: lower black pain.

October 1, 2026 · 4m

There are only two commercials for underarm deodorant. In the first, someone wearing a white shirt runs after a taxi, pushes their kid on a playground swing, or performs any other action requiring brisk movement: at the end they enthusiastically wave with their hand high in the air and give someone a tight hug. All is bliss. In the other, someone gets on a full elevator and when they raise their hand to push the button for their floor everyone faints. Confidence or Fear. A super legendary advertising person told me that these are the only two ways to speak to America. Both work incredibly well, changing behavior, motivating millions… …but fear works faster . America is not afraid, at least not enough for our own taste; thus theme parks filled with thrill rides, video games filled with peril, and movies filled with increasingly awful situations. And now it’s Spookytime™ : over 1200 live haunted house attractions open this weekend, and well over 2000 Spirit Halloween™ stores opened last month . Fear, in the US, is a growing three billion dollar a year business, and it’s a truly American trend - data proves that there is no where else on planet Earth that so enjoys a good scare as the U.S. of A. America is not afraid, but it certainly enjoys pretending to be. Modern media is now a 24 hour panic machine: I know I should be terrified of, well, everything, but it all kind of blends together, like the Best Buy television display wall where they’re all playing something different so I can’t really see or hear anything. Fear is more powerful with a clear focus - a giant screen in a dark room so large that I can’t look away, or a roller coaster where I’m strapped in for the ride. It’s fun to be afraid of just one thing at a time. But for some of us fear is an indulgence, a luxury. Being forced to navigate through terrifying situations everyday creates a kind of burnout as years wear on. That’s what happened to me: fear cost too much energy, took too much to sustain, I couldn’t afford it, even if I bought generic. I mean, I understood that “they” (whomever they were) were coming to get me (for some reason or another) but there were just so many characters and the plot was so complicated that I admit I zoned out a little and now I’m not really watching that show anymore. I imagine the same is true for everyone whose life doesn’t fit vertically into a TikTok screen, behind them a background of spacious modern suburban living with little on the eggshell walls and plenty of floorspace for dancing. Years of consistent fear of walking home at night or random acts of an angry stranger (or an angry person we already know) wear us down and sort of short circuit our systems. With limited free time, I don’t normally choose to add stressful entertainment to the mix, but in honor of the season we’re picking out spooky movies to watch. The scary films I grew up with were all man vs. nature - natural disasters (in Sensurround™), giant insects and rodents, stuff like that. Then in the 80’s, horror conflicts shifted to man vs. man: normal folks against either the possessed, sociopathic, or murderously cranky. Now the films seem more focused on man vs. self: wide eyed protagonists battling isolation or loneliness or encroaching madness. Or even more spooky are the films where someone is forced to make a difficult decision between horrible choices and then is forced to live with the consequences. You know: adulting. Eeesh. Terrifying . America is not afraid of monsters. We’ve got guns. Americans aren’t afraid of giant monsters either. We have bigger guns. Godzilla wouldn’t last very long in central Texas. I find it strange that our zeitgeist hasn’t embraced “Frankenstein” considering modern AI is its real-life re-telling - or the insatiable thirst of the Vampire, which so tidily mirrors corporate avarice. Werewolves and ghosts and creatures? Not in this country, buddy. We’re not afraid of those. But zombies are huge in America, which is weird because they are made of us ; they are our neighbors and colleagues and community members, just super hungry and not all that chatty. And babysitters , housekeepers , and nannys , both human and robotic, are the ultimate bad guys in dozens of American horror films. Huh. Go figure. Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe