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From collecting candy to carving pumpkins, Halloween is defined by its traditions, and few are as time-honored as the telling of ghost stories.
Whether recounted by crackling campfires, read from well-worn books or streamed on big-screen TVs, supernatural tales seem to take on a special resonance in the lead-up to October 31. And, on the whole, we seem more than comfortable enduring chills and braving thrills to enjoy them.
But what draws our attention, season after season, to things that go bump in the night? And what makes the paranormal such a powerful, and persistent, storytelling device?
Mary Mullen, PhD, is an associate professor of English at Villanova University and the instructor of the course "Ghostly Matters," which delves into haunting's role in culture, history and society. From her perspective, our longstanding fascination with spirits, specters and phantoms speaks as much to our concern for the world around us as to our interest in the hereafter.
"At their core, ghost stories unsettle us," says Dr. Mullen. "They raise questions about what we consider normal, what we view as 'everyday life,' what we value as 'modern' and whether the past is still with us or not."
As Dr. Mullen explains, when we're presented with something that's "haunted," we're essentially being asked to consider the reasons why. The very existence of spirits, emerging from beyond the grave, compels us to reflect on their presence's meaning—and to think about what developments might draw the ire, intrigue or intervention of the dead. (When watching Steven Spielberg's "Poltergeist," for instance, a viewer might feel the movie's ghosts are completely justified in terrorizing the profit-hungry real estate firm that disturbed their eternal slumbers.)
Spirits, in turn, consistently set our focus on items left unsaid, unconsidered or overlooked. Departed yet still present, drifting somewhere between this plane and the next, they often challenge the living's notions of progress, propriety and success—and signal a last-ditch effort at preserving something that has all but faded from recollection. In effect, they bring the past into dialogue with the present for the sake of the future.
"Ghost stories are really useful for contemplating transition and change and what's lost in the process," says Dr. Mullen. "They give a name to things that are liminal… For example, Luke Gibbons [a professor at Maynooth University] says that ghost stories, in modern Irish writing, are frequently connected to memories that haven't yet become public history. So, they speak to facets of social life that exist, or have existed, but are not present in monuments or official accounts."
From Virginia Woolf's "A Haunted House" to Toni Morrison's "Beloved," tales of the supernatural provide us with what Dr. Mullen terms "glimmers of possibilities." They serve to mirror and embody our complicated feelings on transformative happenings, whether personal, communal or generational, and they afford us the language and vocabulary to express sadness over what is done and hope for what is yet to come.
"There are certainly ghost stories, like Elizabeth Bowen's 'The Demon Lover,' that end in absolute terror with no seeming resolution," says Dr. Mullen. "But I think that, in a lot of these tales, haunting leads to reconciliation, or different kinds of healing or important acknowledgements—of things that need to be acknowledged."
As Dr. Mullen proceeds to explain, it's no coincidence that the roots of the contemporary ghost story can be traced to the 19th century, a period of great social upheaval, cultural displacement and scientific and technological advancement. The product and reflection of a tumultuous "new age," the genre, as we know it, took hold as a means of reckoning with that which was lost, actively transpiring and still to occur.
Perhaps it's no surprise then that, as the leaves begin changing and autumn starts giving way to winter, we have an affinity for tales that center on visits from the afterlife, bridging the past, present and future.
"I think that we tell ghost stories when we're open to moving beyond our sense of 'the everyday,'" says Dr. Mullen. "And there are certain points of the year, like the holidays and gatherings with family and friends, that are so rich with emotion and memory that the boundary between this world and the 'otherworld' seems maybe—just maybe—capable of being crossed."
In mid-October, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a final “click-to-cancel” rule, which, after its provisions go into effect, will make it easier for consumers to cancel recurring memberships and subscriptions.
The rule is an undoubtable victory for consumers who have run into roadblocks attempting to protect their wallets amid the flurry of oversubscription in today’s world, but it also begets an important question: Why is oversubscription occurring in the first place?
“One important reason for that problem is that getting into contracts is frictionless, it’s too easy,” said Brett Frischmann, JD, the Charles Widger Endowed Professor in Law, Business and Economics in Villanova University’s Charles Widger School of Law. “The FTC is addressing a real concern in making it easier for people to exit agreements of this sort. But while making it as easy to unsubscribe as to subscribe sounds great – we all like even playing fields and symmetry – it might be better to also make subscribing a little more burdensome, so people understand what they are getting themselves into in the first place.”
This idea is the focus of Frischmann’s recent paper, titled “Better Digital Contracts with Prosocial Friction-in-Design,” the publication of which coincides with public dissatisfaction over digital contracting processes. In August, Disney attempted to have a wrongful death lawsuit blocked, citing print in terms and conditions from a one-month Disney+ free trial the plaintiff signed up for in 2019. Since then, other companies have succeeded in recently blocking the commencement of similar lawsuits.
In the research, Frischmann and his co-author, Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi, describe these contracts as “dehumanizing” and that they “undermine human autonomy and sociality, by design,” citing how they elicit behavior in a pre-determined manner (such as clicking on cue) and often include side agreements with other entities, unbeknownst to the users.
“One-click” contracts rely on legal fictions, such as presuming that clicking an “I have read the terms and conditions” button actually means that they have. They are structured this way intentionally.
“The idea behind digital contracting is ‘Let’s make the contract as quick as possible before people leave or change their mind,” Frischmann said. “They only want to do the minimum that the law requires, and all the law requires is notice of terms and action that says, ‘I agree.’”
For these reasons, he argues, modern digital contracting contradicts the purpose of contract law in the first place; enabling people to reach genuine agreements and cooperate.
