What's something odd that you were scared of as a kid?

I have a bunch. A couple I remember off-hand

• In the music video for "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" by Gloria Estefan there's a bit at the very end she sort of shoves her face at the camera and growls. For some reason this scared the shit out of me as a little kid, so much that if the video came on tv when I was in the room I would immediately start freaking out until my parents changed the channel

• There was a brief period (not sure when, but it was sometime after the first example) where I was really scared of getting poisoned for some reason. It was bad enough that whenever I got a weird taste in my mouth I would start spitting repeatedly in case I had accidentally swallowed some poison.

that one episode of doctor who with robotic faces

New theme music also a box

A bunch of tiny sausages that were packaged in a way that looked kind of like a brain. I would scream if I saw them in a store and had to go in the other room while the others unpacked them if we bought them.

This one specific sound effect in an online game that my sister played.

A photoshopped picture of a person with massive eyes and lips in a kids' book. My dad had to tape the entire page shut to avoid me accidentally opening that page and scaring myself, but I thought that wasn't enough and cut off both pages. One time in preschool we were drawing pictures of things that scared us and I drew that face.

A sticker that I stuck on my bed that got partially torn off in a creepy way. My dad had to put duct tape over it. And somehow, I ended up scared of the piece of tape because it was wrinkled in a way that kind of looked like an angry face.

A surrealist ox head mask that my parents had in the hallway, but eventually moved in their room because I was scared of it. Because of this I was scared of going in their room for a long time.

The last notes of the Plants vs. Zombies menu theme. I would always quickly go away before the song ended. (And also the game over sound effect, but that's not that odd.)

A drawing of me and my sister that I drew MYSELF.

A drawing of "the god of ugliness" that I drew under a table in my room when I was younger.

Several random things that looked like faces. Notable ones included a part of a flower-patterned curtain in my room, a target that my relatives used to shoot at, and a road sign with a face painted on the other side (my mom had to give me a whole speech on why I shouldn't be afraid of that thing because she got tired of walking me home from kindergarten the long way).

This song.

Edited by Hqami on Feb 22nd 2024 at 2:44:24 PM

Hqamilicious

Funny that you mention tape. When I was in elementary school, I was afraid of scotch tape for some reason. ^_^;;

I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.

I wrote about it in the thread on unconventional Nightmare Fuel, but I'll mention the uvula again. I still find it gross, but as a kid the sight of it scared me, because it usually signaled that someone was in danger of getting devoured alive.

You know those little battery operated spike ball toys?

Those scared me when I was little.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

I used to have a fear of TV static.

Oh, I believe in yesterday

As mentioned in another thread Raggedy Ann dolls scared me as a kid.

Welcome to Ideal's World

I think I also was for a while.

I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.

Car washes, apparently. I've been told that the first time I went through a car wash, I was scared shitless. Then I did a complete 180 and went through a phase where I was obsessed with car washes, to the point in which the Happy Ending of a story I wrote ended with the main characters going through a car wash.

What's funny about that one is that when I was about 13-14, my grandpa and I were about to go through a car wash together, and he asked me first if I was still afraid of car washes. It was nice that he asked, but I'm kinda hoping I would have gotten over that fear by my early teens...

Cold turkey's getting stale. Tonight I'm eating crow.

Heavy metal / alternative rock / punk music (I wasn't really exposed to it so it all blended together), and anyone I saw who dressed gothic / punk etc., or even just wore a band t shirt that looked even a little edgy. It wasn't anything I was taught growing up up, so honestly I think I used to just take negative subculture stereotypes in media, like The Quincy Punk, too seriously and thought such people really were always bad. This is now kind of ironic to me - I listen to all of those genres of music, wear heavy metal shirts fairly often, and my partner has multicolored hair and usually dresses at least a little gothic.

Edited by MikeK on Jun 13th 2023 at 8:46:52 AM

When I was maybe 7 or 8, I had a nightmare about a piece of WordGirl music.

When I was 9 or 10, I couldn't get through the first area of Timez Attack because I thought some horribly scary creature was lurking

—signature not found—

Oh man, I was scared of everything when I was little. Okay, maybe not everything, but a lot of things. Some examples:

• Digital clocks

• A little green germ thing on a poster reminding you to get a flu shot at Kmart, back when that place was still around

• The numbers on the side of a pool indicating how deep the water is

• The glowing red dot some TVs have when they're turned off. I always thought it was an eye watching me.

• "Battery low" sounds

and many many more

Voldemort; the lack of nose and lips with the pale skin gave me nightmares as a kid.

1. Lights in darkness (around age four).

2. The scene in The Wizard of Oz where the witch melts.

3. The guy with the deep voice in Muppets from Space.

4. Like the OP, I also went through a phase where I was paranoid about poison.

5. When I was eight, I went through a phase where I was terrified of electrical wires, afraid I'd get an electric shock. I think it came from my dad sharing a story about him getting one as a teenager.

6. Losing my mind (I'm no longer scared that it will happen, but the idea of it still kind of gives me the creeps).

7. Biting insects.

For every low there is a high.

It's probably because I'm autistic, but I was scared of screaming when I was a kid. And although I really like them now, Scrat and Reptar were the banes of my existence as a kid because of that fear.

Orcus on His Throne will always be my pet peeve.

The music video for "Fat" by "Weird Al" Yankovic creeped me out a little when I watched it at the age of 10-11.

The fact that it's mentioned in the music subpage for Body Horror is... understandable, lmao. I think reading that particular subpage is what made me remember this...

Cold turkey's getting stale. Tonight I'm eating crow.

