What Gives Horror Its Appeal?

That's the question I mean to address, What Gives Horror Its Appeal. This topic hits home for me on a number of levels, the biggest of which is that I think it was the horror genre more than anything else that got me into film, via first exposures to it online via websites like X-Entertainment and I-Mockery and my young reading of HP Lovecraft and Steven King.

I also wanted to talk about it because I feel horror is at a low point now compared to how high it was in the 80s, due to the plague of remakes and the fact that the studios' current strategy of "big-budget, safe, PG-13 CGI spectacle" fits horror really; really poorly, but I feel that it's due for a renaissance due to the growing undercurrent, hence its relevance to pop culture. And I know sooooo much about the topic that it's not even funny, thanks to my vaguely autistic browsing of the internet for horror data and my nigh-religious attendance of the Loft's Mondo Mondays and All-Nite Scream-O-Ramas.

I'd personally respond that it's a combination of both a genuine love of being horrified for the thrill, the joy in seeing the macabre creativity that the genre does and the natural human interest in the unknown (which also happens to be the greatest and oldest source of terror), but that's before doing all the research. And in my research I need to find specifics. Academically trackable specifics so I can make the paper publishable and rub it in people's faces.

So yeah. That is the state of the Union. Any tips?

Tabletop RPGs in My 4chan? Its Moar Likely Than you Think.

The problem with the way people talkabout 4chan is the simple and fundamental fact that there is no one real 4chan. They're usually referring to the infamously anarchaic (though much tamer as of late) /b/ board when they talk about the place's culture, but the thing is, each board has its own culture. For example, /x/ (the paranormal board) is filled with would-be magicians and cooks alongside some excellent Creepypasta writers, /pol/ (the political board) is filled with neo-nazis and libertarian loonies, /v/ (The video game board) is infamously caustic and bitter and /d/ (the weirdass hentai board filled with hermaphrodite and parasite porn amongst other things) is famous for being the most pleasant f all the boards. But the creative heart of 4chan is /tg/, the tabletop RPG board.

Despite the fact that tabletop gaming has become more and more nitche as the computer RPGs that sprung from its loins have blossomed, and yet they've managed to create massive massive libraries of ideas from this medium, some of them even being fleshed out into full tabletop game systems. So, which medium shaping the message of which am I analyzing?

Why both of them of course! The medium of 4chan,where images and text are posted, posters are anonymous, is the perfect system for allowing the tabletop RPG to make the jump into the 21st century.Luckily for us, we've got a full archive of threads to access to give examples for. And the first thing one notices in the thread is the 'quest" threads.

They're not much liked by a few, and they are so numerous that the aforementioned archive has a specific folte, but they're a good starting point. They're essentially very much like old text-adventure games, where the players  are give na scenario (along with a picture to go with it), and the player writes in their response to do what's next, with the next scenario following directly from what the aftermath of that response is. But there's a twist.

No, it's not that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, don't be a smartass. It's that the whole thing is moderated not by a computer, but by one single writer, who looks at the answers he gets from the posters,decides which one is best. And this sums up /tg/ use of the medium perfectly.

Despite everything being in an electronic format, from the art to the text to the communication of the players, this captures the main aspect that tabeltop RPGs have always done better than any other medium: the humanity. That experience of having a world controlled not by a computer but by a human, where outcomes are only as predictable as the DM makes them, and where randomness is sane. And also the ridiculousness.

/tg/ is not made up of a bunch of neckbeards who take everything too seriously. No, they are neckbeards of great jocularity and wit! They took apost about sucking 10000 dicks to get a certain game made into a thread on the logistics of sucking 10000 dicks. They turned a "play chessover the internet" thread into a bizarre epic that barely resembles chess in a conventional sense. They took an obviously-trolling furry diaper fetish post and spun it into a thread about how the idea of a diaper of holding could become a near-limitless source of cheap and accessible oil!

This also is a factor adding up to my conclusion: that the medium of 4chan is the perfect place for bringing tabletop gaming into the modern age. Because, the short-lived (Barring archives like the one mentioned above) nature of the threads, combined with the use of images to produce unexpected results, and the quick, anonymous replies that give the writers plenty of time to think of witty repartee, makes 4chan;'s format the perfect place to pull off similar improvisational shenanigans as the best tabletop RPGs, and the best threads pull this off with aplomb! 

And that's what  they've even gotten huge projects done, such as a Neon Genesis Evangelion tabletop RPG or an entire chapter manual for their goofy fan-made Warhammer 40k Space Marine chapter The Angry Marines. And this is perhaps why they are best poised to bring tabletop gaming into the 21st century. Because that spirit of improvisation, that spirit of creation and craziness, iswhat both mediums do best, and they have produced genuine results.

The future of the tabletop rests on the laptop.

References:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html