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171: Cryptic Creatures of the New Age
59 Plays3 months ago
Welcome back cryptic crew, we are ringing in the New Year with some New Age Cryptids!
Some are classic-inspired cryptids, others more “fakelore”, as Kelsey will tell us where that term came from, and about some of the creepiest of the creepy-pasta creatures. Slenderman, also the AI-created cryptid, Momo, we rounded up the best Internet horror-shows in her segment!
To cap off the piles of creeps, Alanna retaliates with the Ouija board demon, the connection to an ancient Babylonian wind demon, and the Exorcist! Hope to heck this does not haunt any of us, we are so sorry for saying these cursed named so much in one episode! Clutch a crystal or something, maybe. Can’t hurt!
Promo of the week: Ye Olde Crime, hosted by Lindsay and Madison-we love these gals and this show, so if you like a little history or historical crime, check them out! 10/10! Maybe start at our collab episode!
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Transcript
Introduction & Routine Struggles
00:00:00
Speaker
Darkcast Network, indie pods with a dark side.
00:00:26
Speaker
You are listening to Castles and Cryptids where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as fuck. And I'm your host, Alanna. And I'm Kelsey. And Gordo the Cat may or may not be heard on mic as he's intermittently been heard as we begun this recording. Yeah, he's cuddled right up into me um as we record.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, there was a little in the background just now. He really wants to be a star. We're not trying to make him the center of the attention. But no. oh Born to be a diva.
00:01:07
Speaker
um Kelsey's cat and welcome back. We hope you all have a good Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy catmas. Whatever you guys do. ah Recording on.
00:01:26
Speaker
New Year's Day. Yeah, we're a little behind. It's fine. I remembered making the post and being like, okay, we're going to have a new episode next week and it's cryptids. And then like, I was like, oh shoot, I got to like type those notes actually. Had put it off. Yeah, same. Till today. Yeah, we both finished our notes today.
00:01:48
Speaker
It's okay. It's the weird in between Christmas and New Year's that time loses all or days lose all meaning. ah Nobody knows what's happening. Everything's so weird. And um I know someone called it a name like dead week or something the other day. or oh I was like, Oh, okay. I can't remember. I i feel that. Gordo, you can't rub your face.
Holiday Store Hours & Capitalism
00:02:12
Speaker
I know.
00:02:13
Speaker
a lot of people take time off work but especially in the half days like I'm like I am not taking off a full vacation day when I only have to come in like three hours on Christmas Eve or like five hours on New Year's Eve it's like whatever yeah I'll make it through the day
00:02:34
Speaker
And like, oh my God, everything though is open in Alberta a lot here. I find that a lot different from where I grew up. Cause like, it's like new year's day, things would be closed and like, everything is literally closed. And then today I was thinking about something I needed. I look and I'm like, oh, Walmart's literally there.
00:02:49
Speaker
open and like yeah groceries are like open like probably like reduced hours but still open oh yeah mine was my work they were 10 to 6 today i didn't work but uh it's like banks get the day off yeah yeah like federal things we'll get it but most other places it's not really like a recognized day Right, so it's up to the business. So yeah, it's weird. I always find it crazy how many stores stay open here and people like just be ready to shop like 365 days a year. you're like I mean, if the store is open, they'll make enough money that it will be have been worthwhile for them to be open for the day. So that's true. They keep doing it.
00:03:40
Speaker
ah Whatever. I almost said communism. That's not what I was trying to say. Capitalism? Yeah, and then I was also thinking of like the word commerce a little bit. Okay, yeah. I wonder if that's what happened. Consumerism? Maybe that's the tie-in between the two, consumerism. Let's play try to guess what Elena was thinking. Who knows? and Not me usually.
00:04:09
Speaker
oh my god actually um do we know what is this episode oh sorry oh sorry gordo let me just let you interrupt what do you what did you have to say sir he was just trying to use the mic to scratch his face and that could be annoying i don't know how that will sound on the recording just buddy you can't do that oh Um, I think this is episode 171, if I've got my numbers now corrected. Cause we took Christmas week off. Yeah. So that one obviously isn't an episode. So I had to adjust my numbers and yeah, back to our bullshit. Um, uh, cause you guys love it. You can come back for more anyway.
New Age Cryptids and Humor
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, we appreciate it every listen, play, share.
00:05:04
Speaker
yes every supporter review o tell your fucking friends about it um yeah yeah so this time we're talking about um some newer age cryptids which I think will be fun yeah possibly very funny I don't know No, Gordo's just being very distracting.
00:05:35
Speaker
Buddy. They do that. It's like when you're trying to leave for the work and they're trying to convince um you of how cute they are and how much more fun you have just playing with them. Absolutely. That's what he's doing because as soon as I stop petting him, he's like trying to pull the headphones out of my ears.
00:05:55
Speaker
hes rubbing up on the mind. Yeah. Or Fenrir will, yeah, he'll be sitting like face forward, like butt to you, like on top of your feet, and then you stop hitting him. And then he either like looks all the way back at you, like turns his head all the way back, or he'll start pawing the air in front of him, which usually means he starts pawing the coffee table. Yeah.
00:06:19
Speaker
Oh, Gordo, you just like did that directly into the mic that time you show up. Oh, did he put really loud that time? Yeah, he must have turned his head because it just caught it for a second.
00:06:32
Speaker
kind of baby. And Pat said that's like, you know, sometimes he'll read or hear something where it's like, oh, that's how the dog's trying to play with you and trying to pet you or whatever, like move in his paw. That's cute. I like that. Yeah, I know. I think it's cute too. Or how like the dogs will make weird noises when you're playing with them, getting them all excited. And they'll be like,
00:06:55
Speaker
And Pat's like, oh, he's laughing. He's having a good time. like Yeah. So that's how they like, yeah, I guess show their affection and stuff. Obviously, it's very cute. Yeah.
00:07:11
Speaker
Gordo has that sometimes ah when we're playing, because like when he's mad and he swats at you, he'll have his claws out and stuff. But I can tell a lot of the times when we're actually playing and I have like one of his toys and a lot of them have like long arms. So I'll like hold it by the arms and kind of like swing it around and he'll try and jump for it. And a lot of times if he accidentally like hits my hand or anything his claws aren't out at all. Right. Yeah, which is nice. It's like, okay, like you're actually like playing.
00:07:46
Speaker
He's not just trying to attack it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reason why I'm always like, God, I should clip the dog's nails because like he'll just go to, I'm sure he thinks gently paw me, but then his nails are so long and his paws so heavy that he'll leave like a bruise. Yeah. Oh yeah, Gordo is like laying on me and he's doing the kneading, making biscuits. And I'm like, buddy, your nails are so sharp. You're almost drawing blood right now. Like it hurts.
00:08:15
Speaker
And he's like, I'm so happy. I love you so much. And I'm like, so pain.
00:08:22
Speaker
You need like a bullet proof vest, but claw proof. Yeah. Yeah. I used to try gluing those little caps on his nails, but honestly his hair is so long.
00:08:35
Speaker
uh and he was going through them so fast it wasn't really worth it it was really hard to keep on top of so okay i've wondered when i've seen people use those yeah they can be useful i mean i did it for like the first month or so but yeah it's a lot like nail tippy thingies they're like rubber or something yeah and it definitely makes a huge difference like
00:09:02
Speaker
But I was not very good at installing them and ah because there's nobody to help me. So yeah I think they're a lot easier to put on if you have one person that can hold the cat and one person that can put them on. But for you to be the person that's putting the glue in the nail and then trying to chase the cat, pick it up, put in some cloth, put the thing on in the span of like five seconds.
