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Slumber Parties Are Witch Gatherings is an animation created by Rebecca Parham.
Synopsis[]
Rebecca explains her occult practices surrounding slumber parties.
Plot[]
In 1991, When Rebecca was a kid, she saw slumber parties as something mysterious and magical. A slumber party episode would most likely happen when the TV show features girls and Rebecca was fascinated by the concept of slumber parties and what it brings to the table. Though, she found something mischievous between them and it was until adulthood that she discovered the creepy part of the slumber party. Something like the Bloody Mary game, or the eloquent folding of paper to reveal the future. It could also be home made potions to make the user more beautiful or it could even be performing levitation.
Rebecca felt like she was convinced about a parallel between slumber parties and witch gatherings, mainly because of occult themes such as ghosts, being a common theme in slumber parties, mainly in scary movies or ghost stories. Rebecca informs that she has an affinity for the idea of spirits and spectrals and she also informs that she wouldn't even dare get near an Ouija board.
Bloody Mary is a very popular way of opening up a door to the spirit world. The basic idea is getting someone a candle or flashlight, then stay in front of a mirror in the dark, then say "Bloody Mary" thrice, then a vengeful spirit appears in the mirror. If the person could see something in the mirror, that would be because of pareidolia, where the brain tries to fill in the gaps when given a vague stimulus. Since there is dim lighting in the room, the brain tries to piece together something familiar.
At slumber parties, the girls have many devices to do fortune-telling: paper fortune tellers, that Rebecca used to call cootie catchers when she was young, magic 8-balls, the game MASH (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, Rebecca fully admits that despite her best efforts as a kid, she didn't have much clairvoyance. She never really saw the whole single workaholic YouTuber thing coming. For the old traditions of kids, she knows most of the internet dwelling mole people are aware of the supposedly dark origins of Archaea crimes like ring-around-the-rosie and Mary Mary. Rebecca's personal favorite is Lizzie Borden's skip rope rhyme that goes like this:
“ |
Lizzie Borden took an axe. |
” |
―Skipping-rope rhyme |
This would be like somebody making up a song about the manson murders for little kids. Rebecca also mentioned that little girls having an iconic toy, the doll, is creepy, because it has documented cases of demonic possession. It was said that witches also possess dolls called "poppets", which were made of a lot of natural materials like carved root, potatoes, cloth, branches, and they're used to cast spells on people. Even though little girls at slumber parties don't normally use their dolls for the dark arts, these things do have a tendency to make people feel uneasy sometimes, especially when they're in groups, and it was said that 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.
The last occult slumber party game that was mentioned is one that Rebecca never actually got to do: light as a feather, stiff as a board. This is the game where someone 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. The levitating friend should be dropped. Scientifically, with everyone lifting on three, the weight is evenly distributed and fingers are a lot stronger than for how strong they are supposed to do.
She summarizes the video, saying that all girls were jokingly and secretly raised as witches, but at the same time, she says that anyone can be a witch, and no rules needed to be setup in slumber parties, as long as no one actually gets hurt.
Characters[]
- Rebecca Parham
- Red-Eyed Ghost
- SomethingElseYT (cameo)
- CypherDen (cameo)
- Illymation (cameo)
- Jaiden Animations (cameo)
- Tabbes (cameo)
- TheOdd1sOut (cameo)
- Girls on TV
- Rebecca's slumber party friends
- Bloody Mary
- Lizzie Borden
- TomSka (cameo)
- DaneBoe (cameo)
- Little Girl
- Lawyer
- Megan Maher (assistant animator)
- Ninedoodles (additional storyboarder)
- Rebaka-Chan (additional voices)
Reception[]
The reception for this video is positive.
Easter eggs[]
- At 5:10, the poppets refer to some YouTubers. From left to right: TheOdd1sOut, TomSka, Jaiden Animations and DaneBoe.
Errors[]
- Despite Rebaka-chan doing the additional voices in this video, she was only credited in the video description, but was left uncredited in the outro.
Warning[]
There is a seizure warning, as mentioned in the beginning of the video. The seizure warning reads: "This video contains strobing, flashing lights that may cause discomfort for some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised".
Trivia[]
- This is the second video to receive a flashing lights warning, the first being Working Late.
- 7 YouTubers made cameo appearances, 6 of them being animators and appearing all in one scene, sleeping all in one room with Rebecca Parham, at the beginning of the video. This is one of the times where there were that many cameo characters, especially in one scene.
- Jaiden Animations made a cameo as a "poppet".
- This is the first video to show the "CHEPS" brand for potato chips.
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