The European mind cannot comprehend this...

memes at @BoringHead are better anyways

Gm

I wonder why indeed?

Thinking about the folkloric concept of ostension, the pretending of stories in order to bring them to life. Ostension is a very powerful thing, the stories we try to live can have consequences in the real world. Examples within the postmodern internet folkloric environment are things like the Blue whale challenge, a semi mythical game that resulted in numerous suicides when enacted, and the Slenderman murders, two girls who had developed a belief that they were appeasing the mythical horror entity Slenderman.
The folkloric urge is inherent in humanity. We will always want stories. The difference between the stories generated organically over the course of time and passed down through generations, and the uncontrolled expression of the folkloric urge on the internet, is that our time tested stories have wisdom. Jenny Greenteeth, the green haired river hag keeps you away from the river, the Will o' the Wisp keeps you on the path, Black Shuck keeps you off the wild moors, because he's not real but ... just in case.
These were the monsters constructed by the elders to teach the younger.
Now the adolescent mind, sheltered throughout it's childhood with censored fairytales removing references to killing dragons, subverting the folkloric archetypal roles until the subversion becomes the expectation when picking up a children's book, never judging anyone or anything to be evil, encounters true darkness in the world and in processing it constructs it's own monsters that it is powerless to stop, it does not have the script to stop them.
Our refusal to deal with the horrific as parents seems to have left it in the hands of those who do not understand the power of stories that they tell, in an age where an unhealthy idea can spread faster than cholera. So I will tell my children of the old bogeymen and the old heroes, so their nightmares may be useful, and they may know that evil can be vanquished.

Soft men create hard times, hard times create hard men, hard men create soft times... Don't forget to pause for a moment and remember the consequences of aggression, cruelty, and above all else remember to remain civil.