00:09:23
Speaker
ah yeah it's very difficult ah yeah one more thing before we get off our cat or our claw tangent but did you see or did i tell you what the video i saw and it's like uh this cute looking girl she starts putting this like um you know cling wrap saran wrap whatever around sort of her forehead and you're kind of like okay where is this going like some beauty hack or some shit But then like she starts putting peanut butter on it and then goes down and starts clipping her dog's nails and the dog's eating the peanut butter off of her head. So it's like totally focused up there so she can hold its hand. And I was like, oh, I've used like peanut butter on a spoon before, but he kind of circumvents that by like dancing away from me in a little bit of a circle. I don't know. he
00:10:14
Speaker
He figures out ways to not stay still, so yeah I honestly was like, I might try that. but Yeah, that's a good idea. Desperate times. Yeah, desperate times.
00:10:29
Speaker
Oh my god. Okay, I'm ready. I'm buckled in. I'm strapped on.
00:10:39
Speaker
You know what I mean? Turn me on.
00:10:49
Speaker
god ah I have a little bit about... I didn't know much about this. um You probably know more than I do about like the newer cryptids and that kind of stuff. um I might be more online. It it could be a problem. Yeah.
00:11:09
Speaker
I'm on Reddit and some of those things. Someone asked me what Reddit was the other day. I was like, really? Oh, okay. No, you're not joking. Oh, I feel like it even if you don't use it, you're at least like aware of like you would know it's a website. Yeah, I think that she more meant like how does it work, maybe. I don't know.
00:11:33
Speaker
I probably wouldn't really be able to explain that either. I'm not. Yeah. I just got the on it a few years ago. I don't know why I say that. Like, what? Oh, you don't know. I could probably be described as being chronically online. I don't know. Yeah. ah So obviously with the internet there's a lot of newer cryptids that um crop up yeah yeah they kind of come up and they kind of go through like peaks so they go like one of them starts up and everybody starts hearing about it and then for like a week or two and then it kind of dies out really quickly uh as opposed to probably like the older cryptids where their older counterparts where
00:12:26
Speaker
ah Things are like over time and um they get talked about slowly over decades as more and more people learn about them.
Slender Man's Digital Origins
00:12:34
Speaker
ah Right. They didn't go as viral or whatever. Yeah, it's not like the trendy thing and everybody moves on and it's like, whatever. Yeah, because if you or your friend made up something, like it probably 15 million people wouldn't hear about it back in the 1700s. hundreds yeah The world does travel fast in small villages. Yeah, right. but That's a fair point. Yeah, so like because the internet, these things take off a lot quicker, but they also die down a lot quicker. And things have evolved about how they kind of come about, as opposed to how and word got spread, like even 15 years ago, 20 years ago.
00:13:22
Speaker
right right right Right. Like one person can just write something almost and it could take off. Yeah. That's the idea with these podcasts. No. Two people could say a few things.
00:13:39
Speaker
ah ah So they consider them like digital cryptids, the ones that kind of are born online. I didn't really know that. And then they refer to some of the older cryptids that have been around since before the internet a kind of got involved in it as analog cryptids. Literally, like clocks. Like, wait, are we really going to analog or whatever? Manual. I was like, oh, that's funny.
00:14:10
Speaker
i'm like
00:14:13
Speaker
um I also realized or learned that there is a word called fake lore, a fake folklore that's passed off as real to go along with these new digital cryptids. And I was like, okay, that sounds like a recent word. And then I ran across one of my sources that so said that the term fake lore ah was coined by a folklorist Richard M. Dorsen in 1950.
00:14:41
Speaker
i was like what fake lore has been around the word fake lore has been around since 1950 yeah i was thinking more modern things like the the reddit yeah uh no sleep one where everybody tells stories and just acts in the comments and everything as if everything you're saying there is real yeah yeah i was like oh we've had the term fake lore since 1950 that's kind of wild like 70 some years ago right and now we say things like creepy pasta and that yeah involved yeah um Yeah, it was in an article for American Mercury where he defined fake lore as a synthetic product can claiming to be authentic oral tradition but actually tailored for mass edification. You're like...
00:15:35
Speaker
Yeah, which is like, yeah, like I can see there's, that's definitely what a lot of people are doing maybe when they're making up stuff online, they're hoping to get viral to get it spread as quickly as fast as possible. Yeah, get it out there in the the consciousness in the Whatever. And that just becomes, yeah, part of the lore. Yeah. Uh, often digital cryptids can take on a life of their own with people's interactions with like the original post and original, even artwork, uh, that can go along with it now leading to people posting their own stories and further artwork that helps spread the legends even further than they would have before. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:22
Speaker
We're kind of part of that problem. but Yeah. Right. I know some of the examples I have, um, I'm like, Ooh, I remember when these happened because they're so recent. And it was like, and I definitely, uh, like I wasn't on there making stories or anything, but I was definitely like Googling it every couple of days to be like, Oh, is there new information?
00:16:46
Speaker
I don't know if that was right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean... There's a moment in time. Yeah. Okay. As you mentioned, so early internet helped spread these creepy stories and images through what was originally kind of these chain emails being like, forward this to 10 friends or you'll die. Yeah, the superstitions, emails. Yeah. Yeah. What the hell, chain mail. Yeah.
00:17:13
Speaker
yeah
00:17:16
Speaker
I'm glad that's gone. Yeah. Also on message boards or chat rooms with the copy and paste style of storytelling evolving.
00:17:29
Speaker
into what become called as copy pasta and eventually after like copy paste and eventually became renamed as creepy pastas with like the creepy pasta website starting and all that as kind of, I'd say like, a I don't know, like catalog kind of more so a collection of all the stories that people are like doing instead of them just being posted at random on a bunch of different areas.
00:18:00
Speaker
right yeah i like and i like how that word evolved too it's kind of cool yeah i i thought i had heard before that creepy pasta was like copy and paste um but i didn't realize it was like from the copy and paste like emails where it'd be like copy and paste this into a new email like it would tell you to do that so that's where they got it. That makes sense. yeah Yeah. I was like, oh, that's actually kind of cool because it was like, yeah, that was always included in the email. Copy and paste this. We know how to copy and paste, guys. Yeah. It's like.
00:18:39
Speaker
Troll thee all every day. Right?
00:18:45
Speaker
um So I had some cool information. This was all from skepticalenquirer.org. I guess this is like... Oh, yes. I've heard of her, I think. I don't think I've ever gone on this site before, but they had an amazing, like, write up about some of the more famous ones that have happened. um And I definitely... I think only one of them I hadn't really heard about.
00:19:10
Speaker
a I wonder if our algorithm drives us more to the non skeptical website.
00:19:19
Speaker
Maybe. They're like, Snopes, you don't need that. You need Bigfoot believer dot com. Yeah. Who knows who knows what fucking Google has learned about me? It's like. I know. I swear when I was getting me.
00:19:37
Speaker
what, teeth cleaned, she said something about, oh, now I said something too much and I'm sorry if your phone pulls it up and I thought, oh gosh, sometimes I just forget that like, yeah, can it still be listening when it's like, it's just in your purse? Ah, I don't know, I don't understand how any of this works. It's beyond me. Yeah, I think I have all that stuff turned off, like, at least. Okay.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah. You were good about turning stuff off. Autocorrect. Yeah, like mine just does the underlines and it will like suggest stuff, but it doesn't normally change words ah on you. Less problems that way. Yeah, but if there's like some cool setting that's like stop listening to all my conversations. I definitely want to know about it. Right? Yeah. Excuse me.
00:20:31
Speaker
um yeah Yeah, so this was like actually a really well done article. I can't remember who it was by, um but it was skeptical ah inquirer um saying that digital cryptids, although not always the product of a creepypasta, largely operate um in like this similar way, beginning with a core story that is retold and can change without with each retelling. And then they mentioned the Slender Man,
00:21:00
Speaker
creepy pasta which is probably I'd say like with the most famous one I think so I wonder if one of us would talk about him it feels like he deserves a mention yeah I do have a little bit of information not a whole lot because I mean I feel like it's been talked about so much before But if you listen to podcasts, yeah, you've probably heard of it. Yeah. um For those who maybe don't know, Slender Man is a mythological creature, often depicted as a tall thin figure wearing a black suit and a blank face, like doesn't really have any features.
The Evolution of Slender Man
00:21:39
Speaker
And look he's wearing pantyhose over his face. no i don't know But it kind of has that kind of weird feel to it. I don't know.
00:21:47
Speaker
yeah ah but yeah No Orifices. It was created as part of a Photoshop contest on Something Awful ah by Eric. I do remember that website. something nice but um okay I've never heard of that site. Oh really?
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah, it was created by Eric Knudsen. ah And when the first Slender Man images were uploaded to something awful, they came with their own folklore. So I guess this was the caption. ah One of two recovered photographs from the Sterling City Library blaze notable for being taken the day which 14 children vanished and for what is referred to as the Slender Man.
00:22:41
Speaker
ah deform Deformity cited as film defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence. And it was dated 1986 with the photographer listed as Mary Thomas, who was listed as missing since June 13th of 1986. And that was like the original caption of the original picture that was posted.
00:23:09
Speaker
for a Slender Man. So that's like where it all began, which I don't think I had really known. um So like, that's how it started. Right? Yeah. But that was like, I guess, a full story. Right. Yeah. um The picture is creepy. Sorry, I actually forgot to put the pictures on the drive. I have a folder.
00:23:32
Speaker
Actually, I don't have a folder. I do too, actually. I didn't even create a folder. Jesus Christ. Hold on.
00:23:42
Speaker
That's because you didn't want Slender Man to infect you. Yeah. Oh my god. Slender Man, Slender Man. Come and wherever your computers can.
00:23:58
Speaker
That's pretty good. I don't know. I feel like I need to try anything. Yeah. Makes a virus any size.
00:24:13
Speaker
Well, did it actually? My drive. Okay. Yeah, I uploaded in the drive. You'll get spoiled. I didn't. Okay. Yeah, you'll know right away about my other ones I'll talk about, but yeah, it's creepy. He's got like, um, like the tentacles for fingers kind of thing. Um, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think I've seen pictures too. I'll look at a minute. Cause it's like, yeah, it's just everything. He's so elongated. Yeah. This one, I guess it's, I mean, he looks tall compared to the children, but I wouldn't say he looks.
00:24:54
Speaker
as crazy as I've seen him look in some of the other pictures that people ended up posting afterwards. Yeah. Well, generally, even to describe someone as slender, there's nothing sinister really about that. Yeah. You're like, dude, just a thin dude. And this one, it even looks... It basically seems thin dude.
00:25:16
Speaker
thin dude it even looks like he almost has hair like it I can see like like the bottom yeah I think he had like a yeah oh Yeah, I've seen him with a hat, I've seen him without a hat. This original picture looks like he has hair a little bit. but um weird So it began what began is this image with folklore associated. ah Soon inspired countless creepy pastas, and while Knudsen's intention was to create something whose motivations can barely be comprehended,
00:25:50
Speaker
um Almost immediately, people started creating their own fan art and fan fiction of Slender Man that expanded and elaborated on his activities and then like gave him all these sorts of powers that he could do um okay and stuff. And while the original context, Nudson placed Slender Man in, had the creature acting as a sinister force that would lure and kidnap children,
00:26:19
Speaker
Many later stories ah depicted in YouTube series and blogs um and even video games and that kind of stuff depict Slender Man as stalking anyone unfortunate enough to catch his attention and tormenting them with slender sickness.
The Rake: From 4chan to Cryptid
00:26:41
Speaker
Which I don't think I'd heard of that before. This doesn't help you lose a few pounds. No,
00:26:49
Speaker
it doesn't seem to. It brings about nosebleeds, rapid onset paranoia, nightmares, and delusions that can sometimes drive people insane, resulting in their acting as a sort of proxy or agents who enact Slender Man's incomprehensible agenda.
00:27:09
Speaker
and Wait, didn't you say you had some weird nosebleeds the other day? I know I did think of that when I was reading that. It was like, oh no! It's just dry here. It's just dry, damn it. I got the slanted a sickness.
00:27:29
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So weird. ah Yeah. So that's Slender Man. I don't think I talk about him anymore. There's so many things if you want to actually just look up Slender Man. You all have true crime cases associated, I think, with that one. Yeah. It's like, oh boy. Yeah. One thing I hadn't heard of, um, I recognize the name, but I don't really know anything about it. Uh,
00:28:02
Speaker
from the site said another example of a cryptid with fake lore would be the rake do you know what the rake is oh i'm not sure um yeah i hadn't i haven't really heard of this one i like recognize the name because when we've looked up like creepy pastas in the past i've seen like stuff talking about the rake but i've never really clicked into it um But it's a similar type thing. um It was described as a strange pale skinned creature that stalks its victims on all fours and has the appearance of a somewhat resembling a mutilated dog. Oh, weird, okay. Yeah, it's like some weird dog thing. ah It originated, I guess, on 4chan's boards back in 2005.
00:28:55
Speaker
um so like a long time ago afters a million years ago and when we're talking about new cryptids sure yeah yeah yeah yeah i was just like isn't that an old tiny word i've heard for like a you know almost like a rogue or something like kind of an old timey word for like kind of that type of guy, but now I'm just like, I don't know. Yeah. I feel like I've used it. I've heard it described like a type of person. Yeah. Something, right? So I was like, okay. Yeah. It was, I guess created or originated on 4chan's message boards in 2005 after an anonymous user posted, Hey guys, let's make a new monster. And I guess like collectively some people might've worked on it.
00:29:47
Speaker
um The fictitious origins of the rake alleged that the earliest reporting sightings began in 2003, but were suppressed following a media blackout.
00:29:59
Speaker
um And then working together as several eyewitnesses uncover historical documents. They love doing that. including a suicide note from 1964, a journal entry translated from Spanish dated 1880, and a mariner's log from 1691. So old. A mariner's Yeah, a mariner's log.
00:30:33
Speaker
um indicating the rake had been creeping into people's bedrooms and killing them for centuries. yeah all right then so it shall be said so it shall be known yeah right so it shall be typed and it shall be known it yeah you're like but the first time we heard about this wasn't until 20 years after it supposedly happened or something you're like okay but yeah um
00:31:05
Speaker
yeah ah Not all internet cryptids originate from creepypastas.
AI-Generated Cryptids: Loab
00:31:11
Speaker
um There's, I remember this happening ah in April of 2022, AI art enthusiast, Steph Madge Swanson uploaded images of what they referred to as the first cryptid of the latent space. And that was, I think it's Loeb.
00:31:36
Speaker
Do you remember a little L-O-A-B? Yeah, I thought it was like low ab or something. Yeah. Okay. With the long hair, right? Yeah, like there's some creepy ones. I found a cute little, I don't want to call it cute, but I found a ah nice little collage of like some of the pictures. Oh my god. Amazing.
00:32:06
Speaker
Yeah, I'll have to make, okay, now I have to make sure my drive's open. So, ah oh, I have to go back. Yeah, Loab, by giving generative i AI specific text or images, these algorithms such as chat GPT and Doll E learned the patterns and structures common to millions of images called from a database and generate image or texts according to those parameters. So she had like typed in kind of, she says different things. um It was like really confusing and I couldn't really follow her explanation of how she ended up with these images.
