who live there now? Crying to daddy government to take the land of someone who doesn't even know why you're kicking him out if the place he lives in? The world isn't as it was when your ancestors got displaced.
Unless you start buying land from the people living there, you're going to get as scattered as atomized as anyone else in that country.
You won't have your ethno state. No one does.
The people living in what was the land of your ancestors don't even know who lived there before. Old grudges won't get you anywhere.
@@SergioLeonardoCornejo It's something I've seen over and over again online
"I want to see more accurate depictions of my people's folklore in the media."
"That would be awesome, would you tell us about it?"
"NO! IT'S NOT FOR OUTSIDERS TO KNOW! HOW DARE YOU EVEN ASK YOU EVIL RACIST!"
it's like this catch-22 where the ignorance is disrespectful, but wanting to learn the real folklore so that you're no longer ignorant seems to be even more disrespectful
@@Enixon869 exactly. And then there are fools like Medb who fantasyse of reviving former glories instead of walking into the future.
I have no relation to the skinwalker stories, but I've seen similar changes happen with things drawn from my cultural area. Both the vampire and krampus, like the skinwalker, were turned from their origins to something unrecognisable by people with no connection to the original stories.
And it stings, seeing something of you grew up with be changed into an unrecognisable parody of itself.
I get pissed even when Hollywood doesn't get Greek mythology right. lol
Krampus is still the same
Dam if only people could make content and stories that pay respect to the old tales instead of complaining :/
The VAMPIRE? The fucking VAMPIRE has been 'bastardized'? Do you realize that pretty much since the dawn of time in basically EVERY culture and civilization there've been myths and legends about nightstalking creatures that feed on human blood? How exactly do you 'bastardize' a vague concept that's been reinterpreted since the dawn of history?
@@tfordham13if you can make an entire horror movie about it, i can guarantee they didn't get it right
I miss when Skinwalkers were a niche creepy folktale.
Yea I remember being younger and none of this stuff was really on the internet like that other than creepypasta. And even then it was something that there wasn’t a lot of
I think it's important to differentiate the Skinwalkers or Wendigos from their original cultures and from the internet, they are quite different and used of different purposes, but I think they are equally valid as scary Boogeyman
They should not be named and bastardized after our... less-than-sacred spirits
@@medb1996 they are fictitious scary monsters, literally have no value behind being used to scare people and tell moral tales, what does it matter that they are bastardized
@@medb1996 did you just find the wendussy side of the internet
@@TheKitty699nah taibo ive been there before and it's disgusting every time. Y'all aint know what they even look like
@@medb1996 your name is from irish mythology Medb was a queen that brought Cu chulainn to fall as far as i remember but i am also not irish
I think the Skinwalker creepypasta is to blame for this. It was a Rake creepypasta that flat out states at the beginning that it's about The Rake and that the narrator's grandfather just named it after the Skinwalker since he's never used the internet before and wouldn't know about its actual name. It's like these people never actually read the story and just looked at thumbnails of readings of this creepypasta and just went "so that's what a Skinwalker looks like."
can you give me a link to the creepasta.
@@somethingcraft3148 I don’t know if RUclips would allow it but I’m gonna type this first. I just noticed that the creepypasta wiki version used The Rake’s name in the beginning while the creepypasta website didn’t mention it which is strange.
@@somethingcraft3148 And now my reply with the links are gone. I hate RUclips so much.
Thank you. I've always been interested in skinwalkers and wendigos but the internet has completely bastardized them into something unrecognizable. Don't get me wrong, I like some of the internet's take on these creatures. They're spooky. But at this point they're not even skinwalkers or wendigos.
In name and "they steal skin" only at this point
@@catcadevwho tf cares lad, they're not real. They're just the uneducated ramblings of tribal people who didnt even understand medicine. Let people have their fun.
What happened to the skinwalker reminds me of what happened to Slenderman in a way. They both started off as genuinely disturbing and interesting cryptids, but were eventually ran down with unnecessary lore and edgy "OCs." I still really like both of these cryptids, but I kinda wish they stayed niche.
but a skinwalker isn't the same thing. that's a part of folklore of a group of peoples beliefs. slenderman was created as a horror character
@thebasedgodmax1163 I completely agree, but then again, people taking a creature unconected to the group and changing it into something completely different has been happening forever.
I am personally most well equated with what happened to vampires, a predominantly slavic and wider eastern european phenomenon. They turned from returning corpses into Dracula knockoffs
@@borjaslamic well vampires and vampire alikes are in many cultures. But i still love the Romanian Vlad III
You make a good point but I like to think of the Joy all those people got from it
slenderman was never a cryptid, it's solely a made up internet horror story wholecloth.
My uncle who lives out in the boonies has plenty of stories frol both current and old same goes for my older brother who lives off the rez. Tbh my entire family has their fair share of stories too tell and all of them serve as a reminder not too be too curious on certain things and stuff are to be left well enough alone.
Is it ok to ask you to tell us some of these stories?
