Hey everybody.
Welcome back to another episode of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show where we have a few
jokes, share a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown.
I'm your host Dave and today I'm joined once again by a good friend of the show, Cryptid
Clyde.
How's it going there bud?
Hey, hey, it's going great.
Yeah, you're looking good.
I'll bring you back.
Yeah.
It's always a pleasure to have you on.
So I'm glad you're back.
It's always such a joyous vibe.
The energy is always good when you're on.
And that's the reason why.
That laugh is contagious as fuck.
And I can't get enough of it.
I'm happy to help anyway I can.
I know.
I appreciate that.
But yeah, I know you.
How you doing?
I know you've done some stuff since the last time you were on.
I think Loveland Frogman Festival, I believe you did that.
Yep.
Loveland Frogman at the start of this month.
And then I've got a nice dry spell here up until end of May.
So yeah.
How was Frogman Fest?
Frogman was great.
It was the second year for that show.
It was a new location, but it was it was bumping.
It was still good.
Yeah.
I saw a lot of pictures.
Everyone there seemed like they're having a fucking blast.
Like, yeah, it's fucking great.
It's a great time.
Yeah.
I'm going to I just hate that.
Like Pennsylvania is so big because Ohio is not is right next to Pennsylvania.
Right.
But for me to go from Philly to Loveland, Ohio, that's like a that's like a that's like
a I got a state that's like an overnight trip.
That's not like I just thought about for the day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no, no, no.
Clyde, I'm glad you're on because we're going to talk about something that I think needs
to be talked about.
We kind of had a little discussion last week or the week before or something kind of on
Instagram about this.
And you already know what we're going to be talking about.
And that is we're going to be talking about skinwalkers today.
And I'm very excited.
I'm assuming you're familiar with skinwalkers.
Everyone everyone is fucking familiar with skinwalkers nowadays.
Anyways, if you're on TikTok, I was going to say a version of skinwalker.
Sure.
I'm very familiar with.
No.
All right.
Let's just I guess this is getting to it because I wrote I wrote down a lot and I don't know
how much.
And I have a feeling we're going to go off of my script probably frequently throughout
this just because we know it's going to be a nice tight podcast.
No tangents.
Well, because I feel like we do have both have a lot of say and I and the way I feel
about skinwalkers is the same way I feel about like the when to go or something like that,
where it gets lumped into a category that I feel isn't the category it should be in.
And it's represented in a way that I don't feel it should be represented as.
But again, I'm a white dude and this is Native American culture.
I know who the fuck am I to say what's right and wrong.
It's just I guess I think I think for preface sake, we both say we're both just American
white dudes saying anything here.
So you know, don't take anything with any serious weight.
Yeah, no, I guess this is more of a opinion based sure episode than it is a factual.
Because, you know, again, I'm not going to tell people how to feel.
I mean, although I have I did do a lot of like, how do Native Americans feel about skinwalker
popularity?
And it's not it's not great across like for most of it.
So I feel like I'm not in the wrong to say some of the things I'm about to say.
God, I'm making it sound like I'm going to say something super fucked up and then
you're ready for just a stream of slurs coming out.
Yeah, I promise it's not that.
But anyways, now, I'm 100 percent positive that anyone listening to this episode has
probably come across some sort of skinwalker content very recently, either like through
like a late night journey down the rabbit hole.
That is the weirder side of YouTube with videos such as, quote, most disturbing animal skinwalkers
caught on tape or, quote, scary skinwalkers that videos that will give you goosebumps.
Also skinwalker in this title is two words and goosebumps is also two words in this title.
Or maybe you came across like an Instagram post or more than likely you saw just one
of what feels like millions of TikToks.
Oh, yeah.
Now, as of right now, during the time of this recording, there are close to one hundred
thousand videos with the hashtag skinwalker.
And that hashtag has been viewed over a billion times.
So it's oh my god.
It's pretty safe to say that for some reason, the skinwalker has seen quite a bit of play
in recent years.
Yeah.
