The "spirit box" remains the funniest piece of "ghost hunting" equipment

Hybris

NOW AVAILABLE: A purpose-built device for communing with the spirits of the deceased! Definitely not just an entirely unremarkable FM scan radio like the ones elementary school fundraiser programs gave out to kids as free prizes at the turn of the millennium. You can tell it’s a bespoke spirit box and not a regular radio because it has “SPIRIT BOX” printed above the frequency display! That’ll be $80;

chiralica

At least it’s not an e-meter

Imicow

pke meter

Hybris

“MANUAL TUNE SPIRIT BOX” I’M DYING

Like, credit for pricing it appropriately for what it is—a cheap generic AM/FM radio—but I cannot get over the hilarious mental image of some idiot sitting in the dark in a cemetery or whatever frantically turning the tuning dial back and forth.

Hybris

If you want a bit of insight into how I view the world:

Grifters selling cheap AM/FM radios as “spirit boxes” with an absurdly high markup? I kind of respect that. You’re taking advantage of other people’s naivete, but the product you’re selling is, in fact, what it claims to be: a device that automatically flips between the available radio stations. Any “messages” a credulous user might interpret from random snippets of broadcasts are the result of their own pareidolia.

Grifters selling “spirit box” mobile apps? Outright liars and frauds. All of those apps are programmed with audio snippets intended to sound like spooky ghostly whispers. It’d be fine as a novelty or prank, but they’re never marketed that way. There’s a clear intent to deceive.

I respect manipulation far more than I respect straight-up lying.

Imicow

I respect neither

Hybris

That seems to be where most people land.

More than anything else, I suppose, it’s that I admire cleverness. Anyone can lie, but manipulating someone requires, if not skill or intelligence, at least some amount of thought.

witchy witchy Opalicchi

I don’t think you can both claim that people who buy these things are idiots and also assert that manipulating them requires skill or intelligence.

Millennium Adderall 🌠

@Hybris She’s got a point, you know!