Social Media and The Paranormal

People get combative when they see ghost photos on social media.

The holy grail of paranormal evidence is when you capture a photograph of the phenomina you were investigating.  As soon as you snap the photo, it seems like almost immediately the debunkers come out trying to disprove your photo, and some of them may start calling you a liar.  They won’t outright call you a liar, but they will say things like, "this is photoshopped," "it’s AI-enhanced," or "it’s staged."  To me, it’s all the same, because you're claiming that I am trying to intentionally deceive the community.  That’s exactly what a lie is: trying to deceive someone intentionally.

So you capture a photograph of what you think is paranormal.  If you’re like me, you’ll spend hours staring at it.  Then you post it on social media to share what you captured and, hopefully, receive a little validation.  Then the debunkers start commenting on your photo, spouting paranormal jargon, trying to look like they are the expert in the conversation, and making baseless accusations against your reputation.  That’s one of the biggest problems I have with the paranormal community.  

In a community that supposedly doesn’t have any experts, when it comes to reviewing other investigators' evidence, everyone becomes an expert.  I love it when supposedly non-experts start their comments by stating, “I’ve been in the paranormal for “X” amount of years.”  Anyone who tries to qualify their position by citing their years of experience, in my opinion, is saying they are an expert.  In philosophy, this is the Baconian fallacy of the Idol of the Den or Cave.  You’re trying to justify your position as correct based solely on the number of years of experience you have.  

Am I saying you shouldn’t look at evidence with a critical eye?  NO.  Am I saying people don’t try to fake or manufacture evidence?  NO.  In the era of social media and the pursuit of clicks and likes, people certainly do!  However, people do make honest mistakes.  The one thing we can never experience is the atmosphere in which the photo was captured.  They very well may have been experiencing something paranormal, and just took a shitty photo of it.  Their perspective on their evidence could also be clouded by what they were experiencing at the moment.

That’s the main issue I have with social media and the paranormal.   People don’t have to qualify their comments.  They can misuse common jargon that makes them sound knowledgeable in their comments, and then never have to justify their position.  Meanwhile, at least for a brief moment, your reputation as an investigator is soiled.

In my opinion, the paranormal community needs to develop a sense of professional courtesy.  Not everything is a fraud or an attempt at deception.  If you disagree, don’t be combative in your dissent.  Take the time to explain why you disagree, then qualify your statements.  If, as a community, we start doing this, it would be a huge step in helping the paranormal be seen as a legitimate field of study.