And the whole thing about skinwalkers turning into other humans is also kind of annoying.
Their whole purpose is to become animals that aren't human, this is quite literally changing their entire being...
Yeah they got that thing from Gemini, which annoys me because those aren’t even Skinwalkers, completely different they’re Woodcrawlers, they’re aliens from a fake planet that replicates the moon, and their whole thing is too shape shift into humans and living life to disguise as beings on Earth to take over the population and slowly take it down, they don’t do any witchcraft or anything they’re simple mimicking creatures
The internet basically merged Skinwalkers and Fleshgaits into one thing, even though they’re separate entities. Paired that with these new “skinwalkers” resembling traditional Crawlers. Most of these “skinwalker” stories are basically Fleshgaits and/or Crawlers
I'm pretty sure the term Fleshgait was just made up to skirt around the fact that you're not supposed to say their real name, a little bit like how people will refer to Macbeth as "The Scottish Play" because it's supposed to be bad luck to say Macbeth in a theater.
Of course going by this video "Skinwalker" isn't even a proper translation of their Navajo name so I can't help but think that if it "counts" for the purposes of the taboo so should other names made to skirt around it.
There's also the fact that "creepy pasta skinwalkers" have about as much in common with the real folklore as Taco Bell has in common with Authentic Mexican cuisine, which honestly might just make the whole thing moot altogether. That said the same can probably be said about just about any modern version of a creature from traditional folklore, heck even Bram Stoker's Dracula was pretty different from traditional vampire folklore.
@@Enixon869 Also the fact that the Navajo people refuse to talk about skinwalkers so we know very little about them. Also the “creepypasta skinwalkers” are the crawlers that I was talking about.
Fleshgaits are separate entities together. Skinwalkers, to what little we know, cannot fully turn into another person. Fleshgaits can do this. Skinwalkers do not smell like copper either, that was taken from Goatmen and Fleshgait stories.
Fleshgait is a creation of the internet.
@@baneofbanes That they are, but it is important to differentiate them between real legends and cryptids.
Fleshgait reminds me of the "skin dancers" from Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons, or Frank from Hellraiser.
Every time I listen to scary stories for entertainment, the minute someone guesses it must have been a wendigo or skinwalker I immediately roll my eyes and move on
Great video! As an Apache and Akimel O'odham from AZ I grew up pretty familiar with the traditional stories of skinwalkers and always found it weird how different the art and lore around "skinwalkers" was online. I really don't like the creepypasta-fied version even as a story, as it kind of feels like so many other generic online horror stories. The idea of real skinwalkers being cannibals, murderers, and necrophiles is much scarier to me, and I still get chills when I think of an "animal with human eyes." I'm not super religious and my family is far from "traditional" but these things are one of the very few things I'm superstitious about- I won't wear snakeskin even if I think it looks cool and I really appreciate you not saying the word aloud! Even if witchcraft isn't real and skinwalkers are just the way that cultures out here rationalized people doing heinous crimes, best not to test it out.
Thank you! I've been telling people this for years, but they act like I'm the stupid one.
my navajo ass sleeping peacefully knowing there's more non-natives on the walker's victim list than us
The internet has also bastardized the idea of the internet.
You have a point, the internet becomes worse and worse every day and has become something even the creators of it wouldn't be able to comprehend.
“Damn internet, always ruining internet…”
@@abcdef27669 Preach brotha
“Waaahhhhh, things change!”
@@SnailHatanYou are the only one crying like a bitch over an observation.
You can argue that what internet done to Skinwalkers is the same what Bran Stoker had done with vampires.
In some regions of Eastern Europe, talking about vampires is still a taboo, and the locals don’t like to answer questions about it.
Yeah but skinwalkers are "cool" and new so people wanna act all high and mighty by defending the old tales and acting like just because it's from Native Americans you can't make parody
None of these people actually care about the culture they just wanna be folklore hipsters
@@brendandonohue2398ll ive seen is people telling idiots that these arent actually skinwalkers or wendigos or X folklore creature.
I mean, how annoying do we take fortnite kids saying the Predator, or Master Chief, is from fortnite? Its about the truth and bastardization of the subject
Superstition I will never understand. I am a logical atheist.
@@sandshark2 true go ahead and preach that I ain't saying the original shouldn't be valued but I'm saying is that people that go ballistic because a dude called something a name in their story because it sounds cool doesnt matter
No one cares about parodies of religion or vampires or any other thing
So no one should care about these :/ simple as that imo
Once the fad dies nobody will be rushing to defend native American culture because it won't be hip
@@Based_Gigachad_001 bro I mean this politely shut the ever loving fuck up and cram a fucking beaker up your fedorah clad and unwashed asscrack till you taste glass
The cycle:
4chan does cool thing => becomes somewhat popular => kids find it => youtuber creates content to sell merch = RUclipsrs clickbait max by having Freddy Fazbear and Sirenhead fart on the once cool thing => total ruination as it becomes a joke
So if we kill the children...
