Pupaphobia: Fear of Puppet

1. Johnny Cat
   December 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm

   That ending. Reminds me of the one of the cobra and baby. Videographer is just filming away, capturing the drama. But as soon as the child is in danger, the video abruptly ends. Was that a wooden chair??

2. Anon
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm

   He looked started for a second on some parts but then he had that obnoxious mischievous look in his eyes I know all to well. I see it all the time in my spoiled brat nephews eyes. What you see here is a kid using a puppetshow as an excuse to get hyper and out of control because he think its fun. I don't think he has a phobia at all, he was over exaggerating and being a ADD poster child.

3. wit of a twit
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 pm

   I have a fear of being in large volumes of water by myself. It stems from a lie my mother told me so that i would keep away from pools. She told me there was a monster in the pool. I rationalized that it was an invisible shark and that if i was in the pool with someone else the shark would eat them first.

4. omgcommastfu
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm

   Feet. I am insanely fearful of (and disgusted by) bare feet. I have looked it up before, and I don't think there is a "phobia" for this...I am alone! :[

5. Alex
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm

   I have a healthy fear of heights, actually. Healthy, I say, because falling from great heights can kill you!

6. artbot
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:49 pm

   I wouldn't say I'm fearful, but I have to close any open cabinet or drawer in any room I enter. Maybe borderline superstition? I have no idea where it comes from.

7. Raj
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 pm

   I have a fear of squirrels. I fear that they will leap up at my face from the ground or tree and scratch and/or nibble my eyes out. They're evil!!

8. Johnny Cat
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 pm

   haha, Alex...Killed him? Damn near rectum!

9. quinnnchick
   December 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 pm

   while I didn't see a reaction that looked like fear in that kid's face, I didn't see a child with ADD either. simply not sitting still isn't ADD. His attention was quite focused on the puppet. Hyperactive, possibly. Attention seeking, quite probably. ADD, hardly.

   That said, I'm scared to death of seahorses. Used to have nightly nightmares of finding dead dried up seahorses under my pillows. Not regular dreams but the ones where you think you woke up from a dream but that's actually still part of the dream.

   *shiver*

10. koi
    December 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    I'm afraid of wide open spaces and of touching loose, fallen hair. No idea why!

11. Ali S.
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:04 pm

    I have a fear of spiders. Brrrr.

12. stacyj
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 pm

    (Heehe, omgcommastfu, I'm not really "afraid" of feet but I can certainly share your disgust! Such foul, foul things ... *shudder*) I do have an actual phobia, though, too: Ever since I found my sister's goldfish dead when I was about 8, I've had a pretty intense case of ichthyophobia ... yeah, fear of fish =P Doesn't make going to the grocery store very fun what with the whole fish one tends to find at the meat counter, and I'm one of the (apparently few) native Floridians who doesn't think spending a day at the beach is a grand idea ...

    You'd think a fear of fish could be easily avoided but that has not been the case - it's astounding where those things show up. Perhaps the most almost-unspeakable times was when I drove home once to find a half-eaten fish dead in the street outside our house - we lived on the water at the time, and apparently some raptor must have dropped its catch as it was flying away ... the car I drove at the time was a (cheap) convertible; I can only imagine what would've happened had I been driving underneath AS that danged bird dropped its fish ...

13. Essie
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:23 pm

    I'm very scared of butterflies.. it makes no sense and i'm not sure why but I hate them. In grade 8 we had to go to a butterfly conservatory and I ran away crying before I even got into the open room after looking in the window and seeing them all.

14. mreatymonster
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 pm

    What this kid suffers from is called Automatonophobia, I have the same issue.

    The definition of Automatonophobia a is fear of ventriloquist's dummies, animatronic creatures, wax statues - anything that falsly represents a sentient being.

    I'm not scared of puppets (usually) but I am scared of ventriloquist dummies, life size statues, mannequins and scarecrows. They really freak me out, Im just waiting for them to come to life and attack me with murderous rage that stems from being locked into that fake body for eternity.

15. Leokins
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 pm

    I'm afraid of toilets in the dark. Daylight I've got no beef with them, but in the darkness who knows what could be in there...

16. seekshelter
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 pm

    i used to wait tables. i remember one particular family that came in with these 2kids acting up and making lots of noise. i heard the mom say, "if you kids don't settle down...Bill Cosby is gonna come in here."... i tried reallllllly hard not to laugh. i dont know what fear of bill cosby these kids had, but her threat worked.

