
Humans have always approached the unknown with fear and curiosity. We have built myths and legends to help explain what happens to us after we perish. In fact, in the United States we have built the Halloween industry and the love of horror movies around our love of being scared.
Greek and Roman mythology are full of monsters and spirits - usually in response to a vengeful god or goddess. The heroes in many of the myths represent the best of humankind to face the beast. Monsters such as the Minotaur, Medusa, and the Cyclops tormented the common population hoping that the hero would come and subdue the beast. Each hero would use his or her strength, skill, and above all courage to win and free the populace from the tyranny of the beast and ultimately the gods as well.
The Romans also were deathly afraid of ghosts. Lemures were restless spirits of the dead that haunted the living. They could cause harm or mischief to their relatives or enemies. The Romans held a festival called Lemuria in May to appease the ghosts and drive them away from their homes.
As we progressed as humans, our fears did not subside. During the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, we just added a few more specific monsters. In addition to ghosts like the Romans, we added fears of vampires, werewolves, dragons, and zombies. Not only could our dead come back as ghosts - they could come back as vampires and zombies to not only make us afraid, but these undead souls could also actually turn us into one of them by biting us!
Maybe worse than death was the werewolf. This creature suffered the curse of unlocking the animal within us every full moon and doing great damage to farm animals and other humans. A bite from a werewolf would curse the person by turning them into the monster themselves.
During the height of the Renaissance and the Reformation, people feared witches because they believed witches could cause harm or misfortune to others by casting spells, cursing crops, or summoning demons. The witch hunts were often fueled by mass hysteria, political conflicts, or in many cases, personal vendettas. The Salem Witch Trials in the United States are still recognized today.
During the Victorian and Industrial ages, a new genre of horror was developed. The gothic novels of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the tales of Edgar Allen Poe created the mythos that we use today. In fact, many of the vampire myths and traditions were started with Bram Stoker and later continued by Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, and even J.K. Rowling in modern interpretations.
With advances in science, many of our fears would subside. We started to understand not only what made us human but also started to accept our own mortality. But of course, that didn’t stop us from being scared! Soon science and the items we created would scare us. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s, the fear of nuclear war consumed many of us. New monsters or mutations came into vogue as giant spiders, ants and even ancient dinosaurs were either mutated or awoken by our tests or fallout. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the new threat of malevolent creatures from other planets coming to earth to do us harm was added.
Most recently, we have become more scared of what is within us than of supernatural beings. Most of our monsters are of the human variety - be it Norman Bates, Hannibal Lecter, or Michael Myers. Today our films concentrate on those of us who do evil in the form of a human. In fact, some of the most watched television shows concentrate on real life criminals, especially murderers - and not so much on when but on why and how they did what they did. Recent movies and series about Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer dominated the ratings on Netflix.
For some of us, being scared is a thrill that is desired multiple times. In business, though, fear is not a winning strategy. Currently, for some businesses the fear of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is outweighing their fear of failure.
At NP Marketing Group our goal is to help eliminate those fears of new technology. We began the service Your AI Wizards to help businesses take that vital first step in AI adoption. The Wizards are here to listen to your fears about AI, but also to hear about what you want to do. We then take action to find the right solutions for your business as well as help you implement and maintain your solutions.
To help you market your business, we still have our Website Data Pro (WDP) tool that will identify visitors to your website and help you market to them immediately, while they are still searching for a solution. And of course, we still have our Search Box Optimization (SBO) tool to move your website up the Search Results before they hit enter on the Search Box. With SBO, your keywords, even in a YouTube search, are suggested - which means your site moves higher up the list.
Our three products will make you scarier to your competition than any vampire, witch, or monster!
In 2022, horror movies accounted for almost 10% of the entire US box office. A whopping $700 million dollars were spent in the horror movie category. A recent Deloitte study showed that for Gen Z, horror is a very close third favorite genre for video content. Each generation will argue about what movie scared them the most.
To further cement our love of being scared, there are estimates that spending for Halloween in the United States in 2023 will break records, with a total of more than $12 billion. This is an increase from the previous year’s record of $10.6 billion. The National Retail Federation’s survey revealed that people are spending an average of $108 each. The spending includes costumes, candy, home decor, and party supplies. One very interesting thing to note - more money has been spent on adult costumes than on children’s costumes or makeup in each of the last six years and likely into the foreseeable future.
So, while you are getting your fake cobwebs up, ordering your custom costume on Amazon or planning your scary movie fest for this weekend’s scare fest, remember it was our ancestors who laid these fears on us. But the difference is...we know better!
For more content that may help your business grab the future today, Follow us on LinkedIn and Like us on Facebook. Also visit www.NPMarketingGroup.com to see our new service to help you move to more AI solutions.
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