00:32:53
Speaker
but so Yeah. Um, so gross. Yeah, very creepy. According to the original. Or else she's just had a hard life and she has rosacea. I don't know. Yeah, right. Because it looks like a weird woman with like red cheeks sort of.
00:33:12
Speaker
Right? That's the one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So yeah. Unsettling. Oddly unsettling. It is. Loab was generated through, according to Swanson, some kind of emergent statistical accident. But she further claimed that something about this woman is adjacent to extremely gory and macabre imagery in the distribution of the AI's world knowledge.
00:33:42
Speaker
and that images generated from the original low app image inevitably devolve into the grotesque. um So like even when she tries to i guess like input like anything else to do with low app to get like different images, they always she's saying that they always turn out like grotesque and like disturbing.
00:34:08
Speaker
Um, even when that's not what she's trying to input into like the AI program she's using. Okay. Weird. Yeah. Um, she said, personally, I think this sounds a little, uh, too far fetched to be true and AI generated images whose creation is shrouded in mystery and keeps returning the viewer to disturbing images of horror and gore.
00:34:33
Speaker
It sounds more like something bordering on a creepypasta with a fake lore to me, and apparently they weren't the only one. There was a Twitter or ex-user who began on posting chat logs between themselves and the original creator Swanson.
00:34:51
Speaker
And they were kind of claiming, quote, I was around for the original creation of Loab and can confirm that it is not a creepy pasta. um This is an actual anomaly anomaly in latent space that infects images and it's incredible.
00:35:08
Speaker
um Yeah, it was really hard to follow and even on like this site I was reading two different sources were like, even trying to explain how it could be possible that the images keep turning up a certain way is as confusing as saying that it would or wouldn't work like both sides, the argument is very confusing to try and follow both sides were even saying so oh my god yeah that's okay yeah a little trippy yeah i'm trying to understand yeah like it was really weird they were saying if you have like um oh i think this hold on negative prompt use
00:36:07
Speaker
Oh yeah this kind of has a little bit. um Not everyone is afraid of the digital demon because they're saying it like possesses the internet and that's why she keeps showing up even when they're not trying to find images of her or like creating more images of her. um Interesting. There's somebody who works at the Alan Turing Institute of London who dismissed the hype around Loab um telling the new scientist um article that rather than something creepy, ah what is act what this actually shows are some of the limitations of AI image generator models. And it may be that when a negative prompt is used, the resulting images are more constrained to like also be negative. um So that one theory is that negative prompts could be more likely to repeat certain images or aspects of them.
00:36:58
Speaker
And that may be why Loab appears so persistently. um is It just doesn't have enough knowledge about those types of images to keep generating totally different ones. So it keeps doing similar ones because that's all it knows so far. um I guess. yeah They're doubling down.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, ah well and this is the people who are arguing that it's like not real, which I find is hilarious because even their examples make sense. to us non-computers. It's difficult to follow for me. That sounds like I'm not going to get much into this. curious is about creepy um Theories about creepy demons are likely to continue to spread via social media and fuel public imagination about the future of AI with the real explanation or while the real explanations may be a little bit more boring that people are just doing it and it's
00:37:58
Speaker
you know, right. ah Yeah, kind of probably yeah, things that get into algorithm probably are more boring. and We won't like even understand them really well. Yeah, right. But it is interesting to think of like, maybe people typing in something like, I want a creepy cryptid or whatever. And what the internet comes back with is like, kind of reminds you of sort of a harassed looking older woman. but we like yeah but We're so monstrous, we women as we age. and That's what the yeah internet and everything will tell you. I just can't wait. I One thing they also did mention was that there's Bernard
00:38:59
Speaker
Helvelmans, considered by many to be the father of cryptozoology, um who said that cryptids are hidden animals or animals that are undescribed by science, um but could be familiar to a local populace in which they live, um so that we often indirectly know of their existence and certain aspects of their appearance or behavior.
00:39:27
Speaker
um and According to this definition, cryptid may be an animal that has only been described in folklore or oral tradition um with like not many alleged sightings. However, an animal that is known to be a work of fiction um technically wouldn't be. um so ah They're kind of arguing that things like they're a fictional monster such as Slender Man and The Rake um as well as works of art like Loab shouldn't actually be considered cryptids and like this term of digital cryptid is kind of misleading um because they aren't like actually cryptids.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, which was hand down stories from generation. Yeah, yeah, just something that's like existing online, but people are kind of like making up their own supposed sightings of it. um yeah Yeah, difficult to take the truth from fiction there almost. I don't know.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah, um, I did find some more stuff ah about Loab where like the creator of it, um, known as super composite, uh, I guess on, I think it's on that's her Twitter like handle. Yeah.
00:40:59
Speaker
um She was saying that after she created like the first image, she kept like feeding the image back into the AI program she was using and kept getting all these different variations of it. like um I think I ran across a thing that said that she had like over a thousand variations of the same thing.
00:41:19
Speaker
like similar enough. um And she was just posting a bunch of them to Twitter, but she said some of them were so gross and like gory and things like that that she couldn't post them or didn't feel comfortable posting them. ah Right. But the other ones, she's happy to put them out in the algorithm. ah Yeah, right. I don't know. Okay. ah But she herself admits that Loab isn't really haunted.
00:41:46
Speaker
um But she is kind of interested in how the low ab myth formed so quickly because like people started interacting and doing the same thing and everything like that. And she said it feels super strange but cool for it to take off like this with people calling it a creepy pasta.
00:42:05
Speaker
um And she said the weirdest part is that future AIs will see everyone's pictures and memes of Loab now. um So they'll start making even more Loabs, like the AI will. um Well, yeah. Right? Because it's exposed to more information because it's on the internet. um god And that if they had wanted to try to get rid of her, that it's actually already too late to. And it's like, that's a good point. like everybody's frenzy of it will fuel something like it like reoccurring in the future. Which sort of what that's that's something that's a concept that's existed a little bit before the internet to with ones that just kind of come about with our collective consciousness like I think the talpas are one of those ones that are kind of invented the more we think about them.
00:43:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's definitely easier to like make them now than it ever would have been in the past. Like you'd be trying to tell one person in a bar and they'd be like, you're crazy. And they'd just punch you or you'd get kicked out of the bar and then you'd be like, oh, but now you can just post it on the internet and lie. It might reach a million people. You don't know. Yeah.
The Momo Challenge Panic
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot easier.
00:43:32
Speaker
um gosh I do have a tiny bit about one other thing that I remember happening, and I'm sure you will too. um Yes, and when you said looking in the folder, I might spoiler myself. on what's to i know I was like the haunted image of Momo.
00:43:53
Speaker
okay well like because i covered a guy with a similar name and then i i was like should i include a little blurb about it but then i didn't know what you're talking about so yeah yeah no this is this is good yeah the image is fucking haunting um i hate it it's very the horror movie smile like the exaggerated like yeah it looks like smile um yeah
00:44:21
Speaker
Pointy chin, big eyes. Yeah, like I remember when this was first happening. I remember the hysteria around it because this was only a few years ago. um It was really like peak, I guess, early 2019.
00:44:38
Speaker
It feels so long now somehow. Right? Oh my God. A thousand years ago. It was pre-panini times, yeah. Great. Yeah, the Supposed Momo Challenge. ah Most of this is from Vox dot.com, which... Oh, okay.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, it was kind of interesting. This supposed Momo challenge swept panic across the globe. Images of what they described as a demonic chicken lady, which I love because... I like that. She does have chicken feet. It's basically like, I don't know, a crazy woman's head with a neck and then it has like boobs and then it's chicken legs. And then, yeah, there's like no torso. Okay, so there's a close up of the face too. Yeah, there's like more to the image. If you look up like the other ones, the one that they did that become more famous is kind of like a cropped one.
