Halloween is right around the corner, but we don’t need ghosts and vampires to terrify us. In a world where social media is everything, one small mishap can literally feel like the end of the world. Here is a collection of five tales of 21st Century horror stories that will make your blood run cold.
You’re on your phone and you forgot to switch your WiFi on.
There a few worse feelings than noticing, after hours of scrolling through memes and half loaded gifs on Tumblr, that you’ve been using your mobile data the whole time. Unless you’re one of the lucky few with unlimited data on your phone, you will now have to live out the rest of the month without 3G, doomed to a fate of asking for the WiFi password everywhere you go.
You wake up the morning after a night out, and your phone merrily lets you know that you’ve been tagged in a photo.
It’s a widely accepted fact that hangovers are, without a doubt, nothing short of horrific. But what is even worse than a hangover is the slow realisation of every excruciatingly embarrassing thing you did while you were drunk. And what is even worse than that, is when you realise that someone has photographic evidence of drunk you and has shared it on Facebook, for everyone and your mother to see.
Horrifying.
You forgot to cancel your subscription to Amazon Prime and your free trial has expired.
Free trials are absolute godsends. One of the best things about being a student is the six months of free Amazon Prime. You can literally leave buying all your textbooks until the day before class starts, and it’s no problem because Amazon Prime will save you.
What is significantly less fun is when March rolls around and the fact that you will now have to start actually paying if you want to get your goods delivered in less than 24 hours blissfully leaves your head. It’s only when you actually read your bank statement that you realise that you’ve made yourself significantly poorer and everything is terrible.
You’re binge watching a show and then the WiFi cuts out.
Those among us living in halls will know this pain well. You’re halfway through your marathon of season 5 of Buffy and then, very suddenly, the WiFi is gone. There’s nothing you can do, nothing you can say, and no matter how many times you phone the IT Desk on campus, the WiFi isn’t coming back any time soon.
You find yourself wondering what people did before they had the internet because, frankly, you are in hell.
You are so broke that you can no longer afford Netflix
It’s easy to forget that Netflix isn’t considered a human right. But when your rent is due and you’re so far into your overdraft that you can’t remember what it’s like to actually have money, things have to be sacrificed. That includes you, Netflix. So long, Orange is the New Black marathons.
If none of these stories give you nightmares, then we don’t know what will. This might be a sign that we need to rethink our priorities, but we’d rather face every ghost, demon and serial killer in scary movie history than face an evening without Netflix. Happy Halloween!