And that curiosity kind of continues to this day.
You sent me a couple of TikToks earlier.
There's something.
So I don't even know where to begin with this.
The you know, I'm just going to keep going on script.
We're going to go.
We're going to go on.
All right.
Now, for the most part, well, let me rephrase this.
All of those videos are 99 percent horseshit.
It's like always, always a super pixelated or artifacted video of like a dog or a deer,
just just being weird or just being a dog or a deer or some dude using like the green
screen effect with like a picture or video of a skinwalker behind it.
And he's like just just blatantly wrongly telling you how skinwalkers are stalking his
property like how his neighbor got attacked by one.
So, Clyde, the reason I invited you on today, like I said up top, is to go over just what
exactly is and more importantly, what isn't a skinwalker.
Like I said, we kind of had this discussion the other night about this, which is kind
of what inspired me to do this, because like I was saying with the when to go, I did an
episode a while back about that.
And I think it's important to dispel a lot of the misinformation when it comes to its
folklore and legend.
But before we like dive right in, how where are you at with all of this so far?
I have this weird love hate relationship with like scary videos like the like filmed on
a potato kind of videos, because I mean, I've always liked spooky stuff.
So I'm down to just see stupid people walking around a band of buildings.
But then there's just like things that are obviously fake or just just have so much simpler
explanations.
Yeah.
And then you get into just I feel like everything that isn't a ghost or Bigfoot is just labeled
skinwalker.
Yeah, it's the one that the one video that I hate the most.
And I've seen many iterations of the same video is someone's dog outside of a glass
door scratching the comment.
And then it's like, Pookie's already inside.
Who is this?
And it's like, well, then show you and they never show you the dog that's inside.
They don't pay to be like, look, Pookie's here.
Who's like it's like it.
And also, we don't know if they have two dogs and they just didn't tell us, you know.
Well, that's that's the other thing, too, is that a lot of these videos that are getting
posted are downloaded and then reuploaded so many times that you don't know.
Like that could have been just a video without text on it saying Pookie's inside.
Like that could have been like, look at my fucking dumbass dog trying to come through
a glass door.
And it's been fucking uploaded 10,000 times to the point where now it's a skinwalker
trying to murder me and my family.
Yeah, it's the worst kind of game of telephone at some point.
Oh, yeah.
It's just like it's like misinformation mixed with just like click bait farming.
Like, oh, yeah, it's just everyone's trying to get in on it.
But all right.
So, Clyde, let's begin with what a skinwalker is in, because I feel like it's important
to like kind of get this stuff out of the way, like right up top before we dive into
like the more important part of like what is an actual skinwalker.
Sure, sure, sure.
First off, the skin the skinwalker, like the Wendigo, is first and foremost not a cryptid.
And I don't believe that it should even be in the same category.
The only time like cryptid and skinwalker should be used in the same sentence is when
you're describing what a skinwalker is not.
If that makes sense.
And the reason why is because cryptids are thought to be like flesh and blood living
creatures that are just unyet known to science.
Sure.
Skinwalkers technically are just dudes.
They're human beings that have magical and supernatural powers.
They're just humans that exist.
Like the way I word it is like you wouldn't call Merlin a cryptid.
You know what I mean?
Like Harry Potter is not a cryptid.
That's just a kid who can fucking use magic, right?
Wiccans are cryptids.
Yeah, it's.
Yeah, like I don't know if that's the best way to like word it, but like that just makes
sense to me.
You're not a magic user that doesn't make you not human.
Because the other thing, too, is that people think that skinwalkers are like half human,
half animal, which isn't which isn't true.
I mean, you don't see that description a lot, but like when you see them depicted sometimes
or like halfway in between like the skinwalker mid transformation, kind of like, yeah, no,
it's not.
That's not how it works.
The other thing, too, is that the Wendigo is not a skinwalker.
The reason why is because one, two completely different language groups as far as Native
American, different, full on different cultures and societies.
They are not even I don't even one of those they might not even know that the skinwalker
exists.
