Why I don’t watch ghost hunting shows

I love a good ghost story. Especially a haunted house story. And they’re even better when they’re real. I love going on ghost tours, or just reading about an encounter that cannot be explained. A good local ghost story will get me up to 11 every time. 

What I don’t love is ghost hunting shows. And let me tell you why.

(As a quick aside, I do like Buzzfeed Unsolved. I love Ryan and Shane’s new company, Watcher. None of what I’m about to say applies to them.)

They’re performative

Yes, I understand that these are shows, meant for entertainment. I would expect any show like that to be performative because they are there to, duh, perform. But this is an issue I have with reality tv in general. It’s hard to believe that anything is real when we know the participants are fully aware that the camera is on them.

Too often I’ll see ‘professional ghost hunters’ lose their minds over some small supernatural occurrence. Things that I feel like they’ve seen hundreds of times. So why are they so amazed today? 

Because it plays better. 

There’s often a fair amount of infighting on these shows as well. The ghost hunters often have the sorts of relationships that make you wonder why in the hell they’re working together to start with. Often this has less to do with their bad partner choices and more to do with producers hyping up drama where none exists.

By the way, you can make good tv without that. Mythbusters was on for over a decade without that kind of drama. And, fun fact, Jamie and Adam did not get along. But they were God damned professionals who didn’t act like children. 

And a bad working relationship might not be all these shows are faking.

They probably fake things

Do I know this for sure? No, of course not. Do I want to get sued? Not at all, I have no money. So am I going to say for sure that all ghost hunting shows besides Buzzfeed Unsolved fake footage? No, that would be an unprofessional and ludicrous thing to say without proof. 

What I will say is that they often portray footage that seems suspect. Things that look very convincing, and make you wonder how they could ever fake it. But then you watch a video from Captain Dissolution, and you see how they very much could fake it. 

I will also say that catching actual evidence of ghosts on camera would be amazingly difficult and change how we see the world forever. So maybe if a ghost hunting show is claiming that they do this regularly, that claim should be taken with a grain of salt.

They’re exploitative

This is something I take issue with in all reality tv. Far too often, we see people in their worst moments on this kind of content. 

Especially in the shows that do ‘house calls’, we see people who are confused and scared. We might see them making fools of themselves. We might even just see them saying things and making decisions that they might not otherwise. 

And the producers of these sorts of shows have no problem shoving cameras in the faces of distraught people. It’s sick, honestly. If I were to watch a real person on a show, rather than an actor, I’d like to see the best of humanity.

Not the worst.

Quiet Apocalypse is available now for preorder on Amazon and Smashwords. Premiers Friday, May 13th.

The end of the world began with a winter storm.
Sadie’s quiet life is interrupted when a tree crushes the roof of her attic apartment. She’s forced to move to a smaller apartment in the building. Then, her aunt guilts her into clearing an ouija board of a particularly irritating spirit.
But it wasn’t just the roof that was broken by the tree. There was something trapped within the building, waiting. Waiting to wake and bring about the end of the world.
Not with screams, but with silence