Spooky is a word that gets thrown around a lot, especially around October- Or as many people call it, Spooky Month. Spooky season. Spooky time.
But what does it mean? What do people think of when they say spooky? Well, I’m going to ask some of the other DJs.
DJ CJ - Spooky means scary, like halloween. Not horror, but kids stuff. The Nightmare before Christmas is an example, or Corpse Bride, or most of the Tim Burton stop motion movies. Spooky is kind of innocent.
DJ Chop - Ghosts, aliens, halloween. More like Monsters vs Aliens than Alien.
Jill Star - Spooky makes me think of scary, haunted, frightful. The limit is when there’s a physiological reaction, or like, when your body starts reacting to something. It’s the difference between thinking “Oh, this is kind of scary” and actually screaming in fear. I think more of sounds as making something spooky; Ghost sounds, chains rattling. And dark colors, especially. I’d say blood is more scary than spooky. Spooky is more innocent.
DJ Barbie Princess - Horror, halloween. Scary is, like, the movies you scream at. Spooky is like thrillers. Five Nights at Freddys is spooky. I like both, but if I had the choice, I’d pick spooky. And scary. I just like both.
DJ Aria - I think of horror movies, halloween. Some examples I guess would be like Nightmare before Christmas, Coraline… More for kids. Spiders are spooky. The difference between spooky and scary is that when something is spooky, you’re on edge, but as soon as you start to be actually scared, or frightened, when it’s not controllable, that’s when it’s scary.
DJ Beetle - Halloween. I love spooky (Her words, not mine). Pumpkins are spooky. Not fall pumpkins, but jack-o-lanterns, with faces and pointy teeth and stuff. The warty pumpkins, those are just… No. Like, why? Those aren’t even spooky, they’re just unsettling. Spooky is when something’s not necessarily scary, but it sends a chill down your spine. Like fake ghosts, or jumpscares. Things looking at me through the window aren’t spooky, they’re just scary. Like…
(Still Beetle) When you stare at your face in the mirror for too long, your face starts to distort. Like, your brain is trying to make something up… That’s pretty spooky. I’d draw the line at zombies. Anything less than zombies is spooky, anything more is scary. Zombies freak me out.
DJ Jakey P - Spooky is like a lesser version of creepy, not so much scary but still a little. “Ooh, that’s pretty scary.” When I think spooky I think like classic halloween stuff, like a foggy cemetery, or a foggy hillside, or whatever… Fog in general I guess. I’d draw the line at when something starts to like really scare you. In a way that you can’t control it. When you can tell that something is actually real, versus just being like a fake ghost, is when it starts being creepy.
CONCLUSION
The meaning of the word spooky seems to pretty unanimously mean any Tim Burton movie.
Jokes aside, Spooky is a more innocent form of Scary, where you can tell that something is fake but it still scares you just a little bit. Spooky is fun, and not threatening at all, like a plastic skeleton hanging on a yard hook or a jack-o-lantern with a spiky face.
Above all else, though, everyone agrees that Halloween is spooky. So enjoy the spooky season while it lasts, and really think about what it means to be spooky.