Nothing is sacred, truely, if it sparks any interest especially taboo it will be ran into the ground which is why i dont feel bad once something is a couple million copies down to the point the ink isnt even there i think whats wrong with one more, cant ruin something already gone
What frustrates me is that the original legend leaves you with such creative freedom to use the concept but instead we get these stories
I prefer to think of these bastardized versions as 'The Fleshgait' myself. An amalgamation of what people think is scary combining aspects of the Goatman, Wendigo, Skinwalker and others
Internet user when they see disabled deer: OMG SKINWALKER IT GONNA KILL ME!!!!!
Sad part is that its kinda true
Disabled deer?
@@Based_Gigachad_001A deer with deformities
This makes me wonder how skin-walker ranch got its name when it has nothing to do with skin-walkers and more with aliens
I'm not sure which one, but there was an SCP story on Skinwalkers. Its premise was that the notion of Skinwalkers was tainted through misinformation and ignorant fear. A big part of the story was the SCP Foundation's admission that their systematic extermination of Skinwalkers was their greatest blunder and stain on their organization's history.
A Skinwalker being interviewed lambasted angrily one of the Foundation members who was descended from the Dine (or Navajo). This video kinda' reminded me of that story. The Skinwalkers were depicted as mindless monsters or men with antlers, etc. When in reality, they were actually practioners of ancient magics and medicine who had lived alongside the Native peoples since the earliest times.
So the whole point of the story was that their conception was bastardized and misrepresented; and this led to their subsequent extermination by the SCP Foundation and local millitias.
Reddit and now TikTok really do just turn everything they touch into cringe. The one you showed had to even be told to make it scary and he still didn't manage it. I want to go back to the old pre Reddit and especially pre TikTok days.
No you just wanna be a kid again.
Honestly what's sad is how instead of finding interesting cultural parallels between the various 'bad magic using shapeshifters of the world is totally lost due to the internet's obsession with Skinwalkers being, totally wrong. I.E. Europe's witches (In folklore, most witches participated in a 'wychrun' in which they, well, would turn into an animal by wearing its skin to gain power, or to turn others--similarly initiating via a witches coven created via vile acts. (please note: The idea of a modern witch is a miss-attribution due to 19th century/early 20th century poor history claiming historical pagan practices survived via a 'witch tradition' that was mostly manufactured. In truth most witch traditions come from pagan European legends and were adopted by Christianization, rather than growing out of Christian beliefs about pagan practices.) As an additional parallel, most pre-19th century Werewolf myths were also very much a form of 'witch', or often a minion of a witch given powers via the witches familiar after induction.
Similar legends are in Central America (Nagual/Nahual) Skinwalkers (Navajo) and a whole pile that I'm not going to list off across most regions of the world. They all vary based upon local traditions and fears.
The weirder one is Wendigos, because the 'internet' wendigo has a very blatant and obvious origin. It's D&D third edition's monster manual (I forget which number, it may have been fiend folio) In which a 'windygo' was a monster. An evil spirit of frozen death that drives people mad and, you guessed it, had a deer's skull. The odder parts was it was distinctly a hybrid of various folklore monsters. Such as an old American folk legend of how spirits lost in the wood would eventually go mad and 'keep running until their feet burned off' a trait it kept, as well as not keeping the cannibalistic portion. Part of this was it wasn't actually based on the Wendigo, and the name change was conscious. (It was talked about in a defunct article) it was literally 'Windy...go' as in, it 'goes in the wind' or 'comes in the wind' but the image for this monster was extremely striking. Its frost-bitten features, deer-like skull, flesh shank from frost-burn across its skin, burn stubs of legs--and you saw IMMEDIATELY people used it as a 'wendigo' image.
Witches were usually hermit women who practiced medicine and were very hygienic. The church didn't understand why they got sick during plagues and witches didn't so they accused witches of causing those plagues.
this is the most informative comment ive found under this video, thanks a ton for this. its weird because ive always understood the origins of these ideas (including the rpgified wendigo) through various youtube videos and I assumed most others knew the same. the modern interpretation of the wendigos design is so common place _because_ wotc made an analogous creature which looked incredibly unique, so I don't blame people who use a similar depiction. however the cannibalistic nature of the wendigo is so ingrained into its origins and all around interesting I dont understand why people would willingly drop it. same goes for transformstion witches, a skinwalker being an idea which falls under a much larger and widespread concept across cultures as you stated. so many interesting stories could be told using said concept, yet it just isnt as commonplace today due to a shift in these cultural depictons, ie witches and vampires.
Thank you so much for this video! I've been bothered for a long time about the entire internet's weird corruption of native american culture
So glad somebody talked about this, every single creepy thing is a fuckin skinwalker or a wendigo, internet out here ruining culture 😂 shout out to the native homies
The only thing about the internet’s manifestation of skinwalkers is the legend’s association with three Courage The Cowardly Dog theories(the first of which with skinwalkers tie to the real life house, the old couple and dog who lived there and town of ‘Truth or Consequences’, New Mexico connecting to Nowhere, aside from the Courage is a mentally unstable dog and taking place in hell theories I also adore). Still, I give a bunch of shit towards the content on YT as well as other platforms like TikTok for using cryptids and paranormal forces to attract views than anything else, and that’s saying much from a person who’s fascinated with this kind of stuff but not the content farms milking it dry, like how I’m still appalled that 3am videos still exist on RUclips despite going against their guidelines.
Remember when a creepypasta icon like Slenderman was all the rage and was popular in not only readings of the story, but it’s indie horror game that Let’s Play RUclipsrs delve into and got millions of views? The fad was right before Slenderman was no longer popular with the kids due to oversaturation, lack of relevance, the fanbase and shipping between Slenderman and Jeff the Killer(my god…) and the infamous stabbing incident from 2014 which is just plain disgusting. Slenderman was just an internet campfire tale right around the time cryptids and aliens/UFOs on the internet were a niche and still is until NASA worked on discovering other life outside Earth as of 2023. It’s a shame some lunatics had to ruin them, especially skinwalkers in a similar vein to Animal Planet’s cryptozoology “documentaries” during their slight network decay from 2009-2018.
Happy to see this video, not enough people talk about about this.
Sacrow is sorta the glowing light in the creepy pasta community. Surround by the dark it is both welcoming and sad. I really like your videos Sacrow, they are really nostalgic!
lately, the whole wendigo and skinwalker lores not only get mixed up but also get brought up into ghost hunter channels, diluting/mingling or creating whole new lore for the mythology, along with uniquely creepypasta creatures getting dragged into their lores as well, making for a whole Frankenstein mess of real folklore.
I actually was one of the people that was misinformed about skinwalker lore. I was planning to write a villain into a story I was making who was a skinwalker. When I heard it might be offensive to some, I went on reddit and respectfully asked if it was and why. I proceeded to get absolutely blasted by comments calling me "stupid", "insensitive", and a "dumb American". I felt awful and deleted the post soon after. I never meant any form of malice, I was just ignorant and wanted to educate myself to make sure I didn't offend anyone. Obviously I scrapped the idea, but now I'm really aware of just how badly skinwalkers have been tainted by internet culture. Thanks for making this video, and hopefully less people will make similar mistakes.
how would a non-american get offended by that. skinwalkers are a navajo thing, don't exist any place else.
@@tyj9175 🤷♀
Its Reddit. Its full of "intellectuals" who talk like they are in a movie.
Im really sorry you had to go through that.
@@tyj9175 not just navajo, pretty much every tribe has an equivalent.
@@medb1996all cultures have myths about witches and the like.
As a Navajo it’s always funny seeing/hearing people tell me their depiction and experiences with a skinwalker… it’s always so outlandish and far from what the Navajo folklore is
ten times out of ten its probably just a crackhead,
@@poloclubb if its on the east coast its definitely a crackhead, rust belt moment
I live right next to the Navajo Reservation. My mom's friend (who lives on the res and yes, she's Navajo) was distressed as a known skinwalker in the area had dug up the grave of a relative's baby that had died. The skinwalker took the baby's bones and ground them up into a 'death powder'. I'm rather annoyed with how the internet's bastardized them.
Have u ever seen one? Or ur mom?
It’s my understanding of the folklore that they don’t literally change into an animal, they wear the skins to gain the abilities of the animal. They are still people just practicing “dark magic” or “bad medicine” and carrying out acts of evil
Glad that this is being brought up but people also have to remember that as time progresses, tales, legends and myths slowly change as well and from one era to the next and nothing is truly permanent. Back in the times of the Native Americans their tales and myths must’ve derived from something that wasn’t how we currently consider “accurate” depictions of said creatures this is a process that has and will repeat itself for as long as culture and storytelling exists. As someone who studies history I appreciate both depictions for what they are and what they depict, there is more than enough room for us to enjoy both depictions of this legend.
Americans mad at Americans for partaking in American mythos
@@scurvyswashbucklingDMI mean, its more like historically (and continually) oppressed people groups being mad at their historical (and continual) oppressors take their legends and taboos and turn them into trendy stories that bastardize the legends mainly as a source of amusement. I doubt they'd mind as much if they weren't mistreated and exploited so much in the past and today.
@@RonnieNichols you aren't wrong in all senses, but madness, sadness and anger are irrelevant in the face of basic human societal storytelling behaviors (whether that is good or bad is a subjective point). Again, the Americans are yelling at the other Americans because Americans ruined America.
@@scurvyswashbucklingDM your point would be better if "american" was actually a single unified group, rather than a bunch of smaller groups made up primarily of people who were and/or are oppressed, and those who either used to, still do, or didn't but benefit from said oppression.
