Hello fellow humans! So, I played both Hollow Knight games recently, and that combined with my autism, has caused me to become obsessed with arthropods such as spiders.
Spiders are so cool to me. But I know that a decent amount of humans have arachnophobia. Which is something that I wish to know more about.
So, in the comments of this topic, I will be posting images and videos of fictional creatures and characters which are either only based off of spiders to a very lose extent or that may only resemble spiders out of pure coincidence. I would appreciate if any arachnophobes willing to indulge my curiosity would react to the message containing it with 
, 
or 
to signify how uncomfortable you felt watching the media in that message.
As for some disclaimers. For starters when I speak of “arachnophobes” I am referring to people who can’t even look at spiders without freaking out. Also, any media I post will be spoilered so you can view it at your own pace or not at all.
Now before I start post stuff, how many of you guys are arachnophobes?
- I am arachnophobic
- I am not arachnophobic
So long as I have shoes, the light of super earth and managed democracy protects me from any fear of bugs 
One time when I was a really little kid, I wanted to go outside, but was too weak to open the back door in the kitchen, so I tried going through the garage instead. Couldn’t open the garage door either, but when I tried turning the doorknob, I saw that a massive spider landed on the back of my hand.
I’ve been terrified of them ever since.
Let’s start with something that probably won’t trigger anyone’s arachnophobia
Knowing that arachnophobia is one of the most prevalent irrational fears (phobias) in the world, I’m sure that you can find a paper on this subject somewhere. Start with google scholar, then move to academic resources.
I can’t state what causes arachnophobia, but one thing that doesn’t help is how alien spiders look. They have many eyes, segmented bodies, several pairs of legs, they certainly don’t look like many animals we see on the daily. Plus, a lot of people don’t get that spiders are equally scared shitless of us as we are of them, and many are quite harmless
Damn
So @Grimm, do you freak out whenever your favorite Hollow Knight boss starts scuttling?
I feel like here our fear of one particular spider (brown recluse) is fairly valid
Fortunately, they’re not that aggressive, so it’s uncommon for a person to get necrosis thanks to their bites
But it’s enough to really not want to see those little shits in your house
Other spiders I just do the index card and cup thing and toss them out instead of shooting them with a salt gun
This thread isn’t about reasonable fear, this thread is about phobias.
I am not scared of bugs but like, I ain’t risking contracting diseases just to kill a bug.
Like I can hold animal like snail and to an extent spider, but things like centipede is out of my realm. I’m not risking it
I don’t directly kill bugs, but just because I can’t just kill animals guilt-free.
Though long-legs spiders have been observed triggering my fight or flight, I can’t imagine why, they’re so slow and dinky.
Like daddy long legs or actual spiders?
I don’t feel comfortable saying “daddy” in reference to much of anything, but I think it was long-legs spiders, because I think there’s an insect and arachnid that can both be called that. I counted four legs on one side of one of them.
I’d say arachnophobia is derived from a reasonable fear. We are conditioned to be repulsed by things that our brains unfortunately recognize as “excellent source of death” despite being able to deal as much damage as a dust bunny in most cases
That’s the only explanation I can think of
It’s only a reasonable fear in the context of an unreasonable brain.
In order for something to be a “phobia” it has to be taken to an unreasonable level. Sure, being scared of a spider that’s crawling on you and could bite you, that is reasonable. Having a panic attack when you see a spider in like a video game or something is not reasonable.
And that’s why they coined the term “homophobic”
