Rumors, hoaxes and myths of the week, then I tell you how to sort through it

I need a name for these weekly wrapups of activity. Suggestions?

Good week for crossovers. My post on Slenderman (Slender Man?) did well with the paranormal crowd. I’ll be working with some experts to develop another piece on this relating to pop culture. Looking forward to doing that.

I was able to connect with the local Bigfoot investigation group after a rumor broke that a Bigfoot was shot near Altoona. Turned out to be a bust. As is typical. The Bigfoot community is especially awash with hoaxes to the point that you can not take anything serious. I wrote about this for Huffington Post. That post got many positive comments and was passed on via social media. I was happy to see that. It’s really important to pass on things you like so they reach the maximum audience. Nothing is as depressing as doing a lot of work and having it go no where.

Therefore, I’m thinking about book projects…

Slender Man – We made him and his family what they are today

I can’t recall when I first heard about Slender Man but since he was only created in 2009, it must have been relatively recently. He is, however, one of those characters that you would SWEAR has been around for a much longer time and has a history. The truth is, he was created by an imaginative mind and he just worked.

I was listening to It’s A Thing, the conveniently-sized podcast by two of my favorite Tech reporters – Tom Merritt and Molly Wood. It’s a trend-spotting show. Tom’s thing was ‘Slender Man’ which he heard about from some kid. Slender Man is a “thing” indeed.

(The) Slender Man was born from a photo editing contest on the Something Awful web forums in 2009 when “Victor Surge” submitted for evaluation two images of groups of children with a tall, thin, creepy faceless dude in a black suit. For effect, the submitter added a story to go along with it establishing that the figure brings death and bad luck.

Something’s not right about that thing in the back left

Along with his stretchy, tentacle-like arms and hairless pate, whatever more you need to know about Slender Man can be found here at Know Your Meme, at the Slender Man Wiki, and on this adorable video.

I get tweets: What fringe subject is worthy of investigation?

I read every tweet and email and take them into consideration, answer or discard as necessary. I got a tweet yesterday that prompted me to write this post first thing when I woke up this AM. Here is is:

[W]hat fringe subject do you think is worth serious investigation? Obviously, it isn’t Bigfoot.

It’s a good question to answer considering that this person sees me as a “skeptic” (in the way they perceive “skeptic”) and apparently sees me as at least a bit dismissive of Bigfoot research. Perhaps this person only sees my opinion in dribs and drabs across the internet and has picked up that I don’t particularly like the field of Bigfootery these days. I’m not sure who could – it’s full of unprofessional, money-grabbing, sham research. Hoaxing is rampant and the “evidence” presented daily on certain websites is worthless.

Yes, I’m negative on Bigfoot research. No doubt. But there are two items that need to be clarified. Since Twitter is a poor media for such discussion and I could not point to something I’d written already or an interview I did that wasn’t really long and too much to hand out and say “read this”, I’m writing it here.

First thing: All fringe subjects are worth of investigation. Observations deserve explanation.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Skeptic

Another busy week!

The Huffington Post piece on hoaxes last week seemed to get good circulation, especially among paranormal folks JUUUUST a bit fed up with empty promises and lousy endings. I’m working on a followup on hoaxing these days.

I also got some promotions for my last post, on paranormal politics. That was sort of a brain dump. Got me thinking. Hope it helped others. I was so glad to see people like America’s Most Haunted (radio show) promote it. That was gratifying.

Kitty’s new piece triggered me to set up this facebook page

Your Friendly Neighborhood Skeptic

and, so far, it’s ALSO getting a good response, filling up with nice people who just want to talk about paranormal stuff and explore. Come on over, post some positive links.

Paranormal politicking

My interests are in paranormal topics, coalition building, policy, and problem solving. Having visited the paranormal side on several occasions, I’m one of those skeptics that is not hated or despised by those that disagree with the “skeptical” scene. Distilled rom those interests, one of my goals is to find a way to interact effectively with the paranormal community and maybe come up with new ways of doing things. In order to do that, you can’t just jump in and expect change. It’s complicated so I try to explore the issues.

That serves as an introduction to an introduction…

I started reading Jeremy Northcote’s The Paranormal and the Politics of Truth: A Sociological Account. It’s already marked up from when I referred to it for my thesis project but it was time I read it through. Odd that sometimes you pick up a book years later and it resonates with you in a completely different way from the first encounter with it, thanks to life experience and current events.

So, I digested the introduction and I found some zinger ideas that I wanted to write down and contemplate anyway so I might as well share them and see how everyone feels about it (in consideration of my propensity to be collaborative).

The following are notes and ideas taken from the Introduction, pages 1-11.

There are other “Sharon Hills” in the world

The most well-known is a place in PA that I MUST visit someday.

But, I do have my own Wikipedia page now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_A._Hill

Thank you to Susan Gerbic and Nathan Miller. Guerrilla Skepticism

[Heh - apparently this caused some problems... (disambiguation)]

All my stuff is here.

From The Amazing Meeting, Las Vegas, 2012

Meaning of monsters (Review of a trio of books)

I’m in a reading phase. I have 168 on the list of books I have and need to read. I recently got through three and here are my impressions. They sort of have a monster theme. From imaginary/real to some people think are real to YES ABSOLUTELY REAL AND IN MY BASEMENT!

I heard the author of Monsters in America (Poole, 2011) interviewed on Monster Talk and knew I had to get the book. It was not like any monster book or any history book I have read before. Monsters are complicated. This book expresses that. It’s not so simply to just trace the roots of the folklore, the monsters are ever changing in response to how we need to use them. The research that went into this book is outstanding and deserves to be in every monster-lovers library (cryptozoology or horror fan). It’s not the easiest read because of the density of information but because I love this stuff, I had no trouble plowing through it quickly. I learned a lot of new stuff. While I won’t always agree exactly with the interpretations, this is a great mind-opening array of ideas that helped me understand American pop culture a bit more deeply.