@@RonnieNichols Do you agree that, irrelevant of outcry or denial, that people (who you deem to somehow oppress in someway, who ever that is, and/or gain benefit from that oppression, whatever that is) will acquaint themselves with, live around, or otherwise converse with people (who you deem to be somehow oppressed in someway, by group number one), and, in doing so, will aide in the creation, manipulation, and change of folk tales (those being tales told among people, irrelevant of social stature or oppression) over time, and that this entire process will very rapidly be sped up by a worldwide interconnected network?
Monsters gets distorted over time by other cultures its natural. Vampiers didnt turn into bats they didn't just have two fangs they were also describe more as a bloated corpse rather then pale and skeletal and before Bram Stoker no one thought of Vlad Tepesh as a vampier there were notorious vampires but non of them were him. Heres another example, the Koblod is litteraly just the German word for Goblin thats what they were Goblins but you ask an English speaker and they'll tell you a Kobold is either a hyena person or a small lizard person that worships dragons non if that is true but its a cool creature so people like it. And my finaly example Zombies, Zombies were dead people brought back by voodo magic to be basically slaves with no free will non of that infecting people or being spread by a virus or causing an apocolips or any other modern Zombie shenanigans but do i see people complain about that? No because the modern zombie is a scary monster and a cool concept that srung from the original hailtian legend. Dose it suck when people bastardise your cultures monster? Yes, I come from Serbia the place were Vampiers originated and I still feel a twinge of annoyance at what they've become however, those changes only occurred because of how intriguing foring people found the original monster its something to be proud of sure it may not be accurate to the original descriptions of it but its still meant to be your cultures monster and now almost everyone around the world knows about it. And most importantly there is NOTHING stoping you from creating a story, movie, series, game, drawing ect. With a Wedigo or Skin walker or Vampier or Koblod or any other monster that you know has been changed over time, in which said monster, is accurate to the original folktale!!! You can do it no knes stopping you but you will never be able to stop anyone else from doing their own spin on things and you just have to live with that.
The random ass fawn staring at the guy from his porch outside is unironically the scariest shit in this video 😭
I never knew much about Skinwalkers. I thought they were completely something different. This video popped up in my feed and I’ve always been interested in this kind of stuff. Hearing the story of the man with the dream of the coyotes freaked me out horribly.
I live in Oklahoma. A larger area for Native Americans, not Navajo, but other tribes. I specifically live in Comanche area, I don’t if the Comanche tribe has a big thing with Skinwalker’s, and I’m no where near being Native American myself.
To give some context, I work on an Oil rig, I’ll be home for 14 days and off work for 14 days. On my 14 days off I was at home, I still live with my parents as I’m only 19. My parents were out of town, they go to a casino about an hour away and spend weekends up there. It was around 11 PM at night and I just turned everything off to go to bed. Laying in the dark I hear coyotes off in the distance. I don’t think any turn of it as we hear coyotes around all the time, I live on 15 acres of country out in the middle of no where, About 15 minutes from my nearest town.
A couple minutes later the howling is closer, still tho I’m not thinking anything of it. Then a little bit later even closer… I mean right on the outside of my property close. I’m now thinking that’s unusually strange for them. We have neighbors nearby with dogs that will go crazy if coyotes were this close. But I don’t hear any dogs barking, as a matter of fact it’s very quiet outside. No more crickets, it seemed even the wind went away. I close my eyes trying not to think anything of it. Then another howl. Right out by my house’s well house. We use well water out here, and about 30 yards from my window is our well house.
After hearing this I am well freaked out and awake. I’m laying as still as I can as I feel pure fear in my chest. Trying not to even breath. I want to turn my light on but for some reason something in my bones was preventing me from even moving.
Another howl, except this time I don’t even know how to describe it. It was so distorted I could barely recognize it was even a howl at all. I’m petrified at this point, I just heard something definitely not from our normal state of earth. Just a few seconds later, the howling was right outside of my window, under my wrap around porch, I could hear something walking, no not walking, scraping and crawling on the cement foundation of the porch. At this point I crawl off my bed and go into my closet where I keep a single shot 20-gauge shotgun with a whole box of shells. I sit in my closet, in my underwear for a good five minutes as this continuous horrific noise goes on for what felt like inhumanly too long for me.
Finally it stopped, the wind apparently came back. But still no animals, no noise other than the wind for the rest of the night.
Oddly enough later that night I hear Black Hawk helicopters flying and circling over my house.
Which isn’t too out of the ordinary as I live close to Ft. Sill, and the national guard will do routine flying missions at night over my family’s property. But it did stir fear back in my heart as why that night? Why that night did they have to fly circles around my house?
The next morning I waited all day for my parents to get home. I tried calling my brother but my phone wouldn’t call out to him. Just “call failed”. Then my girlfriend tried to call me. “Call failed” even if I answered it. I tried calling my cousin, same thing. My phone just seemingly had an aneurism and wasn’t working anymore. I had to get a completely new one.
I chalked it up to some weird radio frequency I heard as I’m a good 3 miles away from a radio tower. But I did notice a deer skull had been hung on my driveway’s barbed wire fence line. Right on a T-post. We do have a shared driveway, the neighbors could’ve put it up. Still scared the shit out of me.
