By: Ab-horror-nt and Valid (Kelly Chia, Humour Editor)

I am human. I am mortal. And alas, I think I have an all too relatable conundrum. The fall of all reputable Halloween girlies, the grand hamartia of everyone who claims they adore the spooky autumnal season: I have declared a war against all things that scare me. I like a tasteful amount of scary. I like consuming scary things at the emotional distance I hold between myself and a spider — I respect their existence in theory, but will avoid all eye contact. I think this is fair! I am NOT a Halloween fake fan, just a Halloween-sometimes-fan. I’m not just talkin’ about your typical Mike Myers and Chucky shit, either. Everything that scares me has to go. 

RECENTLY, YOUTUBE HAS DECIDED TO CROSS THIS TINY THRESHOLD I’VE SET. I’m not sure when it happened or how it heard, but it knows my every fear, I swear it on The Peak’s policy on publishing truthful narratives. It started with the 45-second ads about the new horror movie on Amazon. Upsettingly unskippable, but I guess it’s acceptable in late September. Sure. I’m a Halloween coward, I accept this. I’ll do what every coward does and look up the movies’ plotlines later so I can enjoy them in peace. 

But for YouTube to come for my blood and soul by casually pushing me towards every online dating application in existence . . . that, I shall never forgive. Fall is for being cute, witchy, and listening to every Florence + the Machine album in existence. It is not accountability season, contrary to what everyone is saying about every planet retreating into outer space. If you think I will be vulnerable to another human being on an . . . application, you’ve got the wrong Peak editor here, bucko. I only express my feelings to my Twitter following of 25 users like every god-fearing Zoomer. 

Then there’s the Grammarly ads that have cropped up as I prepare to write my first essay of the semester. No, I don’t need help. I don’t need to talk to my TA about my ten different essay ideas that I’ve barely narrowed down! I don’t need a robot to tell me my writing is at a seventh grade level and that my language is too “flowery.” Hmph. 

Who does YouTube even think it is? It’s not like the algorithm relies on my search patterns or anything . . .