Why am I not even known the Wendigo existed?
Because that's how far apart they were like, God damn it.
And I brought that up on my Wendigo episode.
So if you want to hear me rant about that, you can just check that one out instead.
Second, and this or I guess third, and this is the one that really bothers me.
The skinwalker isn't never has been and won't ever be considered a werewolf.
No.
Yeah, to be two different things to become a skinwalker, you have to actively and consciously
take steps to become one like that's like a whole thing.
And it's voluntary, not voluntary.
Well, it is voluntary.
But it's also voluntary.
It's voluntary.
Werewolves, on the other hand, they don't want that shit like this.
And they're just like they're like a cursed individual.
Like they don't want to be a werewolf.
They're tormented by their condition.
And another key difference is that people cursed with like werewolfism, like can't feel
like can't be.
Is that what it is?
I have no idea.
They're like more of a like a victim in this whole scenario.
Like they don't have any control over their powers while skinwalkers do.
And I have seen so many people and just things equating the two that is frustrating.
And this isn't just like small creators on TikTok who may not have the resources available
to learn the difference.
Oh, yeah.
You know what I mean?
But this is like big, well known creators that are doing this.
For instance, not to name names.
There's one group that has a new documentary out called Skinwalkers to American Werewolves.
First of all, notice the glaring absence of the word native in there.
But what's even more frustrating about them calling it werewolves is that this is a sequel.
I love you notice the two in there.
Yeah.
Do you want to know what the first one's called?
Lay it on me.
Skinwalker Howl of the Rougarou.
First of all, the Rougarou, the Rougarou is not even natively American.
It's French origin.
I believe you were on the episode I did about the Rougarou.
Full circle here.
Yeah.
Second, the Rougarou is an actual fucking werewolf.
So why wouldn't the second one be about the fucking goddamn Rougarou?
But yeah, I mean, it is one of those things, like you said earlier, it's kind of click
baby in a way because people know people nowadays at least know what skinwalker is and they
want a piece of that because it's just terrifying because it could be anything.
But so I get it.
But also like a huge misrepresentation and incorrect approach.
It's like wild how like how much how much disrespect you can throw in a native tribes
culture like just for clout or like and this is again, I'm not going to name names, but
this is like a group that has multiple documentaries.
Some of them are actually really good.
They even have their own festival.
How are you that fucking like just I don't know if it's ignorance or they just don't
care like if it's like a clout, something.
I think it's a marketing thing for sure.
Yeah.
Now, like I said, could all this just be ignorance on everyone's part?
Maybe the Navajo people are very tight lipped when it comes to talking about the skinwalker
because to do so, they believe it attracts their attention and no one fucking wants that.
It's that's the other thing that really has always irked me about it.
Like not only is it just a bastardization, a white people bastardization of a native
legend, but like specifically the legend is do not talk about them.
Right.
Fucking because it makes bad things happen.
So like, yeah, maybe we don't like, dude, I watched a like a 30 minute long video today
on like a native like a Navajo chief like talking.
And they learned in the video was about the skinwalker.
I don't think I learned anything because he talked in a way that just circled around the
skinwalker because they didn't want to fucking talk about it because they don't want to talk
about it.
Which, I mean, it's a twofold thing, right?
Because on one hand, I get it.
They're not supposed to talk about it.
But the problem it then creates and it's not their fault.
But the problem it then creates is people on TikTok or with documentaries can make whatever
they want to a skinwalker because there's no rules in their book.
Oh, well, you know, you just you just brought me to my next point that I was going to make.
Excellent.
Because like I said, the one thing is that they definitely they don't discuss it.
But for the most part, they don't discuss it with outsiders, especially no one in the
tribe.
And if they do, it's vague or you're not getting 100 percent all of the details.
So like you just said, what do most people do?
They fill in the details on their own and end up kind of making up what they believe
or what they want to believe or putting out their click baity bullshit that just sounds
good and ends up spreading a lot of misinformation.
