The past holds a lot of lessons and a lot of nostalgia, but there’s something about the pictures shared on r/oldschoolcreepy that make you do a double take, realizing the amount of disturbing yet oddly fascinating things our ancestors partook in. Such as having demons sitting on you whilst you sleep halfway off your bed. Seems like this would give you a sore back, love…

However, ‘creepy’ doesn’t mean the same thing as ‘scary,’ although they belong to the same family of feelings. So what actually defines the sensations we get when we look at these pictures: the limbo between deciding whether to fight, fly, or just ignore and move on with life? To answer this, we need to hit the history books (not literally). 

Charles Dickens is credited with the first use of the phrase “the creeps” in his 1849 novel David Copperfield, to mean an unpleasant, tingly chill up the spine. The phrasing of such feelings quickly caught on in society, with psychologists and thinkers of the time putting on their thinking hats to try and figure out the core of creepiness, as well as its existential value. 

Ernst Jentsch set out the concept of the uncanny, which was later elaborated on by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay ‘Das Unheimliche,’ which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks. For Freud, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. What does that mean exactly? Well, let’s dive deeper. 

One of the most recent studies conducted was by Frank McAndrew, professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois. He decided to explore the boundaries of this very familiar feeling by conducting a preliminary survey, which asked more than 1,300 people “what is creepy?” Surprisingly, the answers were fairly straightforward. 

Subjects felt more creeped out when a person was not able to follow social norms and cues, with the biggest factor of whether someone was considered creepy being unpredictability. “So much of [what is creepy] is about wanting to be able to predict what’s going to happen, and that’s why creepy people creep us out—because they’re unpredictable,” explained McAndrew. 

“It’s about the uncertainty of threat. You’re feeling uneasy because you think there might be something to worry about here, but the signals are not clear enough to warrant you doing some sort of desperate, life-saving kind of thing,” McAndrew stated, continuing to say that being creeped out is different from fear or revulsion. 

When you’re creeped out, your brain and your body are telling you that something is not quite right and you’d better pay attention because it might hurt you, as compared to feelings of fear/revulsion that manifest clear responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, all thanks to hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. 

However, the physical sensations that come with the creeps sometimes mimic those of the spooks. In 2012, researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands found that when subjects felt creeped out, they felt colder and believed that the temperature in the room had actually dropped. The chills anyone? 

That physical response further heightens your senses and, as McAndrew stated, “You don’t know how to act but you’re really concerned about getting more information… It kind of takes your attention and focuses it like a laser on this particular stimulus, whatever it is.”

From a developmental perspective, this sort of deduction could be useful in elongating our existence. McAndrew explained: “We’re predisposed to see willful agents that mean us harm in situations that are ambiguous, but this was an adaptive thing to do. Our ancestors saw a saber-toothed tiger in every shadow and a slithering snake in the motion of the swaying grass because it was better to be safe than sorry.” 

Therefore, we avoid things that give us the chills. Unless, of course, we’re playacting as such, similarly to the way we enjoy horror films. “It’s going to trigger a lot of things that scare and startle you, but deep down you know there’s no danger,” McAndrew said. “You can have all the creepy biological sensations without any real risk.” 

However, humans have proven time and time again that we can’t fully trust our judgment. Psychologist Julia Shaw argues that, when it comes to creepiness, one important feature to note is attractiveness. People that are conventionally attractive are seen as trustworthy overall, which, as we’ve seen in the cases of Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez, is a very big oversight. 

Should we or should we not trust our feelings of the jeepers creepers? It depends on your situation, but I will always say, a gut feeling is not one to be ignored. But for now, dear reader, I hope you’re safe and sound, snuggled under some blankets with a hot cup of cocoa, enjoying these creepy pictures.

Don’t forget to upvote the spookiest ones, and I shall see you in the next one! Have a good one!