00:45:47
Speaker
So it looks like she just has a bit of cleavage. um Right. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I have seen the ones with some of the legs. It's it's a lot. Yeah. This supposed ah ah creature, I'll call it, a company or like pictures of this creature accompanied claims that it was encouraging kids to commit violence or even self-harm.
00:46:12
Speaker
Well, other iterations of the story claim to feature the terrifying image um and that it was found spliced into children's programming that was airing on television like Peppa Pig, um or it was found in video games like Fortnite ah in videos posted to YouTube.
00:46:32
Speaker
I think those were people that were just doing that themselves online. um okay But it added to the panic and stuff. um There was even more news reports saying that the challenge had spread to Snapchat.
00:46:48
Speaker
which not snapcha ah experts say that however there was no indication that children were being given being driven to suicide since the story had gone viral and at the time YouTube had previously said that no evidence of videos promoting the challenge had been found and it had since denominate demonetized content that featured the signature Momo image so it was like working against anybody that was like posting about it yeah fighting the Momo panic yeah it really reminded me of like satanic panic it was like oh no you're like ah
00:47:35
Speaker
find a creepy image, go on blast about it, and just like yeah click watch clickbait happen. Oh, so much. I put that the hysteria around Momo was fueled not by victims, or supposed victims, or even the supposed victims' families,
00:47:55
Speaker
But by posts on the internet, mostly Facebook, um with like the picture, and then always has like captions. Hey, you got to read this. You got to protect your children. Spread this as far to everybody you've ever met in your entire life. They need to know.
00:48:12
Speaker
I think I read a blurb that it was retweeted from like one person, but like 22,000 times. I was like, boy, ah okay. Yeah.
00:48:22
Speaker
but um Gotta to love those Facebook posts. It's like, oh my God. So annoying. Share this. The news isn't oxymoron.
00:48:35
Speaker
yeah My favorite is like, Facebook has access to all of your pictures and all of your private whatever, unless you reblog this post. And you're like, why the fuck do you think that works? what yeah they have Facebook is going to do this unless you reblog and share this post. Like, oh my god, what do you think you're doing right now? Like, are you stupid?
00:48:59
Speaker
I'm getting all the old people. but Yeah, it just drives me crazy because then it I'll have like hundreds of them on Facebook. It's like 80 percent of your feed and you're just like, guys, like this is doing nothing. It's just sharing a post. It's not changing your settings. Like you need to actually go into your settings and change what Facebook has access to. Oh, yeah, you would have to.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, you don't just share a post on your feed or your wall and it magically changes your settings. I don't know how you think it works, but it doesn't work that way. Yeah.
00:49:39
Speaker
um They did mention, I don't remember this happening because I don't follow her, but I guess Kim Kardashian got involved and that caused like even more um eyes on the story when she asked her 129 million Instagram followers to pressure YouTube into taking down any of the supposedly harmful videos. um Oh no. She fell for one. Right? So people just like bombarded YouTube with that. And then there was a flurry of information about it on the news along with da like just obviously it's parents trying to protect kids and everything, but it's from something that like wasn't even happening.
00:50:25
Speaker
I know. They're always like, well, it's coming from a good place. It's like, yeah, it doesn't mean you're not doing harm. Yeah, exactly. Even coming from a good place, you can be doing harm. Like, oh, totally. Often you are. Yeah. I don't know what you were doing. I could hear you doing stuff in the end. Oh, wait till the break.
00:50:49
Speaker
Just stay over there, please. um But the like statue or um that's ah featured in the image that's so popularized by Momo um is a statue. It's called Mother Bird. um It was made ah by an artist. God, I'm going to butcher this name. I'm so sorry.
00:51:13
Speaker
i hey so Gasawa, who works with the Japanese special effects company Link Factory. Because Japan, of course, they make the creepiest horror movies. Yeah, like fantastic big job. I don't know what this was ever intended to be used for, but it's fucking terrifying.
00:51:38
Speaker
like oh nothing if it's just art right but yeah i don't know yeah you don't realize that one comes straight from someone's artwork that then like blew up as a weird internet supposed cryptid so bizarre yeah um there was images of the statue from a gallery or from a gallery display that first got posted and began circulating as early as 2016 so it wasn't like freshly posted the internet when this happened And this challenge was likely cooked up on a Creepypasta subreddit ah that catalogs horror urban legends. um And then they like utilize the image of the mother bird's sculpture.
00:52:24
Speaker
um And it was first added to, I guess they're trying to say it was first added to a Creepypasta in July of 2018. So like,
00:52:37
Speaker
um It's perfect for something creepy. Yeah, like eight or nine months before it actually really took off. um And from there, the myth of Momo kind of took hold.
00:52:52
Speaker
um Well, there's no evidence that the Momo Challenge did leave to any actual self-harm. i'm good I guess there has been other ones that was happening ah a little bit before that that did happen in other countries where people did injure themselves and stuff because of like some of these other supposed internet challenges. so um I mean it was like it did affect some people not this one specifically um but then obviously without the infamy of the Slender Man um like murder that happened um we likely would never see the type of panic about these kind of stories on the internet that we do see now. Sure yeah because you just don't know what to be concerned about when someone's gonna take it
00:53:47
Speaker
too far or whatever. Yeah, right. Like you're dealing with kids whose brains aren't developed. And if they aren't in a position to like, understand fully if something's real or not, um or they're trying to keep it a secret. So they're not telling anybody about it where somebody could talk to them. on Anything they're kind of like keeping it hidden, it's a lot harder. So that definitely um But they did say that the Momo Challenge had similar trappings of like the kind of panic that it created as the Blue Whale Challenge, um which was another supposed... Yeah, I never heard about this. It was another supposed online suicide game with a series of tasks being sent to like participants over the course of 50 days.
00:54:45
Speaker
Oh, OK. Yeah, sounds like out of a movie. um I guess it was the same kind of. happen Yeah, well, I guess it was the same kind of thing with them saying that this Internet game was ultimately found out to be bogus. um And that it wasn't actually happening, but people were like claiming it was. I mean, it only takes one case of something crazy happening for it to be tragic, but Yeah, absolutely. that is Yeah, because but then you find out they're not real. And so you're just gonna like, oh, well, another one of those like hoaxes or whatever. Yeah.
00:55:26
Speaker
Yeah, they also mentioned, it was kind of like those falsely suggesting reports of that hordes of kids were eating Tide Pods, which I mean, I think i bought i think some people did eat Tide Pods, right?
00:55:45
Speaker
Like, at least a few people did. I mean, yeah, I think it maybe happened once or twice, but not to the effect where everyone's like, oh, it's called a challenge. They were locking them up in grocery stores. Yeah. Um, and then apparently there was also something about encouraging people to snort condoms. Did you ever hear about that one? I never heard about that one. Sounds improbable. I don't... Right?
00:56:15
Speaker
I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah. If I did, I just missed it out of hand. Out of nose. Right? Snorting condoms. That sounds very difficult. Blowing them with balloons? Sure. Yeah. Why not? Balloon animal condom? Sure. um What's snorting it going to do for you? I can't imagine why anyone would be encouraged to think that would have an effect.
Internet as Folklore Medium
00:56:41
Speaker
like or anything I don't know it makes no sense um yeah no I don't believe it yeah but those are those are some of the I don't know like weird cryptid-y things that have come about since the dawn of the internet then it's like really they come in so quickly ah yeah almost like the first AI um cryptids, I think I heard some of them called. Yeah, it's pretty weird. Yeah, I think the one thing said the low app was like the first AI cryptid. I think I remember hearing that, yeah. Yeah, but there's definitely ones that like would not be around if it wasn't for like the interaction of people around the world over the internet.