That is wild and scary asf. Glad you're okay brother 🙏🏽
@@BarHawadon’t jinx him
gemini home entertainment's "skinwalkers" are actually woodcrawlers, but the people working at the family camp don't know that
Rad video. Exactly what I needed for another late-nite dinner, after work. Truly dig your channel. I'm shocked you didn't have the recent video with the guy filming while his friend drove & the "skinwalker" ran alongside them - it was in a city.
FINALLY SOMEONE'S TALKING ABOUT THIS, GOOD CHRIST
Finally someone covered this topic, I would also like to add how many times skinwalkers are often confused with fleshgaits while being similar they have big differences
I honestly don’t care about this too much. 4Chan skinwalkers were my first introduction to the idea of a shapeshifting humanoid monster that hunts people and is immune to low caliber bullets. Maybe that’s kinda disrespectful to natives in a sense but as far as I can tell skinwalkers in green texts tend to be pretty distinct entities only partially inspired by folklore. I’m sure tiktok and Twitter have watered down these things to certain extent because they’ve taken the sort of long game of internet telephone but personally I really enjoy some of the more modern skinwalker stuff.
aren't the cretures in gemini home entertainmen called wood crawlers?
I know the trends dead but whats the possibility of more iceberg videos? I really like to listen to those while working out or just chilling.
they called that werewolf alien in ben 10 yenaldooshi i never knew that was another word for skinwalker
One creature the skinwalker (along with the wendigo and goat man) inspired is the Fleshgait, which was basically a fusion of the three and is all the things the internet wants the three to be.
It's interesting to think of how common play these stories of people supposedly running into supernatural things just by going into a random forest has become. Considering also how a lot of these stories are very US centric (down to pilfering from various native peoples cultures to create just boogeymen of the week, though that sadly isn't a US only ugly habit), makes me somewhat also confused as to why are forests in the US somehow such "mystical nexuses" in the minds of many? It seems very rare for a story to point out they aint from the US if it takes place in a dark forest. Can't help but also wonder if with there being a big ol wave of anti-scientific thinking and sentiment going on, will there be an unholy wedding of that plus "forest monsters go bump in the night" sort of thinking occurring sooner or later.
Not that I don't find the idea of groups of grown people shivering in fear of the woodland monsters somewhat an entertaining premise. But probably best not have large groups of folk start believing there are supernatural things running around in forests to the degree simply stepping into them is enough to have an encounter. As surely if it was that easy, these would be quite easy phenomena to study and already be known factors. Any randos running around with cameras catching glimpses of spooky monsters means more qualified folk would easily start documenting them for study.
Because western cultures in general often see the wilderness as something to be feared.
Which to be fair it is. The wilds are dangerous, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.
American culture is just extremely dominant in the world and especially on the internet, doubly so if the only language you speak is English, as the US is the largest native Anglophone country.
No people just like telling scary stories about mythical creatures. Also if you go anywhere around the world you will probably find a couple of legends about the forests near you.
I'm not sure if this is a complete answer to why so many US Americans find the forests creepy, but it might be a partial one. Growing up in the US the main places I'd hear scary stories as a kid were sleepovers, and around a campfire when camping. For the sleepovers we'd read creepy stories out of books, and they'd have a variety of settings, but when camping the settings were almost exclusively forests. The exact forest you were camping in, even. Having the idea of a killer just beyond the tree line in the darkness was terrifying as a kid, and the stories supposedly having happened right where you were camping made it all feel a lot more real. I imagine even if you don't go camping the stories get passed around completely seperated from the added theatrics of actually being around a campfire, and the forest setting has just become a common part of scary stories in the US.
As a personal example, I was in Girl Scouts, and the camp I went to had a story of a pyromaniac arson girl named Cindy. She also sometimes had a chainsaw depending on who was telling the story. The counselors would point to an old cooking shelter that looked like it might have burn damage and say something about Cindy being the culprit. When you asked questions they'd then promise to tell you the story around the campfire at night. The story went that she burned down her cabin killing her fellow campers, as well as herself. After her death she roamed the woods looking for her next target. With her love of fire she'd be drawn to the campfires lit by campers at nightfall. She may even be just out of sight in the trees behind us, waiting to snag her next victim. Inevitably, while sitting around the fire something would then rustle in the darkness, somebody would say "it's Cindy!" and we'd shriek and huddle together.
I'll say this much. That goat video is a goat being a goat. They're just weird like that.
I think of it less of corruption and ruining and more as internet culture growing and changing as it usually does. Its important to keep in mind where the inspirations for these neo-skinwalker/wendigo tales originally were based in American mythos as well as similar stories from around the world mixing creating something new
The issue is that most people are unaware of the fact the "neo-skinwalker" is basically its own thing.
Thus why the term "corruption" KINDA fits.