“It’s antithetical to the underlying values of a contract,” Frischmann said. “Autonomy is undermined because people are not able to exercise autonomy in a meaningful way when they are not actually capable of deliberating about the terms to which they are agreeing. As for being cooperative, there is no relationship. Digital contracts are completely one-sided.”
So what can be done to combat this?
“Speedbumps,” Frischmann says, referring to measures that can cause friction in the contracting process to better protect the user. Physical road speedbumps represent a useful analogy, because while they make things slightly more inconvenient for the user, they are deployed strategically where other values are at stake, like the safety of children playing outside.
“People tolerate speedbumps,” Frischmann says, “because they serve a social purpose. Friction in digital contracts is similar.”
With respect to improving digital contracting, there are multiple measures that can be taken that inherently have such friction, but not all of them are always appropriate.
Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAs), for example, are a type of friction-in-design that serve a useful social purpose (security) and have become normalized and tolerated, but some CAPTCHAs are ableist and others may generate proprietary data.
Where he sees the most beneficial friction existing is in comprehension, which in software form could be completing a task or passing a test to prove an individual understands the agreement.
Comprehension is the basis for one of Frischmann’s proposed alterations to contract law. Currently, the oft-criticized concept of informed consent is utilized. He argues it should be replaced with demonstrably informed consent, in essence requiring entities to further show that people truly comprehend what they are agreeing to.
“Right now, individuals assent to contracts, going along with terms someone else insisted upon,” he said. “But assenting to terms is very different than being informed and consenting. To demand demonstrably informed consent shifts the burden on the provider to generate evidence showing in fact a person understood and agreed.”
In the recent Disney case, for example, demonstrably informed consent would have required not just clicking an agreement when signing up for Disney+, but that Disney somehow explained to an individual that if they sign up for a free trial, they cannot take the company to court, and further generating reliable evidence that the individual understood that. If that were the case, perhaps the individual would not have signed up.
“Or, they may not have ever gone to the Disney park if they had [signed up],” Frischmann said.
This proposed change in contract law, along with the various potential methods of engineered friction in digital contracts all circle back to the same goal: slowing down contracting where it affects people in ways they do not understand.
“You can’t have digital contracting built like a highway, where it’s all as fast as possible all the time,” Frischmann said. “For our digitally networked environment, it needs to be built like a neighborhood.”
Earlier this month, thousands of revelers donned dirndls and lederhosen to mark Oktoberfest, the annual celebration of Bavarian fare, oompah music and, above all else, beer.
The fall festival is just one of many occasions, including happy hours, brewery tours and sporting events, where Americans enjoy the beverage. In fact, based on a recent report by the Pew Research Center, the U.S. population consumes approximately 6.6 billion gallons of beer each year, which averages out to about 26.5 gallons per adult of legal drinking age.
However, while ales, lagers and stouts remain popular choices that bring people together, not everyone feels equally included. A new study by Shelly Rathee, PhD, the Diana and James Yacobucci '73 Assistant Professor of Marketing and Business Law, highlights a gender-based divide within the beer-drinking community, with female consumers often feeling overlooked and left out.
"Due to the structure of the beer industry and marketplace, there is reason to believe that firms overproduce products that appeal to male audiences and overly communicate masculine aspects of beer consumption," says Dr. Rathee. "As a result, female consumers are made to feel (and may continue to feel) excluded by beer culture, on average. From a business standpoint, the beer industry may be limiting its total market potential in the process."
As Dr. Rathee explains, the beer industry and marketplace are predominately populated by men, and academic literature has long indicated that male dominance in a social or business setting can alter the behaviors of women in myriad ways. In her project, "The Female Consumer Response Implications of Male Dominance in a Product’s Online Community," the professor sought to understand how this trend might manifest itself in an internet forum for beer aficionados, hobbyists and critics.
By examining customer review data from the online community BeerAdvocate and conducting tests aimed at assessing gender-based differences in contributions, Dr. Rathee found that female consumers are inclined to defer to the male majority in such settings. In general, women either refrain from sharing their perspectives on products or adopt language characterized by what are commonly referred to as "masculinity themes."
"Masculinity and femininity themes were drawn from the text of the online reviews and were identified using dictionaries derived from previous research on these topics," shares Dr. Rathee. "For example, if the consumer liked the taste of the beer, a more feminine way of describing this might be 'pleasant,' while a more masculine way might be 'strong.'"
In these terms, the difference in expression might seem subtle. However, as Dr. Rathee contends, the prevalence of tens of thousands of reviews that lean toward a more masculine tone, with few offering a counterbalance, can have noticeable effects. A quick look at the beer aisle in your local supermarket reveals its impact, with bottles and cans featuring images of axe-wielding warriors, dinosaurs and gargoyles.
"We found in our research that male dominance in a marketplace leads to lower trial intentions [plans to try or buy something] and brand attitudes among women," elaborates Dr. Rathee. "Therefore, we can argue that companies are likely to produce products, and marketing appeals, that are more targeted at male audiences."
Although men are currently more than twice as likely as women to name beer as their preferred alcoholic beverage, Dr. Rathee suggests that there is potential to create opportunities that encourage more female drinkers to engage with beer culture. By fostering environments where women can express their preferences and perspectives, she believes the beer industry can become more inclusive and representative, ultimately enriching the community as a whole.
"When featuring reviews on websites, an effort to balance out the presentation of ideas from male and female voices could be helpful," Dr. Rathee says. "Special categories could also be created to drive interest based on demographic characteristics that may include gender, among other factors. A more extreme measure would be to simply avoid including gender as a reviewer characteristic that is publicly viewable."
Much like opening tents beside a beer hall, these steps could provide the necessary space and conditions for a more open and robust discussion of products to take place—to the benefit of both consumers and the industry. In the event they're increasingly pursued, that's something to which we can all raise a toast.
