Should Paranormal Teams Be Live Streaming During The Coronavirus Lockdown?

With the current and ongoing threat of COVID-19, many have been questioning whether paranormal investigation teams should be staying at home. Given the current climate, should teams still be out about doing live streams from haunted locations?

We all know that public and private ghost hunting events are outright banned, we've been told that we shouldn't meet with friends, visit anyone else's house and that public gatherings are not allowed. But what if streaming ghost hunts is your job?

Well, the government have said that if you can work from home, then you should. You can travel to and from work if absolutely necessary. The key to the confusion here is that the government haven't said that only key workers or essential businesses should remain open, it's said that anyone who can't work from home can continue to work. This is to avoid the country and its economy grinding to a complete halt.

The government has however named some types of businesses that are non-essential and asked them to close, this includes pubs, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, and any non-essential shop. Basically, any businesses other than the ones the government have asked to close down, can continue to run, but where possible that work should be done from home.

If you've been stuck at home and you've flicked the television on in the day, you might have Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby sat on the 'This Morning' sofas. Clearly Philip and Holly aren't key workers, but since the government haven't asked television studio to shut down, they can continue to operate. In the case of the 'This Morning' hosts, they can't do their job from home, so they are continuing to come in to the London studios every day.

Technically this is also true of ghost hunters who make a living from live streaming paranormal investigations, they have not been named by the government as a non-essential business and they cannot do their work from home.

So, if you follow the government's guidelines to the letter, ghost hunters can go out and live stream if it's how they make their living. However, you've got to use a bit of common sense here. Just because the government hasn't officially labelled this line of work as "non-essential" doesn't make it an essential service. The truth is live streams are far from essential, they're nothing more than niche entertainment. True, it's a niche we love, but any fan of the paranormal should be smart enough to realise that we shouldn't be risking lives for the sake of a live ghost hunt.

Arguably, national television broadcasters like Philip and Holly are more important now than ever when the country is in lockdown and in need of entertainment, but they are broadcasting to a huge audience. Whereas leaving home and meeting with others to provide a live feed of a ghost hunt to a relatively small audience is nothing short of irresponsible. Plus it sets the wrong example to those watching. We should all be making sacrifices and working together to bring an end to this situation sooner.

You've got to remember that even the production of shows like 'Eastenders', 'Coronation Street', 'Emmerdale' and 'Stranger Things' has been halted, this is due to safety concerns of bring the cast and crew together, but what if you're a small team and you live together?

We've been told not to meet up with people outside of our households, so this means most paranormal teams shouldn't be meeting up, unless they live together. Even if teams live together, unnecessary travel has been banned, so there is no way anyone should be travelling to a haunted location. Even those with second homes have been asked not to visit them until this all blows over.

Our daily session of exercise should be about an hour long and should be close to home, so this means you can't even conduct a ghost hunt on your daily exercise escape. Even if you live within walking distance of a haunted location, you still shouldn't be visiting another building or home.

Most paranormal teams and YouTubers have naturally come to the conclusion that they shouldn't be risking lives to make paranormal content, but couldn't it be argued that ghost hunters have an obligation to keep their followers entertained at this difficult time?

Well, not an obligation as such, but we should all be doing our bit to make life easier for others at the moment, so if you have followers who rely on your content, then you should consider a way to keep that content coming if you can.

In the last few weeks life has changed beyond all recognition for many of us. We can't socialise how we used to, we're off work or working from home away from our colleagues, and we're trapped inside our homes. With the whole country being asked to adapt, and most complying, ghost hunters should be doing the same.

That doesn't mean your production needs to be suspended all together, but it does mean you might need to change the way you deliver content to followers. There's a few things you can do, like doing live streams from home. Perhaps you could keep the conversation around your team going by give followers the chance to take part in a Q&A with you, or review ghost hunting gadgets.

Why not put some of your back catalogue of content to use and host an online watch party of some of your most-loved videos, or create a compilation video of your greatest moments, best evidence, or even outtakes.

Even if you are able to create content from home and with people from within your household, you should still think twice about what content you're putting out and how it might be perceived and if you are sharing the correct message.

If paranormal content creators are obligated to do anything at the moment, then it's to be seen to be doing the right thing, to spread the right example and encourage others to stay at home and save lives. Not looking for loopholes to allow them to continue working.