00:57:36
Speaker
um Yeah, because the internet is just kind of our new word of mouth, like, yes, you know, way of yeah telling folklore. Yeah, that's all. I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. No, those were good. I'm ready for a quick break to clear my brain and then tell you about one or two. Yeah.
00:58:07
Speaker
Okay, we'll be right back. Or we'll be. Internet cryptids get us. Yeah, maybe. Maybe we're haunted right now. We've stared at too many supposed cursed images on the drive now. We're just robots. All right.
00:58:46
Speaker
Do you like history, but want to learn something new? You mean something old? Like pre-1900s old? Yeah, that. Remember the episode about murder? Which one? There were a lot of them. Or all the forgotten women in history that are actually pretty awesome. How about all those cannibalism episodes? No.
00:59:06
Speaker
If any of this has sparked your interest, then you should join us every Wednesday for new episodes of Yield Crime. It's the show where Lindsay and I discuss funny, strange and obscure crimes with some paranormal stuff sprinkled in. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you next time with another tale as old as crime.
00:59:45
Speaker
And we are back.
Zozo and Ouija Board Lore
00:59:51
Speaker
We ended on a Momo and we're going to start this segment on a Zozo. Mozo. Oh God, it's one of those ones though where I'm like, every time I have to type it in, I'm like, I don't like how many times we were having to use this name. People always experience weird things.
01:00:13
Speaker
dear saying it too much or what whatever the case oh no well i don't know you hear that about a lot of them so it's creepy right yeah but since this one is the Ouija board demon i think as long as we're not playing too many spirit board games we should be okay
01:00:38
Speaker
That's good. I don't fuck with Ouija boards.
01:00:43
Speaker
Um, no, but you did talk about them, which I will do one episode that was in because I had to look it up. It was a while ago. This guy's also, or this girl or whatever is also sometimes called the red face demon. Oh.
01:01:04
Speaker
yeah red black face i don't know picture darth maul if you will maybe i will their origin story is there a fallen angel who was banished by god and is summoned through the spirit board other communications like with the undead such as seances etc and the zozo he rose to power in hell is part of Satan's circle and is he's pretty high up there he's pretty big baller nice down there
01:01:50
Speaker
One of his first appearances may have been in an early 1900s article where it said, like this source said, a character named Brooke Kenilworth, quote, has her soul taken by her husband named Zozo.
01:02:05
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. I'm like, the husband names? Oh, so it's like that man eating chicken, man eating chicken, you know. Yeah. We need the ah punctuation. Damn. That was a little confusing to me. And I tried to find the original source that talked about that, like I couldn't.
01:02:33
Speaker
uh apparently mention of it has also been made in a book known as the dictionary infernal which is just french with the infernal dictionary so i'm like damn these are both sources i wish i could find more information on yeah what's the infernal dictionary i fucking don't know i think oh just a hardcore dictionary what is it I'm trying to remember if I even tried to look up that one too because I was having no luck trying to look up where the where the first character Brooke came from.
01:03:13
Speaker
But anyway, we may or may not have been under. more time constraints where I felt like I need to get this done. Yeah. Because I promised them an episode and I mentioned it in the post I made on Instagram this week. Hello. I was like, Oh, no, you don't make promises. No. Yeah. Under promise over delivered. Yeah. Okay. But as I figured out,
01:03:47
Speaker
We know from your coverage on Ouija boards in episode 48, Haunted AF Objects. Damn, that was a long time ago.
01:03:59
Speaker
I... yeah. We'll finish the sentence and then tell you how I found that. The boards go back to the late 1800s and the wave of spiritualism that followed the American Civil War and its aftermath.
01:04:11
Speaker
I went through our Instagram post because I knew you talked about Ouija boards. And I remember making the post and that like using some images and I was like, this will probably be the easiest way for me to actually find it rather than go through like our Spotify um pair episode guide.
01:04:30
Speaker
It's real, you guys. when people When podcast listeners make episode guides and and they're so grateful, I'm like, I get it. ah Yeah. I don't know what I've covered. How do I search within my own show? Right? Yeah, it's difficult sometimes. So hard.
01:04:51
Speaker
Um, so yeah, Ouija boards go back a ways and so does this Zozo guy. So a couple of minds, yeah, they're new age cryptids, but they do ah predate the internet,
01:05:09
Speaker
but not the board game. Just but weird. Um,
01:05:18
Speaker
Still haven't played all the board games I wanted to this Christmas. Just saying. Oh snap. I know, I try so hard and then I don't want Pat to say that I'm getting bossy when I'm drinking because I'm like, I want to play this one next. But and we haven't played anything really, except for that trivia when we were playing where each card has a trivia question on it. Anyway. Yeah. We were playing it a little bit.
01:05:46
Speaker
I love games! Okay! So, yes, this creepy dude is having a bit of a comeback, I will say in my humble opinion, not un-helped by podcasters like us. Oops. Yeah. We're aware of the part we play. It's bad and people are like, maybe we should stop saying Skinwalker so much in our episodes. I'm like, oh god, should we? Yeah.
01:06:15
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, power, power and a name. They do say, um, there are many books actually, or at least a few books that I've came across that I kind of want to read now about the Zozo phenomenon as the first book's book called it. And that was the Zozo phenomenon by Darren Evans and Rosemary Ellen Gooley, maybe.
01:06:43
Speaker
um and like a collection of stories it is I guess and there was a similar one called Stocked by the Zozo Demon by Selena Summers and Tom Timwood not Tom I don't know why they're both written in pairs but cute And on the Goodreads like blurb for ah what which the Zozo phenomenon, it said for decades unsuspecting users of spirit boards have been pastored and attacked by a malevolent entity that calls itself Zozo, the king of kings. Ooh, not cocky at all. Yeah.
01:07:30
Speaker
Evenings of entertainment have ended in anxiety and fear with lingering problems ranging from hauntings to dream invasion to psychological terror.
01:07:41
Speaker
Darren Evans is a paranormal survivor who learned about Zozo the Hard Way and took his story to the world. People around the planet responded with similar stories and some that were even more shocking.
01:07:53
Speaker
In this groundbreaking book, Darren Evans and paranormal expert Rosemary Allen Gooley probe the mystery of Zozo from ancient gods to modern aliens, demons, and more. Who is Zozo and what does Zozo want? The answers will surprise you. He wants to party.
01:08:14
Speaker
I mean, with a name like Zozo, probably. Seems like a fun guy.
01:08:23
Speaker
He probably gets his most famous ah influencer appearance in the ex Exorcist. I can't talk. Ever heard of it? No, not at all. What is that? I'm like, have I seen it? And then I'm like, I probably haven't. I go, I should watch it again, though. ah Yeah, I think I've watched it at one point.
01:08:52
Speaker
Like as a rite of passage, right? Yeah. I watched it on my birthdays. I like doing, birthdays and at Halloween, I liked doing like horror movies, like sleepovers where you would watch.
01:09:09
Speaker
a bunch of horror movies and I feel like The Exorcist is one of the only ones that we got like most of the way through and then turned off because we were just talking and we were so bored with it and then we just watched something else instead. That sounds familiar actually, yes maybe you have said that. Yeah maybe it had to be more of a you had to see it in theaters and not like after you've seen like slashers and stuff that's I don't know. I think that could be a yeah like yeah a context thing where it's like people talk about it as the scariest one ever and it's like maybe it was for them but then from what we've seen and and then once once something gets so hyped up too it's yeah yeah expectations are a lot.
01:10:02
Speaker
But this mention in the Exorcist then supposedly inspired the modern version of Pazuzu, who they kind of blame on the Babylonian culture. It's a little bit of a tangled web.
01:10:23
Speaker
um I said, damn, blame those Babylonians. But so like Pazuzu and Zozo are sort of in my mind, I guess tangentially connected at least. Yeah. And the like the Roland Doe case, which was a real life possession case, kind of inspired the the film of the art that then like the exorcist that then also borrowed from Babylonian culture, which is ancient. So it's all kind of like all fucked up and tangled, but art imitates life and all inspires each other, I guess.
01:11:03
Speaker
um and then like he's got some looks which is like maybe a little crampusy i don't know he's tall tightly muscled tight is my word i'm sorry that sounded weird keeps it tight keeps it tight kelsey likes to say buff but like you know what i mean like not super super muscled like where they're like crazy bulky um
01:11:33
Speaker
Sounds like I'm trying to describe my dream guy. Yeah, the dream phone. That was a board game when I was growing up.
01:11:46
Speaker
Oh, and I went to a place the other day and they had 13 dead in drive and I was like, I remember that was a murder mystery game. Um, you know, other than clue. Okay. Kinda. Yeah.
01:12:02
Speaker
Anyways, this guy is often covered in dark, coarse fur, has a devilish tail, a black face spotted with red, long spider-like claws, yellowish gold eyes, and cloven hooves. Oftentimes, a crackling sound can be heard when he enters a space. I don't know what that means. It's smoldering.
01:12:29
Speaker
Do I hear a fireplace? Yeah. Yeah. He can mimic voices and does mimic multiple voices at one time. Sometimes multiple spirits are switching into a scared little a boy spirit at will to make people feel sympathy for him. i guess Oh my gosh. Um,
01:12:58
Speaker
Oh, and that makes me think of the one we watched a couple movies yesterday and Pat was like, Oh, you should tell Kelsey about that one. They have a party. It's one guy has a machine. And the premise is the machine has like conscious swapping, body swapping sort of properties. And so like,
01:13:24
Speaker
all hell ensues because they're like drinking and whatnot it's very as you can probably imagine if you all got drunk and had a machine that could switch your freaking brains around with each other's and each other's bodies it's like what it sounds like uh a math problem where it's like, how many body swabs would you need to do if anybody can only swap once with each person? Right. Is it like, yeah, it was called It's Inside. I don't know. I was like, A, don't drink an astral project. And B, haven't any of you seen Behind Her Eyes yet? Because like,
01:14:05
Speaker
That's why I would not just astral project willy nilly because someone go take your body away.
Pazuzu's Influence in Media
01:14:11
Speaker
Spoiler alert. My meat suit. I hate it, but I love it. It's mine. Yeah.
01:14:22
Speaker
yeah now
01:14:27
Speaker
So like, then I looked up a little bit more about Pazuzu. Again, kind of the main antagonist of the Exorcist film and book series. Gotta love when there's a book.
01:14:42
Speaker
um By William Peter. Oh, no. I thought I had his last name in the notes, because I'm pretty sure that wasn't his last name. William Peter Black? Byers? Uh-oh. I think I saw Peter and thought that was the end of it, because with me, my last name is Peter's. So when I'm done writing Peter's, then I'm done writing my name.
01:15:12
Speaker
Whatever. The guy that wrote The Exorcist. Why'd they have to refer them by three people three names? um So this Pazuzu was inspired by probably both Babylonian and Assyrian lore. And that depicts him as a demon of the wind, actually a king among his fellow wind warlocks. Wind? Weird. Wind.
01:15:45
Speaker
uh yeah i don't know who wouldn't have guessed that until i looked at it i didn't think wind needed to have demons but okay i know some of the specifics i was like are they like saints are they like demons of several things because it like yeah he kind of has these two like weird specialties but they said he was the son of the god hanbi um who and he possesses a young Reagan McNeil in the first Exorcist movie, quote, often depicted as a combination of human and animal parts with his right hand pointed up and the left downward. You might see him have the body of a man, the head of a lion or a dog with eagle-taloned feet, four wings, and my favorite, a serpentine penis.
01:16:44
Speaker
that sounds like quite the collage of body parts head of a lion or a dog yeah there's just some things tossed in there Um, oh, I will put also, there's like some statues and stuff. So I'll, I can add my folder now. Oh, I'm in your cryptids folder, which I'm going to get out of because it's creepy as fuck.
01:17:12
Speaker
But my, staring at Momo like, no, thanks. Oh God. As soon as I saw her, I was like, okay, great. But also I don't need to talk about this crazy bitch now.
01:17:26
Speaker
yeah right as soon as you see the picture you're like oh yeah like uh hated that and yeah now i need to now i know i can down download fucking delete them from cursed ones from my computer because we have yeah ah i'm sorry okay hang on where's my word doc
01:17:56
Speaker
Did the uploading. Is this like a Halloween Momo mask? Yeah, one of them was. Yes. Oh, that's creepy. I didn't know people did that. I hate it. Oh, why? I know it's like a ghost face. We had a lot of the screen guy masks, but this one I can't believe people would actually take the time to make a mask of. It's so niche. Yeah.
01:18:23
Speaker
2009 or not 2009. 2019 was a simpler time. We didn't know there was a pandemic around the corner. We had simultaneously too much and not enough time on our hands. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes he's seen as quote, was said useful in Mesopotamian white magic.
01:18:49
Speaker
His inhuman and grotesque form can be inferred to have been used to frighten away unwanted guests. I like that. Hold on, let me conjure a demon. I want this party to end. Look at his ugly statue! He can keep his other wind demon brethren out of the home, so he's actually kind of helpful though. Yeah, a lot of them believed.
01:19:20
Speaker
i don't know Statues of him often feature inscriptions on his back and some of the same are seen on some ritual texts. and spells and special artifacts that were used for protection from or to gain the favor of, ah yes, more demons." I'm like, oh, is he like the Crowley? We kind of like him. He's the Trister. Crossroads demon. Yeah. He grows on you. But like, yeah, especially some of them seem as good. It's interesting.
01:19:56
Speaker
um especially because this part is like real actual folklore they found, not just internet. But like, yeah, it inspires. It's interesting. It's all like so intertwined. um Many, many Pazuzu heads have been uncovered. I think I do have a picture of one of the heads that just might be called Paz or something, which kind of looks familiar.
01:20:27
Speaker
I don't know, like a big mouth, like kind of some of the Chinese dragon heads have. um Yeah, definitely. Okay, yeah, okay. I was like, and then they'd be fa like found all over the place. some Most were made of terracotta, um but also bronze, iron, and gold ones existed, as well as glass and bone. g The bones one bone ones would be the creepiest, I think.
01:20:53
Speaker
true
01:20:56
Speaker
They're like, we didn't have plastic. Yeah. It's like the thing where, sorry. There's like the rumor that George Washington had like wooden teeth, but like, that wouldn't have made sense to make fake teeth out of wood. Probably would have been porcelain, other, like other, well, bone as in like other slaves teeth, or like ivory or whatever. I don't know.
01:21:25
Speaker
myths in history that are also kind of gross and dark. What were their fake teeth made out of?
01:21:37
Speaker
Many of the heads would have holes or loops allowing them for use in jewelry such as necklaces like a sort of talisman against evil which were popular with ancient pregnant women um which I wrote and then thought sounded kind of funny, ancient pregnant women.
01:21:59
Speaker
um Or they could be used in like brooches or other trinkets, you know, worn. um I just remember that he's like a demon but they're like using him like a god to protect them against stuff. I know because ah sometimes he was seen as like a ward against evil so I was a little confused. i'm like and like Are some of these demons kind of like little saints? It's kind of weird. Yeah, I'm looking at the huge ah stone statue that looks like it's like built outside and probably at least a story tall. like It's huge. Oh, yeah. There's a few different like statue pictures. I was trying to find the... There was at least one that showed a certain time being. Yeah, that's the one. It's like...
