Learning Day: WikiHow to Live in a Haunted House

Supernatural WikiHow is a huge part of the site, which I understand even less than Normie WikiHow. It is Normie Wikihow’s job to teach you how to tie a Double Windsor, and they do it so poorly they’re liable in the hanging deaths of 18 children. When you follow a Normie WikiHow guide, you start out with no stakes and wind up screaming in the wreckage of your old life – with Supernatural WikiHow you’re coming into this with your immortal soul already on the line and asking a guy with his head stuck in a paintcan to be your lawyer against the devil. 

Here, I’ll show you what I mean…

Right here, this is a softball question. It’s impossible for WikiHow to whiff this one. 

“How to live in a haunted house?” 

Don’t. 

Every horror movie ever made answered this question for you. 

“How do I survive the night in a haunted house?” 

Don’t. 

“How do I cleanse a haunted house left to me by a sinister uncle?” 

Don’t. 

“How do I timeshare with thousands of murderous Native American spirits?” 

Fuckin’ don’t! 

It’s the only sound advice to give in this scenario, so by having a guide with more than one step, WikiHow has already betrayed you. 

And listen, I know it’s poor sportsmanship to criticize the writing in a WikiHow guide. A war refugee is writing these in bulk for 8 cents a ton, and WikiHows do not weigh a lot. 

But it drives my point home: If somebody can barely string two words together, I think twice about whether or not they really know the chillest Chuck E. Cheese in town, much less how to get my daughter back from closet wraiths.

There’s nothing in here about how the dog is a ghost already, yeah? Because that dog is a ghost. 

Step 1: Spot the ghost dog.

Done. I did it. He’s right up there, missing eyeballs and phasing out of reality.

Please listen to me: I have spin-kicked every single undead dog in every single game that allowed me that option and that makes me an undead dog expert. I am telling you: Don’t bring extra ghosts to the ghost fight.

This entire article is a trap and WikiHow is in the pocket of Big Ghost. Don’t listen to any of this, don’t help them make their Q1 Possession Quota on internet dipshits.

God, this is starting from such a place of weakness. Your very first move and you’re supplicating to the spirit world – just backing into the house ass-first in case ghosts mount to show dominance. 

No ghost will ever respect you after a first impression like this. This is the ghost equivalent of those sushi restaurants with the little conveyor belt, and your best case scenario is to come off like that egg one that nobody wants. 

Okay, you know what these are, right? 

These are housewarming gifts you’re giving to the ghost. You know, the one that’s going to use your wife’s mouth to tear out your throat later? You’re bringing it picture frames and coasters. 

You may as well fill the boxes with ancient daggers, guns from the hands of unsatisfied duelists, and pieces of your dog that it can put back together like a fun puzzle.

You see this? You see this quisling shit? 

WikiHow had you write a declaration of war on a white flag. 

If you need a ghost’s permission to place your ottoman you are not living with a ghost, you’re delivering a ghost’s furniture. 

Do all the things the ghosts used to love? 

You are putting on a one-man show about how delicious it would be to possess you. 

I get it: Teasing a ghost with life energy feels like a psychological power move, all “sure is nice feeling stuff and having a tongue that can taste steak!” and then just mowing through a prime rib while touching velvet. 

But that kind of boss posturing comes after you smash through the front window with a flamethrower and a box of its remains, not after you meekly set your underwear in the foyer for a week so the ghost can acclimate to your scent.

Okay, so you’ve brought the vengeful spirit a spectral hound, you’ve gussied up the house in mid-century Ghost Deco, you’ve performed a burlesque of the living to tempt it, and now you’re gonna sit there and talk about the most fucked up shit that ever happened to it. 

I’m actually starting to change my mind. This article might rule. This might be a guide about how to taunt the undead into breaking Stand Your Ground laws.

Hahaha okay, I was definitely off about the tone here. 

What is this article about, really? 

Is it how to gaslight a ghost? How to recruit a ghost into a cult? Wait, is this guide ‘how to break a ghost for the ghost-fighting pits?’ 

Now that you’re primed to be in complete psychic sync with this furious ghost, go to sleep so you can fight it in dreams. This is badass. 

WikiHow, I forgive you for everything: You god damn wrote a guide about how to give yourself a handicap while shootfighting a ghost on the metaphysical plane. 

This author should write every WikiHow. Write me a guide on how to tell if a bear is aggressive where half of the steps are about which taunts work on grizzlies. Write me one on making the perfect cup of coffee that ends with me wrestling the president. 

Fuck!

We were so close to greatness here, WikiHow. 

You want people to entice a ghost, infuriate it, construct a dream world to the unhappy spirit’s liking, enter it, and then surrender? 

This is ghost propaganda. You need to include a line in the intro that lists you as a spirit affiliate who gets 10% of all life energy stolen by the wraiths sponsoring this post.

Yep, you got the bad ending. You lost this game. This is the one where the camera backs out of the house as you slowly close the door from the inside, because you’re finally home now. 

We get it. 

It’s not ambiguous, you were always a walking flesh unitard waiting for a ghost to wear you to Jazzercise. 

Yeah, sweet image to end on. When that fucking ghoul drags itself out of the television just tell it you love it. Take off your pants and dance around a little, ask if it has to possess the whole body or can it just possess an orifice.

The only people worse than WikiHow writers are WikiHow readers. At the very bottom of this totem pole which is all bottom, there’s a question and answer section. Actual people have read this entire terrible guide on how to be hollowed out by angry phantoms and they still have questions.

If this is just your standard WikiHow user, then telling them that smiling keeps ghosts away probably counts as a good lie. Like selling a magnet bracelet to an unsteady idiot. But if this was an earnest 4 year-old who forgot the word for graveyard, you just taught them that ghosts attack when you’re sad and that’s how we wind up with scientologists.

Combine turkey seasonings with water to make demon spray! Haha okay, WikiHow. Bring all of your dumb hot friends together and practice seasoning each other!

Motherfucker you are being attacked by spirits and the very first place you thought to seek help was the questions section of a WikiHow? Just show the ghost what you did here, there are special spirit rules about possessing simple meat.

This is the dilemma of a WikiHow community manager: The question asker left out a key detail, so it’s up to the manager to guess – are they really seeing spirits, or do they think that people disappear when they leave the room?

If there was any doubt that this guide was written by furious ghosts looking for a skinboat to ferry them back to mortal shores, just check out all the dipshits who asked if being friends with a ghost was a good idea, or a best good idea…

And every single answer that said “ghosts love friends! Scrub all salt from your body and walk backwards into the basement!”