The title pretty much says it all.
To answer my question: anthropomorphic vehicles. I recently saw Pixar’s Cars on DVD. While I managed to finish it, I could never shake off the feeling of uneasiness and creepiness. I mean, come on, eyes and teeth should never be a part of my modes of transportation. Similarly, my local train system has a mascot of one of their trains, complete with a smiling, teething, bug-eyed TRAIN.
So, what creeps y’all out?
I hate to be a one trick pony and all but…Spiders. Couple too many legs and WAY too many eyes.
Wooden ice cream spoon paddles. SHUDDER
I was okay with Cars, but Thomas the Train is really creepy.
William Petersen from CSI: Las Vegas. I can’t even stand to look at him, he creeps me out so bad, for some reason.
He looks like a bear.
But even clean-shaven, he gives me the heebie jeebies.
Touching me with feet that are in socks grosses me out but bare feet don’t bother me at all.
I have longish curly hair and when complete strangers grab a curl and pull it down just to see the ‘boing’ effect I want to slap them and run. It’s OK when little kids do it but otherwise don’t freaking touch my hair unless you know me.
Remember that old song; I think Sinatra used to sing it a lot:
“Oh, thank heaven for little girls”
(shudder)
I hate this too. With me, it’s usually old ladies who do the hair-groping, because they’re jealous.
My partner is Lakota and has that beautiful long, thick black hair. Sometimes little old ladies get us both at once. He thinks that it’s funny, and even funnier that it sets my teeth on edge. I doubt he’d think it was so funny if it was his hair that they were pulling instead of just stroking.
Strangers calling me by name. I really dislike wearing nametags or name badges because it invites people to use my name. Really, Mr./Ms. Customer, you can ask me where the Tylenol is without prefacing it with a friendly “Hey, <name>, howyadoin’?” (Which reminds me that I find faux friendliness creepy as well.)
People who recognize me from a long time ago. I recently had a woman come up to me at my store… “Are you <name>, <mom’s name>'s son?” It turned out that she was a preschool teacher of mine in the late 1970s.
The idea of large objects looming in space. That sounds weird, but it takes specific forms: the idea of being on a moon orbiting Jupiter or Saturn… and having the sky just absolutely dominated by this giant neighbor. Even the earth’s moon gives me the creeps sometimes… just sitting out there, looming.
I’d say dolls but I know the creepy doll thing is sorta common. Eyes.
Our office looked into ergonomically designed chairs and bought creepy black chairs with mesh seats and mesh backs. They look like giant insects to me - when asked if I wanted them to order one for me I said no thanks, I like the chair I have.
For me, it’s also the strangers-touching-you thing. Since I’ve been told literally thousands of times, I understand that people find red hair really appealing. But what makes perfect strangers think it’s okay to touch something just because they find it attractive? I’m a tactile person myself, but I’ve never used that as an excuse to touch someone I didn’t know. I grew up with the mistaken belief that people only did that sort of things to children, and here I am over 30 and still trying to grin and bear it when people who are more than old enough to know better give into the impulse to be grabby. Though I’ve been wavering on my belief that I don’t want kids for a year or so now, the thought that if I get pregnant a not insignificant subset of perfect strangers will be even more likely to touch me fills me with a kind of dread.
Dolls creep me out too. Always have. Even as a little girl, I had an aversion to them.
Lobster tanks in grocery stores are something I find creepy that I think is less common. As I mentioned in another thread recently, I think the idea of boiling lobsters alive is oogy, so when I see the poor lobsters in their sad little tank, it creeps me out.
Fifteen responses and nobody said…
CLOWNS?!?
I find it deeply disturbing when food manufacturers choose a mascot that happens to be one of their products. Take Charlie the Tuna, for example: is he part of some kind of suicide cult? A self-hating collaborator in xenocide? A masochist taken to ridiculous extremes? He’s inviting us to consume his own kind, for fuck’s sake! :eek:
Weeelll, this will freak you the hell out! NSFW Trains talking - warning unfortunate stuttering
People with beards trying to kiss me. And worse - still trying to kiss me as I lean and then stagger backwards. People who hold your hand too long in a handshake - it’s sinister.
I was going to say clowns but I figured it was too common. For me its not the tramp clowns though, like Emmet Kelly, just the white face clowns…or clown dolls.
Jokes on The Simpsons about nuclear-energy mutation. Blinky the fish was fine, but pretty much everything else (squirrels that shoot eye-lasers! octopus trees!) disturbed me.