01:22:56
Speaker
Because I forgot until I was like, that one has like a massive erection. Yeah, it literally looks like they just put a ah zigzaggy snake and then the snake's head is like... Okay. Yeah, his yeah but it's like... Some of them were more straight up and down and less snakey. Yeah, that one's very much like, let's just put the snake here.
01:23:24
Speaker
literal spinning. Yeah. But no, it's crazy. Because yeah, they thought it had like healing powers, one Assyrian text, like prescribes, quote unquote, a pazuzu head to help heal illness. Oh, and it wasn't until we were just talking about being so sexy that I thought, Oh, no. Does that mean more than I thought of like, prescribing something for hysterical women when they like invented the first like vibrators?
01:23:53
Speaker
I don't think so. I think it's more symbological. What's the word? Symbolic?
01:24:04
Speaker
That one. But he had some differing opinions that said that yet another text calls ah him the agony, the disease, and the suffering of mankind. Oh. see su yeah
01:24:23
Speaker
ah And although, ah as I think I just mentioned before, a tangent, the sheer number of some of the artifacts suggest like a mass production. There was some differences in some of the statues and stories and whatnot. Sometimes he's scaled.
01:24:45
Speaker
with gazelle horns or a dog-like muzzle. Oh, I guess they did say dog head. So yeah, that, uh, tracked. Big eyes or wrinkly cheeks.
01:24:59
Speaker
Nice. His father, Hampu? I think earlier I said Hampi. I'm like, I think I came across two different names, but His father is sometimes called the staggering one or the perverted one.
01:25:18
Speaker
They're real slut-shaming during these times. Yeah, the staggering one. He's just a drunk old pervert. and Damn, yeah, they're harsh. We all overindulge sometimes.
01:25:37
Speaker
Um, he's sometimes shown fighting an evil being known as, uh, Lamatsu, who from what I gathered is often seen as like attacking babies and mothers. So he, I think he's like seeing that that's why the pregnant women seem him as such a talisman. Cause sometimes he's shown as fighting off this evil being or whatever. It was a little confusing. Um, yeah. And like.
01:26:05
Speaker
actually yeah that one I think yeah that was the end of it because then I because I did so so I thought what if I talk about Momo but then oh yeah well yeah so mine was a little shorter but I don't know it just wasn't sure because I was like so many directions we could go I was glad you talked about Slenderman because like that comes to mind when I think of internet age yes or I feel like that's definitely like the biggest one that like still and like when did Slender Man's already been around for like probably close to 15 years so the fact that it's still like one of the biggest infamous case ones is pretty wild actually.
01:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of weird to have one that comes up like in our actual timeline where it originates or something. Yeah, right. Normally we're talking about stuff that was a bit older through the ages. Yeah.
01:27:16
Speaker
Like, Oh yeah. Uh, when I was looking on our Instagram and the dark cast, our lovely network was doing with the one where it features a different show each week on spotlight on dark cast. Yeah. they Cause they had tagged us in a video and I thought, but we didn't put out an episode last week. And then no, they had featured us on their spotlights on spotlight on dark cast. And it was our episode called what lurks in the woods. And I was like, Oh, I think we did a bunch of those, like, um,
01:27:44
Speaker
I don't know how to call it like foresty pine barrens, like American a Midwest cryptids. Yeah. They seemed, yeah, they kind of seemed to crop up around like people settling the Americas and there's some of them are like, what, the hodeg and They're just really weird looking ones that drag their lips and sound kind of like the Eeyore of cryptids. Right? Yeah, I love it. So I was like, oh, they featured us this week. I forgot we put that episode up there for a bonus for anyone to share. so ah Nice. Shout out to us for having awesome back catalog that I forget about.
01:28:35
Speaker
Right? Yeah, sometimes it's like, oh, should we switch out some of the episodes? And i I think I just left them up and I just added to it last time. I was like, I'm just going to put a few more on them. Oh, good idea. Yeah, because then we have it's kind of like a just a little drive where if other um or podcasts want to feature one of our episodes or we want to feature one of theirs, we can, which is nice to have with the network. So we love it. Yeah.
01:29:04
Speaker
And they promote us, which is helpful because that's the hardest part about having a podcast is like shamelessly self promoting yourself on social media and whatnot so that you get listens. Right? It's so rough. Speaking of which, we'll probably have some new Patreon shout outs to include next week, I guess we didn't really get to anything like that this week, but Next week, we're gonna talk about a new topic. We just picked it. Oh, it's a crime-y. It's a crime-y one. Where Kelsey was underwater again.
01:29:45
Speaker
We've got some more crimes coming at you from like, yeah, the water-related areas, which is... andascy It's a never-ending fountain, shall we say. Yeah, it's horrifying.
01:30:02
Speaker
I know it's like when whining crime was like cruise ship crimes and like we will never but like yeah there just there just seems to be a lot when you go to look up stuff so like yeah definitely uh i have some in the bank too where i'm like oh shit next time we talk about a disappearance at sea or whatever like i've got one yeah which is sad To be fair, I shouldn't laugh. Right? It's crazy. Literally crazy. Yeah, so we'll delve into that and we hope you all had a happy new year. Yeah. Welcome to 2025 everybody.
01:30:49
Speaker
We are actually here. We did it. Possibly our fourth or fifth year of podcasting, so we might be going a little crazy, but we thank you for sticking with us. Yeah. Or if you're new here, welcome. Don't listen backwards, you weirdos. Also, maybe just don't listen to the first 10 episodes, you know, sometimes they'll say, get a little embarrassed by your early ones.
01:31:18
Speaker
ah And forgive our audio quality until we got these nice smikes. Yes, and once you join Patreon, if you do, throw us the likes. I want to know when someone actually listens on there. yeah What they think, right? What does our lowest Patreon tier start at? $2? Yeah.
01:31:47
Speaker
Canadian, which is pocket change. I know. Come on. Even cheaper for Americans. Join, join, join, join, join. Yeah, but to be fair, I do so happy to see a lot of people when they have joined have joined at a higher tier, which makes me really so happy. Yeah, I think they're doing it more to support us than for the content, which is fine. I'm totally down with that. You just take pity on us slash love us and want to give us money. Like we're down with that. Yes, it does go back into the show. It's how
01:32:23
Speaker
we've what funded the website funded zencaster um all that kind of stuff so it does make a difference in the production side of things for sure and helps support the podcast um episodes directly that's why people say we can't do it without you and we wouldn't want to it would be depressing
01:32:53
Speaker
Hey, we got two views. Was it me and you? Yeah, yeah, it was.
01:33:00
Speaker
ah We but we'll also, you know, it's, it's, it's one of those where you're like, you're supposed to do it because it's fun and you love it and it's your hobby. But also if, if you guys like us enough and share us enough and we get big enough, we'll try not to annoy you with too many ads and stay real and not get too upper owned celebrity podcast asses.
01:33:22
Speaker
oh yeah like some of them do some of them the the content goes down the drain it's very unfortunate i would never want to be those people where you're like they got famous and then they went to shit oh damn yeah Yeah. So we will keep our five dollar mics. No, but we're not five dollars. No, no, no, no. But we'll keep our like mediocre podcast equipment. ah ah Maybe until we get our next big influx on Patreon and then we will keep it really cool for you. But until then, we'll just keep it cryptic. Yeah. Thanks for listening.
01:34:10
Speaker
yeah and we probably kept it under two hours look at us go yeah i think we did damn imagine that bye if