17. Johnny Cat
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:45 pm

    Seek, that's crazy awesome.

18. seekshelter
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 pm

    ohhh and there is this burger place called Red Robin... my kinda bosses kids wont go in there if the Robin puppet suited monster is working

19. Alex
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    @artbot: I wouldn’t say I’m fearful, but I have to close any open cabinet or drawer in any room I enter. Maybe borderline superstition? I have no idea where it comes from.

    That seems more like an obsessive compulsive behavior to me.

20. seekshelter
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:56 pm

    and about that clip...that kid was faking..he just wanted to be up on youtube.. haha..

21. endgame47
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 am

    Essie, I totally get the butterfly thing. Butterflys creep me out, but even more so for moths ::shudder::

22. Johnny Cat
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 am

    Actually, seek...if you look closely at the video you can see the kid is actually a streetlight.

23. Jenthemagicsunflower1989
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 am

    lmbo at the bill cosby thing...

    I'm terrified of dolls.

24. eskimo
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 am

    I'm still getting over pupaphobia, actually. Ventriloquist puppets especially freak me out to this day. Puppets and crickets (Especially after reading Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead back-to-back really late at night).

25. Jenny
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:24 am

    i have the biggest phobia to like, inside the body.
    i feel like i just have to like... hit something do anything possible to get my mind off it, surgery, cuts, diseases jjhghghffd

    it makes watching house quite difficult, i close my eyes more than half the time and i have to not listen also most of the time -_-

26. goosemister
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:44 am

    being frightened of something is one thing. being frightened to the point of repeatedly bashing your head with a chair is quite another.

27. Buppets
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:08 am

    "AAAAAA. These are tiny humanoids with no legs moving like something out of a Japanese horror movie! Jesus! Are you frigging kidding me!?? Am I the only one seeing this? People! AAAAAA!
    Oh, that's it! I'm going out on my own terms - hand me that stool"

28. Buppets
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:10 am

    "Actually, seek…if you look closely at the video you can see the kid is actually a streetlight."

    Wow. I hope I'm not missing a context for that statement because then this comment is one of the best things I've seen on Neatorama.

29. KatGamer
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:20 am

    If you are specifically talking about the fear of butterflies, it's lepidopterophobia, not flutterphobia. Fear of moths is mottephobia. I suffer both, and it sucks, especially when insensitive people laugh at you or pick up giant dead moths to show you. I am glad to see other people in this thread who admit their fear of butterflies. Nicole Kidman is a famous lepidopterophobic.

30. shadowfirebird
    December 3rd, 2008 at 4:14 am

    Puppet-phobia doesn't seem silly at all to me. It sounds as if the kid's Uncanny Valley is in a slightly different place, is all.

    The bravest thing I've ever witnessed was when a butterfly-phobic friend dared herself to walk through a butterfly zoo with me. Okay, she left nail tracks all down my arm, but she did it!

    (I'm mildly stinging-insect-phobic. But, isn't that sensible?)

31. mrsfosoty
    December 3rd, 2008 at 5:47 am

    wow he'd rather kill himself than see that puppet thats great.

    I have bellybuttonphobia (don't know the real name to it) Im scared to touch it put my finger in it and anything to come close to it, because it will explode and all my internal organs will come out.
    ajdkljaskaljd gives me jitters just thinking about it.
    My boyfriend tries to put his fingers in it, and itll make me go into a panic attack and start crying, Ill feel violated in every possible way like I had been raped and violated

32. Sammy
    December 3rd, 2008 at 6:02 am

    I afraid of going up and down ladders. Just stitting there, theyre fine, but the minute I have to climb one, No way!! Its completely irrational, I never even fallen off a ladder. And Its not even a fear of heights, heights and I are best buds

33. felipe Venancio
    December 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 am

    This boy is from Brazil. He has grown up now. This video is hilarious...

34. mother theresa
    December 3rd, 2008 at 8:01 am

    As a kid I feared dogs and bees and people. Outgrew the first two. Then in my thirties, had a morbid fear of bridges and tunnels (and still, people). Got over the bridge phobia (one of my jobs required driving over one each day, so I got de-sensitized quickly). Still not crazy about tunnels though -- or people.

35. Anconite
    December 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 am

    My mother tells me that when I was small I was afraid of Slimey the Worm on Sesame street, and whenever he would come on I'd hide under her bed.

    I loved all the other monsters though... Go figure.

36. Anconite
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:00 am

    Oh I am also afraid of water where I can't see the bottom. A cruise sounds like the next thing from hell to me. I have nightmares of being in a beach house, with large plate glass windows, and watching a massive tidal wave come towards us. I also dread sharks.

