Why do we like scary stories? (w/ Glynn Washington)

Chris Duffy (0:00)

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This is How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. It's October, which here in the United States, at least, means that it's spooky season. Halloween is right around the corner. The nights are getting longer. There's more bumps in the dark. People are starting to put up witches and skeletons and vampires and all sorts of other spooky decorations on their homes. And for me, I hate being scared. I do not like this time of year at all. I would never, ever, ever for fun go to a horror movie. But today on our show, I wanted to talk about the allure of scary stories. And I wanted to talk about that with Glynn Washington, who is the creator and the host of Spooked, because Glynn is also the host of Snap Judgment, one of my favorite shows of all time. Something that Glynn said that I've been thinking about a lot is that spooky stories, tales of the supernatural, they let us talk about issues and topics that we are otherwise supposed to keep quiet about.

Death, suffering, the afterlife, revenge, mortality, pain, the lines between what you're allowed to do and the things that you must never ever do. These are all the kinds of topics that come up when we are sitting around a campfire trying to get the other people to feel scared.

Glynn convinced me that maybe there is a lot more going on than just trying to raise my blood pressure. Maybe there's something real and interesting to learn about ourselves and society in these stories. And to give you a taste of the kinds of stories that Glynn is telling, here is how Glynn introduced the very first episode of Spooked back in 2017

Glynn Washington (2:26)

There are times when you're supposedly all alone, when you feel someone, something watching you. You see her, him, it, out of the corner of your eye, you hear, whispers the all most voices, and you try to believe that you're imagining the whole thing, but what if you're not?

We're going in search of the other side.

SPEAKER_3 (2:57)

Stay tuned.

Chris Duffy (3:04)

Okay, that's so spooky. I cannot be the only one who's getting scared right now. But is that a good thing? Why does Glenn make a show like this? What has he learned? And how would all of us benefit from spooking ourselves deliberately every now and then? We'll have the answers to all of that and so much more right after this break.

And we are back with Glynn Washington, host of Spooked.

Glynn Washington (3:35)

I am so happy to be here. My name is Glynn. It's a pleasure to be here, especially during the spooky season. I'm the host of Spooked and Snap Judgment, and a bunch of other things that dive deep into the stories that people sometimes don't want to tell.

Chris Duffy (3:53)

Well, Glynn, you are responsible for creating one of the top narrative podcasts of all time. One of the big influences on me, a show that I love to listen to, Snap Judgment. But I'm curious, what made you interested in also producing Spooked, a podcast that focuses on scary and paranormal stories? Where did the idea for that come from?

Glynn Washington (4:13)

The idea for Spooked is one of those things that is just born of the moment. Snap Judgment, this is a weekly show. We're scrambling around for story ideas. We're wondering what are we going to do next? And it came time for Halloween and somebody said, hey, why don't we do a regular Snap Judgment, only just do paranormal stories? Sounded good, sound like a good idea, let's go.