Recently the algorithms on social media have decided that, given my age I guess, I need to see all kinds of posts and memes about being a member of Generation X, whatever that means. Despite this obvious recognition of my age, I have enjoyed the walk down memory lane as I see pictures of ice creams on push up sticks, reminders of how we stayed outside until the street lights came on and how utterly bizarre it is, to the most recent generation, that we were babysitting our siblings at the tender age of eight years old.

What really surprised me though was how many posts I saw about being traumatized by the thought that we would be swallowed up by quicksand. It surprised me because I myself thought, as many others have expressed online, that quicksand would be more of a problem in my daily life then it has been!! Clearly by the number of posts I’m seeing I have not been alone in this fear. So how is it that an entire generation become afraid of quicksand?

When I stopped to think about why I was afraid of quicksand I had a vague memory of the 1974 children’s science fiction TV show called Land of the Lost. This show, which aired on Saturday mornings, followed the adventures of Rick Marshall and his two children Will and Holly. This family find themselves trapped in an alternate universe inhabited by dinosaurs, primate type people and the dreaded humanoid/lizard creatures called the Sleestak! I was almost certain that I remembered a scene in that show where Rick and his children are being chased by the Sleestak and Rick falls into a pit of quicksand and there is a desperate attempt by Will and Holly to pull him free before the Sleestak can get to them. But I searched all over the internet and I could not find any reference to this scene. So apparently it wasn’t fear of capture by a Sleestak that terrified an entire generation.

My next thought was that the culprit might be Scooby Doo, I mean Fred, Daphne, Thelma, Shaggy and Scooby were forever being pursued by ghostly or otherwise evil beings that would find satisfaction in them being trapped in a pit of quicksand. Right? But again online searches found only one image of the gang standing in a pit of quicksand. It wasn’t very traumatizing looking, and the monster that probably had been chasing them was also standing next to them. So not very terrifying.

So I decided to search “quicksand scenes from 1970’s TV shows” and that’s when I hit the winner. There I found the meme I have attached above, along with several other grainy photos, of the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island trapped in quicksand. After a bit more digging I also found that quicksand was very prevalent in many of the westerns that we watched. Is it really possible that a quicksand scene or two, from television shows meant that an entire generation would be in fear of imminent death by quicksand? It would appear so because I am not alone if social media comments are any indication! I sat and pondered this thought, which made me think of other things from my childhood, that I was deathly afraid of at the time, but have since completely forgotten.

Things like the Bermuda Triangle. As one influencer on TikTok, who is my age said, “Is this still a thing?” He’s not wrong in asking this question. The Bermuda Triangle, was a geographical area on a map between Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico where numerous planes, and ships all vanished into thin air! I remember being so afraid of the Bermuda Triangle that I did not want to fly to Disney World in 1978 for fear our airplane would be swallowed up by this mystical force and we would never been heard from again. I remember checking books out of the library in Junior High (that’s what we called Middle School back then) and reading every thing I could get my hands on about the planes and ships that had disappeared. Where had they gone? Crashed? Shipwrecked? Or taken by a UFO in an alien abduction? Or even better, swallowed up by a worm hole in space or maybe a portal to another dimension!!! And then suddenly all references to the Bermuda Triangle disappeared, like the planes and ships themselves. Why?

I also remember being deathly afraid of Piranhas. You know the fish that only lives in South America but somehow me as a child, growing up in the far north region of North America, where it is so cold in the winter that it actually hurts your face, thought being consumed by this tropical fish was a real possibility. I lay blame for this fear on the magazine National Geographic. It’s bright yellow cover was very enticing to the child waiting in the dentist office. This magazine had pictures of this terrifying fish. Photographs of their razor sharp teeth blown up and out of proportion! Clearly this was a real threat to my every day life and avoiding freshwater, even this far north, was a better safe then sorry strategy. Funny thing, again I am not alone in my generation of having this fear. I read several comments where others shared that they too were in fear of this fish! How were we all so collectively brainwashed?

Clearly all of these fears, along with the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot and Alien Abductions, have faded from my daily life. I swim easily now in freshwater with no fear of being eaten alive. I travel by airplane across the Atlantic Ocean with no thought whatsoever that I’m not going to make it home. And until the algorithms reminded me of it, as an adult I have never given quicksand a serious thought.

Which makes me wonder about all of the current fears we are being exposed to as adults. Can those of us in Generation X stand as an example to everyone else? From our experience as children we have learned that if we just wait long enough all of these new fears will soon pass away, never to be thought of again. Trust me on this….I have experience.