Adrian Keane, who is a Cherokee Nation author and academic, probably put it best when she
warned that when outsiders misunderstand and misuse the history of the legend, it can become
appropriative.
Appropriative?
Oh, yeah.
I don't know.
Appropriation.
Yeah, pretty much.
And you know, it's fucked up.
You know why she used that?
Why she why she said that is because I didn't know this.
But apparently, J.K. Rowling, everyone's favorite transphobe, did a thing where apparently she
was doing like magic in America's and she was saying that the skinwalker was actually
a.
You know what?
I'll just wait till the end of the episode and I'll fucking just read to you what she
wrote because it is bonkers.
It is wild.
But anyways, Clyde, now that we got most of what the skinwalkers aren't because there's
a lot more that we could probably go over about what they aren't.
Oh, baby.
Do you want to go over what they are?
Well, maybe a little less.
Let's do it.
We'll have a little fun with that.
Some grand rules here.
Yeah.
All right.
So so like I said just a minute ago, there isn't a ton of information on the skinwalkers
from the Navajo and there are other tribes that do have skinwalker legends called the
skinwalker.
Most of what we know come from folklorists and anthropologists like Baron Token and Clyde
Klukken.
All right.
I literally almost said Cuckles and I feel so bad.
I read it way too fast.
Clyde Klukken.
They spent time with the tribes and they were lucky enough to have some stories, traditions,
customs, legends, all that stuff kind of shown and told to them, which they then passed down
in their own published works.
So I'm going to do my best to not spread any more misinformation here and go off what these
gentlemen have said, because again, there's not a lot out there.
So it's going to be this next part of the story is going to be somewhat short.
So skinwalkers or what the Navajo call ye now ye now the lushi, which translates loosely
to quote, by means of it, it goes on all fours are Native American witches that have chosen
to forsake the societal morals and values of their tribes to become pretty much an agent
of just pure chaos. And I'm going to regret saying this.
And I hate that I wrote this down.
But to basically but basically skinwalkers are like the jokers of the Navajo worlds.
We live in a society that felt wrong saying it.
But it's like I get what you mean.
There's just they don't have any regard for anything else.
It's just it's just chaos servicing their own needs for the sake of.
Yeah, it was just but it's just like the closest thing to equate it to in terms of pop culture
reference, I guess.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, according to Clyde, not you, Clyde, but the anthropologist Clyde, to become a skinwalker,
you have to know a skinwalker takes one to know one.
Now, once you and your skinwalker chum, you know, hung out for a bit, got close, you have
to be accepted into the secret society of the skinwalker.
Now, this is like some straight up like Native American mobster shit.
Yeah.
And you got to get jumped in.
Yeah.
Well, just like the mob to be accepted into the secret society, you got to make your bones.
And this instance, it means murdering a close family member more often than not.
It's usually like a sibling, but I guess if you're an only child, any relative could do,
I guess.
I mean, it gets just as long as you're close.
I'm close with my cousin, so I guess maybe that would work.
I have no idea.
Now, Clyde, you're on you're on the road to becoming a skinwalker.
You made it this far.
You became best friends with a skinwalker.
You killed your brother.
Now it's time for the initiation ceremony.
Oh, boy.
The initiation ceremony takes place at night because, of course, in a secluded area like
a cave and it's pretty fucking metal, minus the parts that aren't.
And you'll figure out which parts those are pretty quickly.
The initiates and participants would sit in a circle surrounded by just mounds of human
flesh and rows of humans.
Everyone's butt ass naked except for their masks and jewelry.
Very eyes wide shut kind of.
Yeah.
Little cave key party.
Yeah.
And then everyone is painted from head to toe and they would spend the next few hours
chanting, engaging in cannibalism, necrophilia, shitting and pissing on sacred symbols and
artifacts and making sand paintings, which I guess this is like a big no no.
Like the Navajo considered doing sand paintings like a strictly daytime activity.
Oh, OK.
Now most Navajo rituals were done to maintain health order, you know, harmony with nature.
