Slumber Parties Are Witch Gatherings/Transcript


 * [Rebecca is sleeping, then suddenly, there are thunderstorms. Suddenly, she woke up from her bed and found a ghost in her nightmare, scaring her and actually making her wake up, then she breathed heavily, then she calmed down.]
 * Rebecca Parham: Slumber parties. When I was a kid, slumber parties were marketed to us like these sacred rituals of girlhood, a strange and mysterious rite of passage that all girls do. If there was a cartoon on TV that featured girls, there would always be a slumber party episode, and as a kid, I was fascinated by the concept. This Hollywood portrayal of what girls do when they band together in the dead of night. And don't get me wrong, I saw the hyper girliness of it. Makeover movies, bullies, an excessive amount of giggling, but that was just the surface level. There was something else between the lines that felt mischievious, wicked even. But it wasn't really until adulthood that I finally figured out why tell me something when you think of those time-honored traditional slumber party activities. Which one's come to mind? Perhaps the game where you stand in front of a mirror and summon an evil spirit: "Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary!". Or is it the eloquent folding of paper to reveal the future "and the fortune teller says yes, you will be an author." Maybe it's the home made potions you put on your face to make yourself more beautiful "and then a spoonful of honey and a dash of ginger, hahaha!" or perhaps it's performing levitation, light as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather, stiff as a board... Now it doesn't all of this sound like [gasp] witchcraft? I am pretty much convinced there's a weird parallel between slumber parties and witch gatherings. To me, there's just a few too many occult themes hidden amongst the hair braiding in the pillow fights, ghosts for example, they tend to come up as a common theme at slumber parties, sometimes, as ghost stories or scary movies. Now my regulars on this channel know that I have an affinity for the idea of spectrals and spirits, but my mega fans know that there's one spooky device that I will not touch and that would be a Ouija board. You won't find me playing with one of these things, even it's commonplace, as they are at slumber parties, is there someone here with us nothing more girly than opening up a door to the spirit world and provoking whatever is on the other side. [opens and closes door]. Bloody Mary is a very popular way of doing this, too. Most of us have heard of this classic childhood test of courage. It has many variations, but the basic idea is this you get yourself a good old candle or flashlight, you stand in front of a mirror in the dark, you say "Bloody Mary" three times and bada-bing bada-boom: you got yourself a vengeful spirit in the mirror that may or may not kill you. Fun for the whole family. Now if you actually see something in the mirror, what's most likely happening is a thing called pareidolia, where your brain tries to fill in the gaps when given a vague stimulus. It's hard to see in the dim lighting, so your brain tries to piece together something familiar. It's why people see faces as potato chips and why that cloud looks like a duck. We girls also like to practice our fair share of fortune-telling. At slumber parties, we have many devices to do so: paper fortune tellers, that we used to call cootie catchers when I was a kid, magic 8-balls, the game MASH, which if you didn't know, it stands for a "Mansion, apartment, shack or house" and even the more modern game of "Charlie Charlie's" to take on a pretty old Spanish paper-and-pencil game called "Juego de la Lapicera", also played by generations of girls trying to predict the future. Though, I fully admit that despite my best efforts as a kid, I don't have much clairvoyance. Never really saw the whole single workaholic YouTuber thing coming. Speaking of creepy old traditions meant for kids, I know most of us internet dwelling mole people are aware of the supposedly dark origins of Archaea crimes like ring-around-the-rosie and Mary Mary. Quite contrary. But my personal favorite straight-up slaps you in the face with brutality, no pocketful of posies poetic imagery here: I'm talking about the Lizzie Borden skip rope rhyme: [Lizzie Borden took an axe. She gave her mother forty whacks, After she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.]. Now let's just contextualize this for a moment here: this would be like somebody making up a cheery little kid song about the Manson murders. Hmph, and they say we're the twisted generation. So I can't make a video about the creepy things little girls do without mentioning our iconic toy, the doll. You didn't know the one toy that has documented cases of demonic possession, and who else has dolls? [gasp], witches. Witches have been using dolls called poppets. For centuries, they're made of a lot of natural materials like carved root, potatoes, cloth, branches, and they're used to cast spells on people. Now admittedly, little girls at slumber parties don't normally use their dolls for the dark arts, but these things do have a tendency to make us feel uneasy sometimes, especially when they're in groups, and I think a lot of that has to do with the uncanny valley in which an observer is more repulsed by an inanimate object the closer it resembles a human being. Just bear in mind that's what little girls have been raised on for centuries. The last occult slumber party game that I want to talk about is one that I never actually got to do: light as a feather, stiff as a board. This is the game where you supposedly make a member of your witch party, levitate off the ground, one girl lies on her back while everyone else gathers around and puts one or two fingers from each hand underneath her. Everyone chants "light as a feather, stiff as a board" several times, and then counts to three, and on three, everyone is able to lift her up relatively effortlessly with just their fingers, as though, she were practically weightless. But do be careful with this spell, young witches: in the event, you should drop your levitating friend. The powers won't be advanced enough to heal a fractured spine. Now what's actually happening in this circumstance is simple science. With everyone lifting on three, the weight is evenly distributed and fingers are a lot stronger than we give them credit for. Myth busted! I think I've made a pretty good case for the idea that we ladies have all secretly been raised as witches, but you know what: we live in modern times! Everyone can be witches and have whatever kind of slumber party they want. Play the spooky witch games or have a last gamer standing smash tournament, discuss anime work on a fursuit, who cares? No rules! Just what makes you and your friends happy, as long as no one's getting hurt, for real. I don't want to get a letter from a lawyer because one of you dropped someone playing light as a feather, got it? Lawyers use some real dark magic. Anyways, my geeks and creeps, thank you so much for tuning in, but now, I gotta tune out. Bye!