I was really afraid of party poppers. They're loud.

One particular Sesame Street skit I saw when I was around 3 or so scared me so much that it scared me away from watching the series in general until I was around 10 or so. It was one where Cookie Monster sleeps over at Ernie's house and he sees something in Ernie's bedroom that he thinks is a monster and it turns out to be a rumpled blanket on a toy chest, and the way the blanket looked in the dark terrified me so much that I don't think I knew how the story ended until I found the skit on Youtube as an adult. I am not sure why, but I called the blanket thing "the Moo" and remembered it looking like an infinity sign shape. Because I called it "the Moo", that also made me afraid of cows because of the way their noses look and because one of my grade school teachers read a poem about "when the moo comes out" of a cow. I later got curious to face my fear when I was around 10 or 11 and tried looking for the skit again but wasn't able to find it on any Sesame Street number skits or anything that might possibly be about the number 8. Much later, as an adult I looked on a Sesame Street wiki and I found a list of skits about Bert and Ernie at night and that was how I found that it was in the one about Cookie Monster and Ernie. The main thing I always clearly remembered was that "the Moo" appeared sitting on something in a dark bedroom right after the lights were turned out, which is what helped me find that it was a blanket and not an infinity sign or a sideways 8.

Here is the sketch in question:

As an adult, I think the sketch is funny and a taste of his own medicine for Ernie since he's usually the one annoying Bert at bedtime, but I can see how it could be scary as well, with the way the blanket looks in the dark and the ominous music.

Two odd fears (related to each other) I started having in childhood are a fear of butterflies and moths and also a fear of seeing printing dots (like on a magnified printed picture). These are probably related because the fear of butterflies started when I saw a picture of their scales magnified, and I think it might be a general fear or startle reaction I have to seeing a pattern that looks like a clear picture from far away but is a jumbled mess of dots up close. I'm okay with butterflies and moths if the picture (or actual bug) is far away enough that the scales aren't visible (and if it doesn't touch me in the case of real bugs), but once the picture is magnified enough to see the scales, it gives me an automatic shudder and flinch reaction, especially if it involves eyespots, which are supposed to be scary to birds anyway so it might be some kind of primal thing. I'm not as bothered by the printing dots anymore, but I definitely still have some butterfly phobia. I know that there is a fear called trypophobia that is similar but I'm not sure this is the same thing because it's more specific to magnified pictures and not holes in general.

Edited by Rainbow on Jun 15th 2023 at 9:16:38 AM

• Balloons popping, which I suppose isn't too weird to fear as a kid (heck, there was one BoBoiBoy episode where that fear has an important role, so I felt for him in that one)
• TIMERS. Whether it's a Timed Mission, the Continue Countdown, Time Bomb or something else, I basically saw all countdown timers to mean impending disaster.
• Building off of that, Game Over screens in general, maybe those explain my fear of failure. The ones from Angry Birds Star Wars especially. Something particularly unnerved me about Darth Vader laughing victoriously. Then in the sequel game it was either Darth Sidious laughing if I was on the Birds side, or being furious if I was on the Pigs side. In fact, I recall the particular music chime that plays right before the Game Over, the one I'd avoid by restarting the level... it haunted me.

No child should have to think of selling medication for food. Are you afraid?

Spiderus from Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends used to scare me when I was a kid. He still kinda does.

Also, I vaguely remember that the scary walrus / seal monster from that one episode of Pingu freaked me out. It's the page image for NightmareFuel.Pingu for a reason... not to mention the episode ("Pingu Dreams") is now a Banned Episode.

Also, the "Jekyll and Hyde" song from Arthur. Despite the fact that Arthur was one of my favorite shows as a kid (and I'd probably still watch it nowadays if I felt like it), the fact that it has a rather lengthy Nightmare Fuel page is quite understandable.

Cold turkey's getting stale. Tonight I'm eating crow.

Since someone brought up Sesame Street, I thought I would talk about an example I have from that which doubles as a sort of personal Mandela Effect. I remember there was this short called "The Alligator King" that scared the crap out me and made me freak out whenever it came on (similar to the Gloria Estefan video I mentioned, only more so). I strongly remember the whole reason why it scared me so much is because at one point the Alligator King stubs his toe and screams really loud, and then we saw his toe and it's all red and swollen. Something made me think of it recently, so I decided to go to You Tube and "face my fear", so to speak.

As you can see he doesn't stub his toe, but just trips and gets his snout messed up. So why did it scare me so much if the scary part never really happened?

Edited by Bootlebat on Jun 17th 2023 at 7:18:24 AM

Oh also @Hqami what was the song? It says the video is unavailable.

Musta Köksä by Noitalinna Huraa!

Edited by Hqami on Jun 17th 2023 at 7:24:28 PM

Hqamilicious

I have autism so I have a long list of this kind of stuff:

• Escalators
• The Kraft Dinner box because of this commercial for it with singing chin puppets.
• The 20th Century Fox logo
• The DIC "Kid In Bed" logo
• This commercial for Scottowels (now called Spongetowels) with 2 babies throwing their food on the floor.
• Certain trailers from Disney VHS tapes like the scene in the Tom and Huck trailer on the Aristocats VHS where the titular characters coat themselves in mud, and the trailer for Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves because of a close up of a giant praying mantis. While not Disney , I was also scared of the Casper: A Spirited Beginning trailer on my Green Eggs and Ham Sing-Along VHS. But it was just that trailer, I wasn't scared of the Casper movies themselves and would happily watch them with no problem whenever YTV aired them.