Steve Huff - The Spooky Stuff by Alex Matsuo

The tragedy of Gabby Petito is nothing short of horrific. A young and bright star was extinguished much too quickly at the hands of a monster. In case you’re not aware, 22-year-old Gabby Petito was reported missing on September 11, 2021. She and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, embarked on a four-month cross-country road trip. It was to be full of camping and visiting national parks. Laundrie returned to his family in Florida on September 1st, but Petito wouldn’t be reported missing until ten days later.

Laundrie became a person of interest four days later, but he isn’t arrested. He disappeared on September 17th, and his family reports that they hadn’t seen him for three days. On September 19th, in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming remains were spotted. Tragically, her remains are identified on September 21st. At the time this blog was written, Laundrie is still missing. Now there’s a warrant for his arrest for bank fraud. It’s a mess.

Helpful or Hurtful?

As Petito’s story started going viral, true crime sleuths started coming together trying to figure out what happened to her. This was long before her remains were identified and she was still missing. The internet can be a wonderful community full of resources like this. In fact, a YouTube video played a major role in helping to identify Petito and Laundrie’s van, which led to the discovery of her remains.

But there were a few other communities that tried to jump on the Petito wagon; paranormal investigators and mediums. For far too long, there have been ongoing issues of paranormal investigators trying to contact the spirits of deceased celebrities through decorated and embellished spirit boxes. These videos are then posted on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter…you name it. Videos of this nature normally get an incredible amount of videos. If the creator is monetized on any of these platforms, they get a nice paycheck.

The psychic and mediumship community is no different. It seems that the way to gain views, followers, and even new clients, is to post videos of their readings and post them online.

Do any of these people contact the deceased’s family in the process? Most likely not. Several in the paranormal and psychic mediumship communities are coming together to call out this behavior and point out just how problematic it is.

“If it was for help, it wouldn’t be posted,” says evidential medium Megan Alisa on one of her latest TikTok videos. She encouraged the creators of this type of content to really sit down and figure out the real reason that their doing this.

Exploiting the Dead for Clout

Simply put, publicly posting spirit box sessions and and readings without the consent of involvement of the deceased’s family is exploitive. Nine times out of ten, the creator has no contacted the family for permission. But honestly, they don’t care. Reaching out to “spirits” of missing persons and murder victims without consent is unethical and gross. Doing so, especially with or without consent of the family, is not helpful. It’s hurtful, it’s traumatizing, and it makes the grieving process so much more difficult.

What’s even a larger issue is that more than likely none of these creators are actually contacting Petito. The videos that I’ve seen have consisted of these creators trying to make sense of “word salad” through muffled and random noises they’re hearing on the box. They never knew Petito personally, so how would they even know that’s who they’re talking to? Even if you’re a hardcore believer in the paranormal, you should be skeptical of this. How would you even know that you’re talking to Petito’s ghost? How would you know that you’re not talking to some other ghost pretending to be Petito in order to protect her spirit?

My personal opinion is that none of these creators have been in contact with Petito’s spirit and are literally making up a story as they go…all for the views.

Trauma Predator

My friend Kat at Spooktasticx said something brilliant to me while we were live on the night of Wednesday, September 22nd. She mentioned that these creators are “trauma predators” in the fact that they are preying on Petito and her family. Not only that, they are preying on their audience who generally believe this stuff to be real.

Creators like these prey on our vulnerabilities and greatest fears and exploit them to their advantage. It’s proof that there is a gross lack of empathy in these practices, and instead of calling it out and being held accountable, these creators are rewarded with fans, followers, views, and an elevated platform.

Pushing the Demon Narrative

Another disturbing trend is that people are blaming demons on the loss of Gabby Petito. By placing the blame on demons and pushing the narrative that Laundrie is possessed, it eradicates any personal responsibility he has in this terrible crime. The whole “the devil made me do it” mindset takes away any accountability from Laundrie. Terrible people are terrible people, and demons aren’t to blame.

I recently made a video reaction to a creator that compared Laundrie to Chris Watts. The original video makes the claim that the similarities alludes that demons are involved. What were the similarities? Well, they looked alike. Sound the alarms, bald white guys with beards look alike. The creator claims that “Demons are said to jump once they completed their mission.”

Honestly? Demons are cop out.

Blaming demons is a way to avoid addressing the real issue at hand. Instead of trying to figure out where we are going wrong as a society with misogyny, abuse, not raising our men to hurt women, racism, etc., we blame demons. We are using demons to avoid facing the fact that we are failing at helping and treating people with mental illnesses and failing victims of crimes.

Instead of taking responsibility, we blame demons and give the people who commit these crimes an easy way out.

