Lecture Notes

Introduction

• Goal: Reach 100k subscribers before the end of the year.
• Content: Reading scary Reddit stories, including new ones.

Story 1: Holly Hills Mall Parking Garage

• Narrator: Ethan and friend Aaron are urban explorers.
• Setting: Holly Hills, Virginia, near Richmond.
• History: Holly Hills mall was built in the 1980s and abandoned in 1987.
• Experience:
  • Unlocked gate and entered an abandoned mall.
  • Felt watched, lost camera.
  • Explored parking garage with multiple unexpected subfloors.
  • Discovered oddities like a running car covered in dust, and a horse with a decayed face.
  • Strange phenomena: descending floors while going up, voice urging "get back in the car."
  • Narrator returns to normal world but Aaron is missing; nobody remembers Aaron.
  • Conclusion: Narrator feels disconnected from reality, plans to return to find Aaron.

Story 2: The Smiling Man

• Narrator: The friend of Ben, who moved to an Art Deco apartment.
• Incident: Elevator stuck between floors, Ben experiences odd happenings on a nonexistent 13th floor.
• Experience:
  • Encountered a smiling man with black eyes.
  • Ben becomes obsessed, repeating "The Smiling Man waits for you on floor 13."
  • No evidence of the 13th floor; police find nothing unusual.

Story 3: Lost in the Parking Garage

• Narrator: Penelope, struggling to find her car in a parking garage.
• Experience:
  • Lost car, persistent headache, time stuck at 5:30.
  • Encounters a homeless man, Thomas, with whom she feels a connection.
  • Series of bizarre events in a shopping mall.
  • Encounters janitors with black eyes in a closing mall.
  • Thomas is injured, Penelope tries to escape.
  • Penelope associates Thomas with a past event involving drugs.
  • Conclusion: Penelope and Thomas escape, both acknowledge their shared experience.

Story 4: The 13th Floor Ritual

• Narrator: Unnamed person intrigued by an internet ritual.
• Ritual Instructions:
  • Performed in a building with at least 13 floors.
  • Steps involve pressing buttons in order and leaving personal items.
• Experience:
  • Finds a building (Markham) to perform the ritual.
  • Eerie elevator experience, encounters figures on the 13th floor.
  • Realizes they left Steve behind in a surreal realm.
  • Receives cryptic message from a user, M.
  • Conclusion: Narrator plans to return to save Steve, despite risks.

Overall Themes

• Exploration and discovery of the unknown.
• Supernatural or surreal occurrences leading to existential realizations.
• Themes of memory, reality, and the boundaries of the known world.
• Emotional impact of losing friends or reality and the urge to save them.