    Ironically I loved snorkeling in Hawaii, probably because I could see below me, and one of my favorite vacations is to the beach.

37. Cate
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:12 am

    I run screaming through the premises if I see RED JELLO. Weird, huh?

    Sent from my mobile using FeedM8

38. Gauldar
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 am

    My friend says he has a fear of rabbits, and he's either full of crap or has step-by-step attempted to self develop that phobia since he has no rational explanation to it.

39. Misuko48
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 am

    I have a fear of crickets, too. Unfortunately, I once bought an anole at a fair only to discover the vendor lied (go figure) about its diet and it needed live crickets for food. So, for two years (the anole just had to live its whole life expectancy!) I kept live crickets in my house (OK, closet) and fed the anole every couple of days. Fortunately, some genius developed a special cage for feeder crickets that has removable hollow tubes the crickets crawl into so I never actually had to touch the crickets (unless they fell out of the tube while I was transferring it from their cage to the anole's cage--boy, was it funny when that happened what with all my screaming and jumping around!). Also, I have a fear of heights, which came in handy on my recent visit to Yosemite and Big Sur. I once tried to get over this fear by bungee jumping from 150 ft. but I guess systematic desensitization really is the best/only way to get over a phobia.

40. l.a.
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 am

    I have a fear of syringes, so anytime I'm watching House or any other medical drama I freak out whenever somebody gets a shot. I've managed to control it enough to be able to get my vaccinations and what not, but I usually have to sit still for about five minutes after getting it to make sure I don't pass out.

    I knew a girl in college who had a fear of cats, and one day we found a little kitten and brought it into the classroom. She and a friend walked in a few minutes later, the friend saw me holding the kitten and tried to put up a big book she was carrying to keep her from seeing it, and instead smacked her in the face with the book.

41. Scooter
    December 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 am

    I have a fear of talking on the phone to strangers... Don't ask me why. I try to avoid making or taking any phone call where I don't know the person calling. I've never had a problem calling people i know. Weird huh.

42. Skipweasel
    December 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 am

    I wouldn't say he's frightened of the puppets at all. To me he appears to be frightened of the scary story the puppets are portraying; which is after all why the story's being told, to give children a delicious scare.

    This should be fairly easy to test: portray the same story with live actors and see whether he still finds it scary, though of course on repetition some of the scary might have worn off.
    His actions are somewhat exagerated, but anyone who's worked with kids knows that "normal" covers quite a wide spread of reality.

    I used to be like this with Dr Who - though in my case it wasn't the monsters that made the four year old me hide behind the sofa, it was the music. As soon as the tune stopped I was out enjoying the green slime etc, but as soon as the closing titles ran, so did I.

43. renderanything
    December 3rd, 2008 at 10:41 am

    I just wonder why the kid decided that picking lice from his friend's hair would be an acceptable thing to do during a puppet performance.

44. Dianne
    December 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 am

    I hate bats...the "make nests in your hair" kind. And when I was a little kid I had nightmares about quicksand. Everybody's got something they avoid, right?

45. Melinda
    December 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am

    I don't know if there is an actual name for the phobia that I have, but it is an intense fear of clusters! Like, anything that is in tight lil circular clusters, or octagonal shape clusters... for example, you know the honeycombs that bees make...terrifying! or like when u open a pomegranate, the cluster of seeds in there just freak me out! or like when u heat up easy mac in the microwave n when u take it out all the mac in cheese are standing straiht up n when u look straight down on it, all the circles at the ends of the noodles gives me chills! n ostuff like that...

    It's really bizarre cuz I don't know where it came from... It's not something that's been from since I was a child(i'm 23 yrs old)... it actually started about 3 years ago.... n i don't know why... like really out the blue...

    it's crazy cuz i used to see those people on the Maury show with ridiculous phobias n thought it was just an act, but now i understand... i mean, don't get me wrong, i don't act as crazy, but what happens to me is that i start getting an anxiety attack... my tears automatically come to my eyes(i don't actually cry, tho), my body gets real hot n i kinda get real stiff n it makes me feel almost claustophobic....

    i wonder if anybody else shares this same "phobia"???

46. TwoDragons
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm

    I have a terrible fear of driving. Especially in heavy traffic. Heck, I don't even like being a PASSENGER in heavy traffic! Open country good. City traffic NOT GOOD SCARY BAD! Especially with big huge semis and buses barreling all around you...brr...

