Nathan Radke

And this has been true for 200 years.

And we're definitely at a moment right now where ghosts are having sort of this pop culture moment.

But I think in general, our culture, maybe every culture has a very complicated relationship with ghosts and hauntings, which I think is almost certainly because humans have a complicated relationship with misfortune and death.

I mean, the truth is everyone who's out here in these streets, including everybody listening right now, including you, including me, we're all going to experience misfortune.

We're all going to experience death eventually.

And the haunted doll with its weird glassy eyes and ceramic face, at the same time, it serves as like a kind of container for those ideas and a scapegoat at the same time.

It's like a personification of misfortune.

You can tell yourself, you know, bad things don't just happen out of randomness or poor choices.

They happen because of the manipulations of an evil entity.

It could be like, oh, darn it all, the haunted doll made my partner break up with me.

Is that why I'm divorced, Nathan?

That's probably the reason why.

It's not because, you know, we have personality flaws.

It's not because we make terrible decisions.

It's not because, you know, maybe we should go get some therapy or some counseling.

It's not because we need to work on ourselves.

It's that darn haunted doll.

That's the source of all of my problems.

Yeah.

And in a way, and this goes back to conspiracy theories and why conspiracy theories are so seductive, having some kind of sinister cartoonish enemy to blame misfortunes on is satisfying.