The Creep Journal

..When you were here before

Couldn’t look you in the eye

You’re just like an angel

Your skin makes me cry

You float like a feather

In a beautiful world

I wish I was special

You’re so fuckin’ special 

Creep – Radiohead

 

I was always fascinated by how amused a few people were, in being a silent creep. Straight poker faces, successfully portraying a normal citizen image. Then, there’s that specific time when they discreetly enjoyed being a serial killer movie’s big fan, or have a severe obsession with a stranger they barely knew, or even became a stalker. The spectrum can be infinite. From mild or medium to a particular jeopardizing level. When does it become measurable? When does it starting to cross the line of sanity?

Coltan Scrivner, a Ph. D. student in the Department of Comparative Human Development at The University of Chicago did research on why some of us had a preference for watching serial killers.

From supernatural danger, and body violations, to the minds of dangerous people, these topics paved a broad spectrum leading to one: “morbid curiosity”.

There was never this sort of conversation :

“How do you know I work in a tech company?” 

“I googled your LinkedIn, didn’t you know?”

Anyone who admits to their objects of desire that they have stalked them on the internet, is automatically confessing their obsession. Obsession sparked fear in others who didn’t share the same venture. Eventually, it bounces back to another fear of rejection from the stalker’s point of view. That’s why it is safer, for an uncertain amount of time, to observe in hidden sight.

 

The Creep Primitive Mind

The fact that mystery in our life is a thrilling experience, but is that all that we have in store? Sure, the hunt for love brings you adrenaline, but at the same time, the calculated steps inside the “stalker’s cave” will ease the risk of shaming ourselves. Particularly now, in the times of googling and social media autonomy. Waves of knowledge can hit you with rich information anytime you need it as you construct piece by piece of the puzzle. To understand more about the hunt, Coltan mentioned an analogy of the predator-prey situation.

We are too, fond of observing predatory behaviors through the eye of prey. Then, our primitive mind will want to learn about it. We willfully take mental notes without having to be in a real situation, when watching a thriller or true crime movie genres.

Eventually, once we met or found the perfect prey, the real-life simulation begins. In real life, creeps are wandering around your neighbourhood, office or campus. Could you possibly found yourself to be one of them ?

The Creep Tutorial

As we measured in how far along are you as that creep on the internet, let’s elaborate a few practice and routines a stalker does in their hours.

1. Googling relentlessly

From their personal facebook page, their tagged photos from a third degree friend, to noticing religiously what hours they usually appeared online. Once they’re online, most of it we just stare in silence. Sometimes just to enjoy a tiny relieve from the target’s appearances.

There are also  creepy versions in a whole different level. Spying using certain applications to help determine nagging questions in your mind. Apps that worked things like ; the phone number they gave you, is it the main one or is it a back-up number? Or The Lulu App, an app that works for female facebook users. Providing essential information details on a guy they want to hook up. They even serving up reviews. Not to forget another application to prove the real gender of the person from texts they send you. Yup, that application do exist.

2. Calculating every move on social media to attract their attention.

The frequency of which we respond or even initiate texts or chats. When is the time to step back and remain unseen in their life. And when is the time to make an appearance from your hiding cave, right exactly in front of them or passes by.

3.The Creep Live-monitoring.

Lingering around the target’s house, just to patiently wait for any movement, a glimpse of their live shadow. Oblivious by how far this came from a sane person. A true creep might dilligently equipped themselves with binoculars and even documented the viewing activity.

In the movie The Voyeurs, Sydney Sweeney plays a next building neighbor that takes pleasure of making constant surveillance from her target accros a curtain-free glass window. She and her boyfriend just moved in a new apartment. When they accidentally saw intimate moments of their neighbors and it turned into a sightseeing show, they bought a laser-based voice transmitter device and have it installed to their computer. The tool make it possible for the spying experience to produce voices that emitted from laser receiver phototransistor, up to 500 meters away transmitting signal through the glass windows. If you already know about this, Congratulations, you are a James Bond with no virtue whatsoever on your mission.

4. Searching signs on someone wether they actually likes us or not.

Do creeps really care about wether his target reciprocates the same feeling? Yes they do. But often biased by the conformity that came from their own expectations.

What really constitutes on being a creep

Absolutely not 100% clear about what makes one or what regulates this. But here’s a few list to work on if you think you’ve met one. Or that maybe it turns out to be yourself.

The excitement of chasing and peeping.

The rush of adrenaline on every enticing moments of stalking. Waiting and the seeping of serotonin on each flash of target’s appearance or feedback. Even the slightest bit. It was a fluctuating hormonal rollercoaster. Pretty much the same degree as being in a front-seat concert, or even more thrilling. In this watch, you are the sole spectator of the arena.

Delusional perception towards others

The slightest friendly remarks or gesture the target point towards a creep will driven a notion that the feelings are reciprocate. Or at least they might have a chance. They often worse these perception with fantasies they built as a consolation of their own expectations on reality that weren’t happening and unpleasant to deal with. The delusion can also a sign of a mental disorder or even came from a undiagnosed mental illness.

Perpetual loneliness on the inside

Not all introverts are a eligible as a creep, and vice versa, many extroverts could potentially be a creep candidates. The measures weren’t that obvious on personalities, but are a definite on a specific one thing: being lonely. Creeps on their safe place—the social media— occasionally enjoy making an appearance once or twice, as a token of their existence and a silent cry of loneliness. They have peculiar ways of choosing social life, usually the loneliness is the result of their incapacity of creating a healthy form of relationship. This resulted a recluse life that also steams from lack of self-esteem.

Extreme covet on being one

There is an aching and longing feeling to be with that person or aspired as one, in an excessive proportion. In some cases, it can reflected as copying their gestures, attitude up to personalities as a form of mirroring.

 

Scrivner, C. (2021). An Infectious Curiosity: Morbid Curiosity and Media Preferences during a Pandemic. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 5(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.26613/esic.5.1.206

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