{"title":"In the Dark: The Afterlife of a Horror Hoax","authors":"Erika Kvistad","doi":"10.3366/gothic.2023.0152","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In the Dark, a 2007 webseries directed by Andrew Cull that purports to be the YouTube channel of a young woman documenting a haunting in her apartment, is arguably the first horror hoax webseries on YouTube. Two decades after the popular rise of two horror media traditions that make use of the storytelling power of hoaxes, the found footage horror film and creepypasta, this article returns to In the Dark as an early work that draws on both these modes and asks: what happens when a hoax gets old? If the credibility of a hoax is inherently time-limited, how might a work of hoax horror whose time has passed speak to us now? To explore the afterlife of In the Dark, I discuss this foundational but little-studied work in the context of earlier scholarship on genres and modes that make use of illusions of authenticity, like creepypasta, found footage film, and alternate reality games (ARGs). I discuss how In the Dark functioned as a hoax when it was originally published in 2007, examining its amateur aesthetics, its interactions with viewers, and its inclusion of apparently meaningless material to create a sense of authenticity and implicate the reader in the storytelling process. Reflecting on how the last fifteen years have changed the way this hoax appears to and works on viewers, I suggest that as the immediate credibility of a horror hoax diminishes, a different kind of horror effect takes over, allowing the hoax to function in new, unintended ways.","PeriodicalId":42443,"journal":{"name":"Gothic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Gothic Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3366/gothic.2023.0152","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the Dark, a 2007 webseries directed by Andrew Cull that purports to be the YouTube channel of a young woman documenting a haunting in her apartment, is arguably the first horror hoax webseries on YouTube. Two decades after the popular rise of two horror media traditions that make use of the storytelling power of hoaxes, the found footage horror film and creepypasta, this article returns to In the Dark as an early work that draws on both these modes and asks: what happens when a hoax gets old? If the credibility of a hoax is inherently time-limited, how might a work of hoax horror whose time has passed speak to us now? To explore the afterlife of In the Dark, I discuss this foundational but little-studied work in the context of earlier scholarship on genres and modes that make use of illusions of authenticity, like creepypasta, found footage film, and alternate reality games (ARGs). I discuss how In the Dark functioned as a hoax when it was originally published in 2007, examining its amateur aesthetics, its interactions with viewers, and its inclusion of apparently meaningless material to create a sense of authenticity and implicate the reader in the storytelling process. Reflecting on how the last fifteen years have changed the way this hoax appears to and works on viewers, I suggest that as the immediate credibility of a horror hoax diminishes, a different kind of horror effect takes over, allowing the hoax to function in new, unintended ways.
2007年由Andrew Cull执导的网络连续剧《黑暗中》(In the Dark)据称是一个YouTube频道,讲述了一个年轻女子记录她公寓里闹鬼的故事,可以说是YouTube上第一个恐怖恶作剧网络连续剧。在两种利用恶作剧的叙事能力的恐怖媒体传统——发现的恐怖电影和令人毛骨悚然的意大利面——流行起来20年后,本文回到《黑暗中》,作为一种利用这两种模式的早期作品,并提出了一个问题:当一个骗局过时了会发生什么?如果一个骗局的可信度本质上是有时间限制的,那么一个已经过时的恶作剧恐怖作品现在对我们有什么意义呢?为了探索《In the Dark》的来世,我将在早期关于使用真实性幻觉的类型和模式(如creepypasta, found footage film和alternate reality games, arg)的学术背景下讨论这一基础但却鲜有研究的作品。我讨论了《黑暗中》在2007年最初出版时是如何作为一个骗局发挥作用的,考察了它的业余美学,它与观众的互动,它包含了明显毫无意义的材料,以创造一种真实感,并在讲故事的过程中暗示读者。回顾过去15年,这种骗局呈现给观众的方式发生了怎样的变化,我认为,随着恐怖骗局的直接可信度下降,一种不同的恐怖效果取而代之,让骗局以一种新的、意想不到的方式发挥作用。
期刊介绍:
The official journal of the International Gothic Association considers the field of Gothic studies from the eighteenth century to the present day. Gothic Studies opens a forum for dialogue and cultural criticism, and provides a specialist journal for scholars working in a field which is today taught or researched in academic institutions around the globe. The journal invites contributions from scholars working within any period of the Gothic; interdisciplinary scholarship is especially welcome, as are studies of works across the range of media, beyond the written word.