    When I was a kid I had a horrible fear that a giant meteor would come smashing down on me while I was sleeping. I'm also repulsed by clowns, but I don't think that's so much a phobia as it is I find them mostly pointless and un-entertaining.

    --TwoDragons

47. artbot
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    A friend has a phobia about robots with red glowing eyes. As far as I could tell, she was not joking about it, judging from her reaction to some email images.

    And yeah, the drawer closing is a little OCD-ish, though I don't have any of the straightening or neatness behaviors sometimes associated with it. My wife probably wishes I did. The room can look like a bomb went off in it otherwise, but I just have to close the dresser drawers.

48. Kitten
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    Melinda - it's called trypophobia. There was a recent, er, incident with Post Secret that lead to a lot of people learning of a new phobia!

49. J.D. Iles
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:20 pm

    Our oldest needs to run out of the room any time any of the muppets come on the TV.

    I always thought the chick in Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem was kind of hot!

    J.D. Iles
    http://www.signsneversleep.com
    ====================================

50. Eibmoz
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    I have an irrational fear of grasshoppers. I cant stand them, I will cross the street to avoid them.

51. Christophe
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:00 pm

    I fear dentists.
    I fear the dentists' drill sounds.
    **** shudders ****

52. alice
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm

    I have an intense fear of crane flies (daddy long legs that fly), it's called tipulophobia. And just finding that out has started my heart racing.

    I once had a look at how you desensitize (sp?) yourself to them but had a full blown panic attack just reading the instructions, so I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon!

53. davideo71
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    I have a physical 'allergic' reaction to the genie effect in OSX. The first thing i have to do when i do anything on some one's mac is turn genie effect off. Not sure what it is that does it, but it gives me shivers down my spine. (i find lots of things ugly but no other things bring out this reaction in me)

54. Melinda
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 pm

    Kitten OMG!!! Yes! I saw that last week on there!!!!! I couldn't even eat the food that I had just ordered!!! n thanx, now i know there's a name for what my phobia! i used to just call it clusterphobia...but everyone used to think i was trying to say claustrophobia, lol!

55. Dianne
    December 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Melinda: My late husband use to dream that he was in a room and clusters of bubbles were taking over the space. He had the dream a lot when he was little and occasionally as an adult. Very interesting!!

56. Alex
    December 3rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm

    I've read that the proper way to desensitize yourself is to pretend like it's a movie and you're watching it. Then you're watching yourself watching the movie. Something like that.

    I still have a fear of heights, but I don't let that stop me from going up ladders (someone has to clean the windows). Turns out clammy hands grip really, really well.

57. scott, no the other one
    December 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    I have a ferocious fear of heights that I try to challenge when I can. Still have not overcome it. It does not stop me from ladders (xmas lights aren't getting put up by themselves) but I do get vertigo and spaghetti legs on occasion.

    Since my son is autistic I tend to see the autism in everything, even when it's not there, but the last moments of this video make me wonder whether this child is exhibiting symptoms of a phobia or symptoms of autism. He's overstimulated, needing an escape for all that energy, and he's clawing at the other kid's hair and finally hitting his own head with his chair. Could be youth and fear or it could be sensory overload. Or he could just be a normal kid being freaked out by freaky puppets doing freaky things.

58. BlindFox
    December 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 pm

    I have a completely irrational fear of paper. I have no idea why, and it drives me mental.

59. Aramax
    December 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 pm

    Electrophobia. Can't unscrew a simple lightbulb without proper mental preparation. It's annoying like hell.

60. Stacey
    December 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm

    mrsfosoty : i really hate people or myself touching my belly button or watching other wise touch theirs.. it makes me sick just thinking about it.

61. ashleygrl
    December 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 pm

    @ omgcommastfu --the fear of feet is podophobia

62. Graham M (UK YAY)
    December 4th, 2008 at 8:32 am

    My Aunt suffers from Pogonophobia.

    A fear of beards.

    Not sure if its just the people with beards she fears or if she think's she'll be eaten by a giant beard in her sleep.

63. Mouserz
    December 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am

    this would be a great ad for Nerf chairs, preventing preteen suicides since 1959.

64. Rocky Rook
    December 4th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    There's a lotta fear here! In the famous words of Davy Jones, "Do you fear death?"

65. Carl
    December 19th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    That child is autistic. His fear/anxiety, hiding behind others, and systemic behavior of hitting his hed with a chair is classic autism. I hope his parents are getting him the therapies he needs.

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