@@fotismanolopoulos1098 It is a shame that its lost its original identity in the mass public. My family is Yucatec so k’uk’ulkan is almost a lost name in media. Many people prefer Quetzalcoatl and call it a sun god. Its really the god of life and storms with Knich Ahau being combined with k’uk’ulkan in modern media
still corruption though, as they aren't just some fairytale. they're real things part of real people's cultures. people who had their culture erased super badly.
It isn't erased though, people can still read old legends and tales of the original Skinwalkers. What has happened is natural for almost every culture's legends and myths. It is changing it's shape due to new cultures telling stories that are a little different every time.
@@chocomelo454 =I don't want to have to be the guy to tell you this, but skinwalkers aren't actually real.
Why did I watch this at 2 am knowin damn well I’m gonna have a nightmare when I fall asleep
The Web has a boner for all things Uncanny Valley lately. Goatmen, Dogmen, Gaymen, you know, all the cryptids. Basically the fleshgait.
I use the internet regularly, and have never encountered this trend.
It's probably just a niche that some random 20-somethings picked up on and used to get views from easily scared children.
@@checkoffgamesno it’s been pretty common for quite a while now.
My favorite thing about skinwalkers is how they are completely against destructive entry. It doesn't matter how thin your glass panes are, as long as you lock the door, you're fine! You could put a Cheeto in the deadbolt, and the skinwalker would walk away.
In my culture we also have a shape shifting beast called Nagual/Nahuals. This beast is limited in its shape shifting powers as it can only shift into its own animal counterpart. It’s similar in theme to the skin walkers/goat man stories.
21:49 I love Che Jim! He has great horror short films, Don’t Let Me In gives me chills every time. He also has horror comedy videos that are just jokes. He’s indigenous and lives in the Appalachian region.
Thank you for the well researched intro. Always bugged me how things are appropriated by pop culture. It can be hard to get a solid information on skin walkers since the Dine (what the Navajo people call themselves) people are very mum about it. Part superstitious as to not draw their attention and thus their hexes and partially because its a need to know thing. And outsiders don’t need to know.
11:51 that is La Mancha goat its ears are so small that they look like they don't have ears.
While I can somewhat understand the frustration of how the internet can bastardize things. This is one where while it may be sad, it's something that can and will happen same with ANY folklore given time and exposure so I can't say I feel at all bad about it.
Humans tell stories and stories shift and change, there's zero point in trying to "protect" old legends by preventing shift in how it's shown in media
The best way to maintain the original version isn't lost, isn't to insult and demean those who are only aware of the modern versions but to actually make content about the old versions to ....ya know expose it to new audiences
But eh, acting like your superior and going "ACTUALLY THE WENDIGO DOESNT HAVE DEER LIKE FEATURES AHAHAHAHAHA" like those people that only drink Absinthe and watch black and white films is way easier and much more pleasing to the ego
It’s so annoying that any creature that is tall and pale-white-gray is automatically called a skinwalker when skinwalkers are literally nothing like that.
24:55
In defense of that decision, what you described in the earlier in the video sounds a lot like the very old European legends about Werewolves. Down to it being a form of Witch that eats human flesh. Biggest difference is no one's selling their soul for the power to shapeshift, and there doesn't seem to be a Devil figure involved.
The similiarities are downright remarkable, but I guess it can be chalked up to parallel anxieties, of wild animals, your fellow man and degradation of civility in general.
I can't listen to the XP startup sound without thinking of Sciencephile the AI
I once heard a youtuber say "Skinwalkers are basically alternates from The Mandela Catalogue" and I almost cried
The Navajo don’t even use the word.
wow really whats next english comes from england?
Correct. They call them the Yee Naaldlooshii.
Occording to randos on the internet, any dog that has a "weird face" is automatically a skinwalker. Granted some of these are memes, but then there's people in those forums and social media comments that are dead serious
It just seems like Reddit, Tiktok, Twitter, and 4chan's X have pretty much ruined what made the concept of a Skinwalker scary to even adults.
The Wendigo is a whole other can of frozen worms
The Internet ruined skinwalkers what was a piece of culture now reduced to something dumb kids call enything that looks weird
Good channel, hope it continues to grow
If you're up to it, I'd love to see a similar video about wendigos
Rabbies exist*
Humans : "SKIN WALKER" ☕
As a native myself I am glad this video was made
On the navajo rez, you cannot mention the S name. It is terrible luck and bad energy. Those trying to look them may say they believe in the S name. But they wouldn't be seeking them out if they did believe in them.
Its kinda shitty how the internet turned native legends that are different to each tribe to some stupid ass horror story and not a legend that many take seriously and treat with respect >:/
Happens to every culture. You think the Greeks wanted the Kraken to turn into a joke?
@@Based_Gigachad_001I want to facepalm as hard as I can right now, I swear...
The kraken isn't a Greek myth, it's Scandinavian in origin, and probably referred to giant squid or similar sorts of creature sightings. The only reason it is associated with Greece at all is because of the clash of the titans movie.
