Blobsquatchery

Following the neologistic trajectories of monstrosities such as Frankenstein and Watergate, the Sasquatch, too, has reached the cultural capitol of portmanteau! The suffix "squatch," has been broken free from "sas" and re-connected to "blob".

Blobsquatch. The term itself, according to Cryptomundo.com was coined initially by Vito Quaranta, then propagated online by Ray Randell throughout 2002-03. The 'squatch,' of course, refering to sasquatch, bigfoot, manimals--those hairy, hefty, homonids in our midst. 'blob' refers to a common characteristic of most all cryptozoological documentation--blurry, grainy, blobby-ness. The shadowy shapes and nebulous forms that just might be something out of the ordinary. This is separate from a hoax, which involves intentional construction of deceptive imagery. In an article entitled Evaluating Purported Sasquatch Photographic Evidence author Alton Higgins notes the rise of Photoshop assisted phoniness in falsified Bigfoot documentation. With Sasquatches or Blobsquatches proper, Higgins contends that "most unbiased observers, including those within the bigfoot research community, would [agree] that any photo requiring equal parts interpretation and imagination...should be discounted."(Higgins)

This seems a valid way to determine the objectivity of indexical traceroutes back to a physical sasquatch and environment. That is to say if one's noise-to-signal ratio reads blob-to-squatch, (see figure above fromBigfoot Forums) and is concerned only with that physical thing out in the wildnerness. For my research, into the information environment and anomalies that upset order there, the Blobsquatch is a welcome personification, so to speak, for the technocultural imaginary.

"Wherever streams of consciousness and electrons converge in the cultural imagination,there lies a potential conduit to an electronic elsewhere" (Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media). There has been a historically sustained interest in the intersection of technology and imagination. Particularly prominent is the interpretation of glitches, errors and other technological aberrations as signs of the supernatural. The activities of the Modern Spiritualists come to mind, particularly Spirit Photography. Modern Spiritualists believed that the otherwise imperceptible forces from the spirit world could be captured in the sufficiently sensitive photographic process. Murky multiple-exposures and the gooey gobs of 'ectoplasm' can be found in the photodocuments from late 19th century seances. As radio technology was implemented in the early 20th century, the audio-disturbances (now known as sferics) were intially believed to be Alien communiques. Electronic Voice Phenomena and the mysterious bloop are more recent variants on audio-anomalies. In 1970, the "Bayside Apparitions" phenomena began in (originally) Bayside, New York. As Folklorist Daniel Wojcik describes in his book The End of the World As We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America, Veronica Lueken has developed a following of thousands surrounding her direct conveyance of the Virgin Mary's prophesies. Lueken's followers, known as 'Baysiders,'have witnessed and documented miraculous phenomena--most notably with Polaroid cameras. "Said to contain allegorical symbols and...interpreted as divine communication offering insights of prophetic relevance," (Wojcik,p.81) the Baysiders refer to these photos as "Polaroids from Heaven." The manifestations on these photos "include streaks and swirls of light...dotted lines and beads of light," (Wojcik, p.82) all developed near-instantaneously in traditional Polaroid form. Like Spirit Photography, "miracle photography is a form of divination, a technique of interpreting symbolic messages communicated by superantural forces," (Wojcik, p.83) on par with a technologically involved world.

Gremlins, as discussed in a previous post, are perhaps a missing link between technological and cryptozoological anomalies.