I’m just expressing my views. All (or no) apologies.

This week I had a dispute with someone who did not like what I wrote. The week before, I overreacted to something someone else wrote on Twitter. The important part in this post is how the misunderstandings arose: assumptions about your audience. So often, it is that.

When I write at the various places I write – paranormal or skeptics sites, or for the general public – I’m very conscious of my audience. What do they already know and what is their viewpoint of the world? I have to tailor my talks too – for background, experience, age, etc. But that’s hard to get completely right because you never know if some expert or some complete newbie is in the audience and your words or actions fall short, sail overhead or explode with unintended casualties.

I got blasted by a speaker who assumed that everyone in the audience was sympathetic to her view. She assumed we all knew her background and, perhaps because we had chosen to be there, were supporters.

Never assume.

There are critics everywhere.

When you put yourself out in the public eye such as being a speaker at a conference, talking on any media, on the internet, or publicly on Facebook or Twitter, you should not be surprised that something won’t sit well with someone. For opinionated people who like to share, this happens every month. Maybe every week or every day.

As many skeptics have pointed out, disagreement with your views does not mean I don’t like you as a person, or that I’m your enemy, or that I’m a bad person, or that I’m deliberately out to get you. It’s not character assassination to express disagreement or to point out an error. I am not out to be nasty, just to express my view.

It’s hard to milk an angel and we’re all going to hell

I like to keep busy.

I did another paranormal-themed podcast this week. It went well – we discussed bridging the divide between the camps. That seems to come up a lot. It won’t be out for a week or two so I’ll keep mum about it. But I do like doing those. We should ALL be up for the challenge, both sides, to refine our own views.

I have a new piece out on Huffington Post. In this one, I take the Bigfoot mystery mongerers to task again. but it’s not just them, it was all media. Including the Huff Po! It was almost too good NOT to hype this story, but they failed in focusing on the interesting real story. I also touched on that in my podcast interview. I’m interested in the ANSWER more than the mystery. Which side are you on?

A new venue that I am pleased to be appearing at is Paranormal Pop Culture. My piece is a little different than what Aaron normally puts up. After a rocky start on Twitter, Aaron and I are now friends. We are going to disagree. A lot. But we are both very reasonable people. Again, challenge your views. It can only make them better. So, he was willing to put up my review of a skeptical convention, NECSS, in contrast to the other types of events he covers. I am very grateful.

In contrast, I have a somewhat controversial post up on Sounds Sciencey – a more detailed review of the paranormal conference I attended. I’ve gotten two thumbs down on the way I portrayed people. Sorry, but this is the way I interpreted it. And, I think I did not mischaracterize things. People really said this stuff. If I didn’t have all in the information or the speaker didn’t have enough time, then, as usually happens, not everyone is going to be approving of the talk. I did have some problems with a few things that were said, but I doubt other “skeptics” at a para-con would 1) even try to listen, and 2.) be as gentle as I was. I did not want to disparage anyone, not all talks can be stellar, but, in general, I pointed out the differences you would see between meetings of this nature from the opposite communities.

As far as I know, I’m not sure this has ever happened before – reviewing a skeptic convention on a paranormal site and a paranormal convention on a skeptic site both out within a day of each other. If anyone has done that before, you need to let me know. Because it’s DAMN hard. Either I made enemies on both sides today or I made some people soften up on either end of the spectrum. The latter outcome was my goal. Maybe I just confused everyone. When you strive to be in the middle, you have to turn and face one side at a time, it may appear you have turned your back on the other.

Don’t forget to visit Doubtful News everyday. Sometimes commenters have better ideas than me.

See everything else at my Flavors page.

This week’s Virtual Skeptics was a buffet of news goodness. Check it out. That’s where the crazy title comes from. I don’t know how these things happen… they just do.

If empathy is wrong, I don’t want to be right

It’s been a downer week. I feel, like many others, that I need to withdraw from the insanity going on in the news. If you notice this week’s Virtual Skeptics (linked below), we are all kind of frustrated and down. There are ups and there are downs. That’s life.

I care what people think of me. Personal criticism by people I admire does sting but I try to improve. But this post is different. This is me, it’s who I am and in this case I don’t particularly care what people think about it. I’m just sharing a piece of me. We’re all people first and people are complicated.

I don’t get people who are right now reveling in Schadenfreude – joy in the misfortune of others (Brian Dunning right now and Mr. Randi a little while back.) That’s sickening to me and I actually think less of you as a person because of it. Why is it that people feel they have to give an opinion and comment on everything and that it should be taken seriously? Why so quick to discard all the good someone has done for something not directly related? It makes me wonder how you get along in the world at all – we all screw up, we all make mistakes. Do you punish everyone on a permanent basis whom you feel has screwed up? How short-sighted and shallow of you.

For those of you who call me a “bad skeptic” I don’t care. My work stands for itself. Opinions are like… well, you know. Opinions from several that I used to admire have ceased to be important to me now. I don’t even read that stuff. My goals are not the same as yours. I don’t see the world the same. I won’t be in the audience of the latest performance of outrage theatre that is just designed to gain attention for the performer. It’s been unconstructive and divisive. It’s not necessary or desirable to spout your opinion about everything to everyone. You begin to sound like Rush Limbaugh – a big bag of hot air. Go do something worthwhile that appeals to the public. WHAT A CONCEPT! Try it for a change.