‘Come, so that I may Chase you Away!’: On Ghost Hunts and Posthuman Ethics

‘Creepypastas’ are short horror stories that circulate online, spreading through the act of copying and pasting, and often threatening to ‘curse’ the reader in the process. In this article I explore what it might mean to strike up companionship with and show responsibility towards that which is considered non-existent yet, as in the case of creepypasta and its monsters, hauntingly present nonetheless. I do so through the framework of Jacques Derrida's ‘hauntology’ as well as Donna Haraway's work on responsibility as a question of how to respond to the response of the non/human other. The question I would like to ask is this: how might one respond to the response of the non/human other, if the non/human other is considered to not exist?