unforum

[Sha Noran]

[gennerx]

[Sha Noran]

However, if MH was real, there would be no evidence as of yet proving that TO is one or the other. There's really not much evidence even suggesting one or the other, let alone proving anything. I mean if MH was real, then Trosephim don't exist and anything they've told us OOG never happened and we wouldn't know it. So I don't see how you can watch only the entries, the TTA and read the Twitter feed and come to a solid conclusion on whether TO is a supernatural or paranormal entity. So it seems to me you're arguing semantics when really its pretty much a matter of opinion which way you choose to categorize it.

[zbeeblebrox]

It's hard to imagine, because it's such a weird decision - just choosing to film every step of your personal investigation. In real life, assuming we even remember there's a camera on our phone let alone bring one along, there's a tendency to only film the most relevant stuff (for example: recall that meteorite over Russia. Nobody posted a multi-entry vlog series about it, they were all one-and-done snippets. And that thing's impact location wasn't found for months, so that totally could have happened) Consider all that hiking and all that cool-but-fruitless urban exploration we'd miss!

Even if some supernatural force made you feel compelled to constantly film everything, it's still doubtful you'd bother posting hardly any of that footage aside from the most dire. Because you wouldn't be making a movie. Dramatic tension and jump-scares aren't on the itinerary - the purpose is either because you need help, or because you want to warn others. It's purely informational. Even most ghost documentaries are hoping to spook you on some level. The only scares the real Jay would post are the lucky, cinema verite ones.

In that sense, the second video (and bits of the rest of the first season) is probably the most realistic. But even still, on the real MH channel, it wouldn't be followed by the quiet chronological addition of further entries. 90% of the following videos would just be dissections of all the Operator sightings he found in Alex's stuff, and the relevant raw footage to go along with it. He'd try giving the clips to industry people who think they can debunk it - film professors at whatever film school they went to, trustworthy skeptics, etc - resulting in no solid conclusions either way. Reddit would probably make a big deal over it, thinking they can solve the mystery, causing it to go viral. Then it'd wind up as a national news fluff piece, where - if they thought it was convincing enough - they'd call it something dumb like "Is this the Alabama Devil?" or - if they had their doubts - give it a joke headline about Bigfoot being a snazzy dresser.

And then Jay would get booked on Ghost Hunters or something, and that's probably the only time we'd get to see one of his fruitless searches around some abandoned area.

The last we'd hear about it is a Cracked article two years later titled "6 unexplained hauntings (that might actually be real)"

[Gante]

Zbeeblebrox, that was a brilliant and insightful post. Well played sir!

[Lithp]

I'm going to side with Generx. If you pay attention, there is a clear distinction in how the words "paranormal" & "supernatural" are generally used. Basically, "paranormal" is a pseudoscientific term, while "supernatural" is a religious one. This even goes down to the formulation of the words. Paranormal is beyond normal, while supernatural is beyond natural.

How would I say that The Operator is paranormal, as opposed to supernatural? Well, if he's supernatural, then he really shouldn't be able to interact with nature at all, but since that technical point is never observed anyway, I would refer back to the fact that a paranormal entity is subject to pseudoscience.

If The Operator were supernatural, then I would expect it to be kept at bay with crosses or chants or something. As medication keeps it at bay, it is subject to science, & therefore likely not supernatural. Basically, you fight fire with fire--if The Operator is magic, then only magic will affect it. Though some series do blur the lines.

I also mostly agree with zbeeblebrox, though the point was that Jay is obsessively documenting himself because of his amnesia. Either way, I do think that the series is getting better with this. Lately, the walking scenes have felt less like filler to me & more like they're there so that I understand where the situation is currently happening.

This also makes me wonder, would it be realistic to try to interact with the comments as much as possible, in the hopes that someone has information, or as little as possible, because they are probably unanimously ignorant?

[zbeeblebrox]

[TheOperator]

[zbeeblebrox]

That's true, Jay was a pretty emotionally cold guy.

Just today, my brother and I were watching one of those Ghost Hunter shows, and it occurred to us: that would be the perfect premise for a found-footage horror series. I mean, imagine one of those productions getting started, and the crew winds up stumbling onto a real ghost/demon. That totally justifies constantly filming stuff from the start - you have the tools on-hand, you have the intent, and it's your freakin' job

[Sha Noran]

[ToTheFading]

[JAL13]

[Lithp]

I was JUST thinking that EMH liked to toss out thank you comments every now & again, & it's one of those things that I think it does really well. Sadly, the participation element seems to have seriously waned since I joined. I was also thinking that an alternative explanation is that people might become so focused on their own problems that they start to take the audience for granted, see them as unhelpful, or even consider updating them to be a chore. Of course, if this were true, it wouldn't really make sense that Jay & Tim continued to upload things to YouTube.

Ghost shows, as a rule, ARE acted terribly & run by tool bags. Something seriously creepy & hard to explain only happens occasionally, so the vast majority of episodes in the vast majority of these series are just filler. To get people buying it, you need the "investigators" to really hype it up. It doesn't help that they're narrowing themselves down to such a small subject as ghosts.

When you see a pop science show, like "Through the Wormhole," it doesn't typically narrow itself down to one field. Sampling all of science guarantees that it will have interesting subjects for each new episode. This is even more crucial for pseudoscience, since in all likelihood you're not actually going to find anything new at all.

[JAL13]

[Wondertje]