Sure.
The skinwalker ceremony is like the exact opposite.
Whatever the opposite of live, laugh, love is.
That's what the skinwalkers are doing.
It's a part of a video that I watched by a guy named John Solo, who's really good.
He described the ceremonies as, quote, chaos manifest by acting in a way that directly
opposed nature, they created imbalances and unleashed evil onto the community.
End quote.
And they did this because they just want to not to go back to Batman, but they just want
to watch the world burn pretty much.
Sure.
Like not not literally, but you know what I mean?
Their goal is to spread disease, social unrest and sometimes death just to gain more power
and more, I guess, notoriety.
What would have you?
Now, you might be thinking, why would someone want to do all this?
Well, for the awesome new powers, of course, and of course, everyone wants new, cool, awesome,
dark powers.
Now once you're skinwalker, you basically become like a Sith Lord pretty much.
You get cool new dark magic and of course the ability to transform into a number of
different animals.
But this is another thing that I feel people get wrong with skinwalkers.
It's not like animorphs, right?
Like you're not like, right.
You're not like, oh shit, time to turn into a bear.
Now I got to turn to a fish.
You can't like, like, like, yes, skinwalkers can turn into things like wolves, foxes, bears,
etc.
They have to be wearing or have a piece of that animal skin with them to be able to transform
into that animal.
Hence the name skinwalker.
So whatever video you saw of a pug, you can standing on his back legs.
It's not a skinwalker unless unless there's a dude out there with a pelt of a pug, some
guy that just really wanted to be someone's dog that can't breathe.
Yeah, that's another misconception, I guess, about skinwalkers is like the reason why they
turn into these types of animals.
It isn't to attack people.
Skinwalkers rarely, if ever attack people when they're in their animal forms.
I'm not saying they haven't.
But from all the stuff that I've read and stuff like that, it's not that's not what
they they do.
They use these powers like more more the abilities they gain while being transformed as that
animal.
Like you want to move quickly, become a deer, want to be strong, turn into a bear, want
to be sneaky, turn to a fox like they didn't need to disguise themselves to attack you.
They mostly just did it to kind of like either sneak up to you or get up to you quickly or
spy on you, that kind of stuff, because they have other methods.
It's just stealth, basically.
It's a way to get around the society and not be noticed easily.
Or to like to like be able to traverse different terrains easier.
Like it's like it was more of an ability that not so much an attack ability, but more like
a like you said, like a stealth, but also like just just move like utility and very
like this is a means to an end, not like yeah, power trip.
Yeah.
So like I said, they have other means of hurting you like poison darts or just straight up
putting a curse on you, some of which could be as serious as causing you to go absolutely
insane.
Others, like curses or something as mild as just making you more clumsy and prone to accidents.
And while some medicine men can fight off these curses and poisons, like a lot of the
time the skin walkers curse is just far more powerful than they can fight against.
But yeah, but that's that's all I really got on the skin walker.
Like I said, there's not a lot of information out there, just kind of like what the ceremony
is, how you turn into one and what they what their vague, I guess, wants are.
Another thing to note is that, yes, the skin walkers are evil.
They're mean motherfuckers, but their main intent isn't murder or killing you.
I feel like every thing I've ever seen about the skin walker from less credible sources,
like they just want to fucking kill you.
Like, yeah, like it's not like the when to go.
It's not like anything.
But they're not just going to fucking murder you on site like, well, they do kill.
Their intentions are just chaos.
Like they just want to cause pure unadulterated chaos.
They want to upturn like society.
It is chaotic evil, basically.
Yeah.
So if you if you see like a weird deer in the woods and think it's a skin walker, just
know that it won't kill you right then and there.
It'll do it from a distance when you least expect it.
More likely with like a poison dart and or a curse.
So there's that.
Right.
So the skin walkers are like the yin to the medicine man's yang is what I kind of gathered
from it is basically just opposite.
Yeah.
I mean, to put it in, I guess, a more mainstream European white way, I mean, it's it's God and
the devil, basically.