@@RonnieNichols Lol. People making stuff up online. A tale as old as time.
@@Based_Gigachad_001 What are you talking about? You're the one who thought krakens were greek bc of a movie lmao
@@adrianisawaffle_738 When did I say that? I thought Kraken was Greek because of GOW.
huh. I've always hated the skinwalker as just a generic shapeshifter, but learning the proper folklore of it, it's much more interesting then I realized. Sadly a lot of cool monsters get their most interesting traits shaved off.
"The first time skinwalkers appeared in media was on THE X-FILES." ???
If by "media" you mean "TV," then maybe. But Tony Hillerman published SKINWALKERS (a novel) in 1986 --- long before the X-Files. Hillerman did a lot to popularized Navajo culture amongst the masses. It would not surprise me even a little if Hillerman's novel was the inspiration for the X-Files episode.
Hillerman's books are great. IIRC there's an incident with a self-proclaimed "skinwalker" (quotes there because he's really just a murderer, but he believes he's a skinwalker and keeps a skin with him anyway) hunting one of the leads that's one of the only times the novels that something which could be interpreted as supernatural occurs. The guy tracks someone (Chee, I think) who's hiding, and knows where they're hiding IMMEDIATELY after finding a single track left far away from the hiding spot...crossing over hardened rocks and among a set of pueblos that honestly he could've been hiding in any of.
I tend to believe that the times animals act weird and people think they're skinwalkers could easily be an animal with something like Rabies or CWD (or some other prion disease)
Edit: YAY Gemini rep, one of the best analog horror series ever.
yeah no. rabies and prion diseases are incredibly rare. animals act weird sometimes just bc they’re weird. when someone describes wildlife going completely silent, that’s usually because the animals sensed a predator
@@misseselise3864 rabies is extremely common who told you it isn't
@@misseselise3864Rabies is EXTREMELY common. We just don't usually encounter the animals that carry it on a day-to-day basis
But can it be considered that the "corrupted" skinwalkers can be a separate entity to the original? I think they can because they're so different now they share a basic concept and name only. I think it's important to make that distinction between the original and unrelated new stuff. I think the original will hold more sway and longevity, always, than the new fad ones. The internet skinwalkers will fade and die out. But the legend will most definitely remain.
I think of them like a creature named after skinwalkers for their percieved similarities, like how romero zombies are named after voodoo zombies despite having little in common with them
I lo e skinwalkers, the original Navajo folklore I mean. Witches and medicinemen that turned evil, it makes for great cautionary tales.
But I do think we look at the shape-shifting thing a bit too literally, and from what I could gather the Navajo tend to think of it as a more mental transformation as well... I just wish more people looked at it like that instead of "my dog is acting weird, must be a skin walker"
@Sacrow would you be interested in hearing stories from my Navajo grandma about skinwalkers? I will have to ask if she is up for it, but she lived on the res for years and has stories.
Again it might not work out because she might not want to share about it, but I will have to ask her to know or sure though.
I have a complicated feeling towards how Wendigos and skinwalkers have "Evolved" recently. But I'll make it short, to say the least.
I like Wendigo's new design but I would like it if people knew that's not how they look, and for skinwalkers, I don't like how we have butchered such a creature and yet we've kept the Wendigo the same just the appearance and some details have been adjusted. I am fine with people changing how something looks, but I would like them to note that "Oh yea, wendigos don't actually look like tall people with antlers but creepy ice ghouls." and for skinwalkers, I need someone to just come out and say "No you idiots they aren't ghost entities or some interdimensional creatures, just killers that wear the skin of animals they chose to turn into."
This has been my Ted Talk, have a good night.
Angels, demons, golems, vampires etc etc in popular culture are nothing like their origin. This isnt an internet thing, it is a completely normal human thing that has and will always happen.
Ridiculous to complain about lol
As a Navajo person, I appreciate this video
I am by no means an Aboriginal American or even an American, but I find disgusting as well just plain weird the way in which the internet and culture as a whole has corrupted the folklore (true or not) around it. It is even worse when you consider how often media or so-called 'true-stories' veer so off the, albeit limited to the outside world, information regarding them. I just don't get the perverse fascination with them outside of its original cultures. It's exoticism at it's worst
The GENTRIFICATION* of skinwalkers
Imagine being some old Navajo man with a life full of unfair hardships out of your control and some pimply white doofus asks you about shape shifting murder monsters for 3 and a half hours
Agreed. He'd get mad as well when pimply black doofus asks him the same thing as well and pimply brown doofus and the asian doofus
And you're a race baiting doofus pangloss6413
Imagine being so low iq you think pocs aren't involved or post stories bastardizing native cultures doofus
"Some" old navajo man? Is that what those ppl are? Just some group for you to use in your disdain of another race? Ur not navajo I bet just an egotistic clown who thinks you're standing up for navajao
@@alicianorayan7646 this is extremely relevant to what I'm saying
To be fair changing to fit the modern day is what all good legends do