A Guide to Modern Fears: The Sociology of Dread

Believe in the existence of other, larger, and more sorrowful worlds.

When we were children, many of us loved to gather in a summer camp by the campfire and tell spine-chilling stories about the Black Hand, a coffin on wheels, or a deserted house inhabited by ghosts of former owners. But children grow up, and the once oral folklore moves to the internet—growing new “modernized” details: from old closets, monsters move into the entrances of high-rise buildings, and the restless souls of the dead now live on old flash drives and one-day websites. This audiobook is an attempt to answer the question of whether the scary stories on the internet are connected to social reality, and what causes the feelings we experience from them.

The author is Konstantin Filonenko, a sociologist, researcher, and creator of the podcast “Sociology of the Streme” on Glagolev FM.