You know, it is polar opposites of a spectrum.
The entire time I was learning about them, I was like, oh, this is Jedi Sith shit.
Like that is like, I mean, it's really and I guess like it's kind of like if we're if
we're looking at the story of the skin walker as purely a cautionary tale type of story,
the same way with the Wendigo is like all the bad things about society pretty much manifested.
You could say the same thing about the skin walkers that it's basically just like warning
you against like what?
Yeah, I get what you mean.
I mean, it's like the Wendigo.
Like I can see people getting confused a little bit with like, you know, the ritual to become
a skin walker involves all those violence and blood and potential cannibalism.
And the Wendigo has that, too.
And you can kind of see like people getting these ideas like, oh, it's the same thing,
but it's not.
It's it's and like you said, they're both more or less warnings about kind of forsaking
your humanity or being a part of your society or culture.
Yeah.
But even like with the Wendigo, like if anything, the Wendigo is closer to maybe not like what
it is, but like is more closely related to the werewolf in the sense that like it's you
become a Wendigo, not by choice.
Like you become it because you had to resort to a taboo type of act that forced you to
become one.
I'm like the skin walker where like you want to like you want to be just fucking here.
And I'm not going to lie, dude, like I know I probably should say this, but skin walkers,
dude, I kind of fight with them, dude.
I kind of get that.
Like I kind of love this.
I really do.
Like I like maybe not my personal life, but at work, dude, I thrive on the chaos.
Like I'm all about it.
I will turn it upside down.
I will.
So you're the joker of your work, you're saying.
Got you.
Yeah.
I'll do random shit at work just to see if people fucking care.
Like like I'll be in the office.
But can you turn off the lights?
I got a headache.
I don't have a headache.
I don't work with the lights.
You got to have fun with it.
I know skinwalkers aren't doing that.
They're doing some pretty fucked up shit, but you know, like they're stealing heads
of babies and stuff, according to one store.
They're not just fucking the lights on and off in the corner.
Yeah.
You know, or my, my new favorite thing is to go up to people and be like, Hey man, I
don't care what anyone says.
I think you, you do a really good job and then just walk away.
Just that little tinge of, Oh, who said, yeah, who said what about me?
No follow up.
I'll say it and walk away.
Pat him on the back.
Be like, good job, but oh shit.
So Clyde, where are we at?
How are we feeling?
What are we thinking?
I think, I think, I feel like we got some stuff out of the way, but I think we also
introduced some new stuff that maybe people will take to heart.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I mean, I hope so.
But it's, it's one of those things of like, again, we're white dudes.
I'm not here to say like, you can't talk about this thing as part of your own personal, whatever.
Like it's more or less just kind of have some respect for where it came from and maybe don't
make it into whatever you want just to get clicks on Tik TOK or whatever.
Yeah, dude.
It's bad.
Like it's even on Instagram now too.
Like I follow, I got, I started following a bunch of like cryptage and like paranormal
pages and stuff like that only to learn quickly that they're just like aggregators and they
just put their logo at the bottom of the screen.
But it's someone else's video and the captions always something like, well, what do you think?
And it's like, dude, fuck you, man.
Like, you tell me what you think.
And I know you don't believe this shit.
Like don't use me for your engagement.
Come on.
Yeah.
Like fuck you, dude.
Like have something to say.
Like you're just, you're just reposting the same shit that I've seen on Tik TOK and other
reels on Instagram.
Like if you're not going to have any, if you're going to, I hate people that don't add to
the conversation, they just perpetuate the dumb conversation.
It's like post your video, whatever.
Yeah, that's fine.
You could post a video.
Like the one video you sent me, I saw that one where the guy's like, there was a dude
crawling on the roof.
Like come on, man.
That's just a dude high on bath salts.
You're in the fucking, you're in the panhandle of Florida.
I can tell by your roof.
It's a corrugated roof, dude.
Like come on.
That's just Florida man behavior.
That's not even.
Yeah.
I know that that's just a dude.