Half the Problem

But let’s talk about something that’s even more difficult. These creators are only half of the problem. The remainder of the responsibility lies within the general public and audience. I see these types of videos going viral far too often, especially after a celebrity passes away. In the comments, I see followers and fans requesting other long-gone celebrities be contacted, much like ordering off a menu. This is inhumane on extraordinary levels.

Ordering creators to contact victims and celebrities is the main problem. I’m not sure where the blame lies for this disturbing trend. Perhaps it’s because society sees celebrities and victims as products instead of people. Therefore, their humanity is stripped.

This has to stop. Not only do we need to tell these creators to stop making this kind of content, but we need to hold their fanbase accountable. The creators won’t make this content if it doesn’t give them views. Their fans and followers need to be called out along with them. Someone has to tell them to stop encouraging these types of videos.

Advocating for the Grieving

A few years ago, I confronted one of the original creators of this trend. He accused me of having a skewed view of death. But he completely missed the point. It’s not the spirits that are being harmed with these videos (I hope not).

It’s grieving families that are left behind.

When paranormal creators are making this kind of content 99.99% of the time, the grieving families are not involved. I’d venture to say it’s close to 100% that these families did not give their consent for their loved ones to be used in this manner. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t see the content and they’re not affected by it. Ultimately, this content harms the deceased family that is left behind to pick up the pieces.

We need to do better by the victims and their families.

I’m not an avid follower of Steve Huff, who runs Huff Paranormal. However, I do watch his stuff from time to time. I have to give the guy credit, as he has drawn a very large audience with his work and giving exposure to the paranormal field. He has made a name for himself specifically for the fact that he released a video of his communication attempts with Robin Williams, after the famous actor committed suicide. I’m not going to comment on that. This blog is specific to his published session where he tried to communicate with the late B.B. King, who passed away on May 14, 2015 in his sleep.

On May 15th, Huff posted a video where he tries to communicate with King, at the request of over 50 of his followers, per the screenshot below.

Steve Huff posts his session with BB King.

Given that 24 hours hadn’t even passed since the singer’s death, I had a moral issue with it. Given that I recently dealt with a devastating death myself, I found the timing to be extraordinarily distasteful. So, I let Huff know how I felt.

According to Steve Huff, my view of death is skewed and negative. My comment was not to defend the dead, but instead, speaking for the grieving. As paranormal investigators, we seem to forget that the dead were once living people. Regardless of how long ago they died, they left behind loved ones who mattered to them far more than what we matter to them. If the deceased had the choice to communicate with us, or their loved ones, I’ll take a gamble to say that they will gravitate towards their loved ones.

The grieving people left behind are the ones who are suffering. They are the ones screaming and crying at the loss of their precious family member who is no longer with them. No longer can they hug them in this world, tell them that they love them, hear their voices speaking to them. That void is devastatingly fresh after a loved one passes.

Sometimes, there is a difference in doing the right thing, and what the public wants. Sometimes the public doesn’t want you to do the right thing, but instead they want you to indulge their curiosities and needs. Feeding the beast isn’t always the right thing to do.

Perhaps my view on death is skewed and negative right now…and yeah, that is because my mother died less than 6 months ago. I miss her, and I would give anything to have her back with me. But that isn’t possible. If that makes my comment silly and irrelevant, so be it.

To Steve Huff (if you’re reading) and his defenders/fans, this is who I am speaking up for:

How would Shirley King feel about Huff’s session with his Andre’s Box and SCD-1?

While I can’t speak for her, I can relate to Shirley King in this picture, as it has been me since January 30, 2015. I still scream and cry, even though almost four months have passed. When you have lost a parent, your rock and your foundations are gone. It is a pain that I wish on no one. But it is a pain that I wish more people have compassion and sympathy for. But in truth, I doubt that Shirley was even offered an option or a choice.

There is a certain decorum that we as a society follow after someone dies. Typically, people gather and come together to support the people left behind by the deceased. There is the process of grief that we all feel when we lose a loved one. Those who come together in support understand that there are cues to follow in terms of what the grieving are ready to endure. What that is can vary from making funeral arrangements to getting out of bed. Grief is a funny process that can leave you catatonic on some days. In connecting this with the paranormal, I feel that even if establishing communication could lead to the Holy Grail of data, the grieving needs to be considered.

I’m not going to question whether Huff really made contact with B.B. King, as I feel it is moot. It is the very action of trying to establish contact with a dead celebrity, and then post it for the public right away without any regard to the grieving. Just because someone was famous, doesn’t mean that they are fair game for continued exploitation after death for views or social media followers. They deserve better than that. Their living relatives that are left behind deserve better than that. These people are not research tools…they are human beings. I personally feel that if Huff was genuine in his actions, he would have privately contacted King’s family (or representatives) to let them deal as they decide on what to do with the data of THEIR deceased member of THEIR family.

In closing, that decision should not have been made for them.

Tag: Steve Huff

Gabby Petito Is Not a Ghost To Be Contacted