Entertainment

Every 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark' Is On YouTube

by Rebecca Jane Stokes

In case you haven't been tipped off by the billion or so articles aimed at capitalizing on your anticipation of the day, Halloween is just around the corner. If you're looking for ways to get yourself in a seasonally appropriate haunted state of mind, YouTube has got you covered in a better way than any of us could've hoped for: A thread graciously shared on Reddit has provided links to the splendor that is every single episode of the old-school Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of The Dark? All of it, seasons one through five. So dim the lights, break out the candy corn, and quietly begin convincing yourself that the sound of your dog licking himself is actually a psychopath trying to break into your apartment using only a wet sponge. Binge-watching has never been bingier than it's about to be, my friends.

This is delightful news to me. Even as I kid, I was passionate about all things vaguely terrifying. Seriously, I made all the kids in my third grade class call me "morbid" when I learned what it meant. When I was in fifth grade, I remember being quietly furious that I was in the advanced reading group. I was mad, not because being a dork made me some sort of social pariah (that hadn't occurred to me yet), but because the kids in the average reading group got to read books from the Goosebumps series, whereas we, the academically advanced, had to read something supposedly more challenging but ultimately THE WORST because anything that is not Goosebumps is THE WORST to a fifth grader. I remember railing against the injustice of this to my mom. "MOM. They get to read Say Cheese and Die – FOR SCHOOL. Like, AS WORK." I was indignant.

I was, at 10 (and still am), a scary-story junkie. If am allowed to pick the movie, whether at home or in a theater, it will be a scary one. I may freak out while watching it, but that's why I bought the ticket, so duh. When I was younger, not only was I an avid reader Goosebumps, R.L. Stine's more "mature" horror series Fear Street, anything by Christopher Pike, but I also loved Are You Afraid of the Dark? in a pretty huge way.

That said, an episode wherein a rock with the words "Remember this as you pass by – all things living will one day die" was prominently featured did cause me to wake up my mom at 3 a.m. because I was all "I don't want to die! Let the rock be wrong, mom!" Ah, youth. In fact, I may hold off on watching these until the sun sets just for the pleasure of calling my poor beleaguered mother and telling her all the scariest parts – you know, for nostalgia.

Image: YouTube