It's clearly a dude.
Cause first of all, why would you say, is that a skinwalker?
It's the shape of a human being.
I can see the toes imprinted on the roof.
Right.
Like, no, that's also what is he doing just by like tap dancing on your roof?
Basically.
Like, what, what is that doing?
He's just having a good time.
And I mean, I, I, I've seen a lot of people like going into like abandoned areas and stuff
like that.
And they say they see one and it's like probably just a meth head dude.
Like, I, I'm sorry, but like, it's just, it's just a houseless person just trying to fucking
sleep and you're in there fucking throwing rocks.
Like fucking tweakers and you're out here filming a man.
Yeah, dude.
I don't know.
I just mean, I mean, it's not like my show is going to fucking upend this.
You know what I mean?
But, you know, at least, at least we have a principles we're standing by.
I mean, the other one I see all the time is it's it'll be someone out in the woods and
they either hear someone calling their name or like a shrieking in the distance.
And I mean, those are creepy, but also like, have you heard wild cats or like an elk has
a terrifying scream if you've ever heard one of those.
Like a fisher cat, dude.
I remember the first time.
Oh, yeah.
So I'm from New Hampshire, so they're all around.
You know what I mean?
I mean, I live in Philly now, but back then I remember the first time I heard one.
I thought I was dying.
I thought I thought there was a woman in the woods just full on getting murdered.
Oh, yeah.
It sounds like a like a grown woman screaming and it's terrifying.
Same thing with like foxes at night.
Yes.
Like a friend of mine, his his brother's a cop and he would get calls about I heard a
woman screaming in the woods and it would always be a fox in like the neighborhood.
It's fucked up.
It's wild.
And the other thing, too, I don't I didn't put this in there.
I probably should have put it sooner in the episode, not when people are probably going
to stop listening.
But I hate when you see a video is clearly like an artifact fit like in the video, like
there's something wrong with the glitch and you see, oh yeah, and you see the good deer
and like all of a sudden it got longer or it got shorter.
These motherfuckers, these skin walkers are using ancient dark magic by the brought to
them by the gods themselves.
Do you think they have asked her into and like, no, they are like if they are full on
a bear, like they're not like they're not like they're going to be they miss this when
they put that full body paint on, you know, and they didn't quite get it right.
Like they're not just like, I'm a bear.
Like it's not like a ditto.
Like it's not like it's not it's not like completely with like a human face.
I got it like it's like a full like they transform.
It's the thing, you know, where it's like a bunch of dog heads on this weird blobby,
veiny body.
Like, no, it's if it's a skin walker, it's just going to be an animal, dude.
Yeah.
And more than likely, if you're seeing an animal, it might it might just be an actual
animal.
Well, you never know.
You never know.
But yeah, it's not some like weird, love crafty and horror version of an animal.
It's not like Cronenberg like exactly.
It's not Cronenberg stuff, man.
It's not body are.
Yeah, it's not going to be fucking Jeff Goldblum turning into the fly at the end.
Like, yeah, yeah.
I just it just everything bums me out.
I hate it so much.
It is.
And again, it's like you were saying, it's just it's the click baiting this that has
made it so pervasive.
And it really it feels like it has just become a lazy naming convention for something that
someone can't explain, which I mean, it's unexplained.
So I get it.
But also, like, it's either ghosts, aliens, Bigfoot or skin walkers at this point.
There's no in between.
Right.
Exactly.
See, like, I don't like that.
I hate this trend in like the tick tock cryptid paranormal scene.
I will say this, though, the one that I did love and I don't care that all of it was bullshit
was the hat man memes videos that were going around on TikTok.
I love that shit so much and I cannot get enough of it.
It's so good.
I did.
I did a full episode on the hat man just because I had to like.
Oh, to be fair.
Am I doing this episode because maybe I'll get some fucking views because of the hashtag
skin walker?
Fuck yeah.
But will I be actually giving information about the skin walker?
Yes.
All right, I'm actually very surprised that we got this in 35 minutes.
Right.
Yeah, I am, too.
Because we've made some good progress here that hopefully people take the heart.
I feel like I feel like I feel like we did.
But anyways, you got any any last closing words you want to do like to impart on us
before we, you know, a while ago, my Instagram account, I did a short video on about like
when to go antlers.
And granted, it wasn't like super deeply researched, but I think my feeling at the end of it was
more it wasn't so much like other people can't talk about these things.
It's more just have some respect for where it came from.
Yeah.
And don't just kind of appropriate it for your own benefit means whatever.
Yeah, that's that's pretty much where I came from when I did my Wendigo episode.
Like I started it the same way basically as I started this one being like the Wendigo
is not a cryptid.
Same way.
You know, I mean, like and also like the depiction of skin walkers now, it it did perpetuate
the same way that the way we see the Wendigo now, like the antlers and stuff like that.
Oh, yeah.
And then there was a lot of like white media.
Like I don't know, sort of like I think it was like a 2000.
Oh, I'd be earlier than that.
Maybe the 90s to that early 2000s, there was a movie called Skinwalkers, which basically
just portrayed them as Native American werewolves.
They were like half human, half wolf kind of thing.
And then that like misrepresentation kind of is what stuck amongst.
And again, there's the Native Americans, like the Navajos specifically, they don't like
to talk about it.
They won't talk about it.
And they pretty much really can't talk about it because of their culture and their beliefs.
So we just kind of had to go off of whatever this fucking ding dong who made this video
or this movie was like.
Yeah, there was an X-Files episode, I guess, also that involved the skinwalker.
Like, oh, yes.
They went to New Mexico and they came across.
I don't fully remember it, but I remember seeing it.
But I know that it was very much like werewolf adjacent at the very least, which I will say
I feel like and I could be very wrong on this because I have not watched all of it recently.
But I do feel like for the most part, X-Files had at least a modicum of respect for Native
American stuff when they did have them on.
I feel like that was definitely more more werewolf.
But I will say for at the time it came out, they probably didn't have the budget to just
either full on get a real wolf and or the makeup budget to make a convincing looking.
Right.
You know what I mean?
So I'll give them a pass because they've been pretty good about stuff like that.
But anyways, Clyde, as always, I appreciate it.
It's always it's always amazing talking to you.
I love you so much.
I love being here, man.
So thank you for having me as always.
Yeah.
Is there anything you want to plug before we sign off?
Not really at the moment.
Like I said, my next show is until the end of May in Somerset, Pennsylvania, for the
P.A. Miss and Legends Festival.
And yeah, after that, I got a bunch going on in the summer, but more on that closer
to the time.
So, oh, yeah, when you get your tour flyer.
I got to make the posters.
So you make your tour flyer.
I'll be sure to I'll be sure to post it.
All right.
All right, well, make sure you follow Clyde on Instagram.
I think it's cryptid underscore Clyde.
Yep, that's what you can check out his artwork and also you can go to his.
You can there's a link to his Etsy shop on there if you like Danny DeVito frogs
and a lot of Nick Cage stuff.
But also he does a really good cryptid artwork as well.
So definitely check it out.
Well, thank you.
Yeah.
You can follow me on Instagram at Cryptid Cocktail.
Follow me on TikTok at Crypto Cocktail Party where I don't post shitty skin walker videos.
But now I'm going to start.
I'm just going to start doing it.
Fuck it.
I just got to we just got a hamster and it stretches real long.
So I'm going to go.
What is this?
Just get like a cheap Amazon like gorilla costume and start filming yourself around the house.
It's going to be great.
We do have a Patreon or we I have a Patreon is five dollars a month.
I rarely I haven't ever posted anything on it.
It's more so just to support the show.
I mean, you know, beer gets expensive.
But yeah, with that, I don't think I got anything else.
Do you got anything else you want to say?
That's all I got, man.
All right.
Say bye to everyone, Clyde.
Goodbye, everyone, Clyde.
Goodbye.