Goosebumps Kid

I was randomly recommended this YouTube video tonight in bed. 

Being a Goosebumps fan as a kid, I was curious about what had happened to the series. 

After hovering my finger for a bit, I decided to watch it. 

Suddenly, there I was. A kid with a pile of goosebump books on my head.

I turned to Johann and hollered triumphantly “it’s meeee!”

Johahn leaned over my iphone and said “What? No it’s not…wait….omg! That’s soooo cool!”

I was a huge Goosebumps kid back in the 90’s. Everyone knew me as having huge stacks of Goosebumps books piled around my bedroom. 

I truly loved the artwork on the covers of early Goosebump books and began amassing them, all steadily supplied to me by my grandfather John.  

I ended up owning far more Goosebumps books than I’d ever read. I had unlimited books if I wanted them. I wanted unlimited computer games, but my parents were strict about anything they would term as “audio visual stimulation”(I eventually found ways around it).

At the age I was in the photo, most of my literary investment actually went into re-reading my Mad Magazine comics over and over again. Also supplied by my grandfather John, reading Mad Magazines from such a young age probably did a lot of weird things to me. 

Even though I spent more time reading Mad Magazines, my Goosebump books were displayed in proud towers all around my room.

My auntie Sally, who happened to work for Fairfax Media in Sydney, one day asked me if some people could come and take some pictures of me with my Goosebump books. 

I felt very shy about it, from memory. The adults who came to take photos asked me to put the Goosebump books on my head. They were so excited and I remember they thought it was an awesome photo. They also took some other photos where I was supposed to look scared while pretending to read a Goosebump book with a torch. 

I remember hating the photos and feeling embarrassed about the whole thing. I was a very anxious boy. 

The photos ended going in a popular magazine in Sydney, much to my horror at the time. I buried it from my memory, eventually forgetting all about it.

I was probably about 6 years old in this photo. 

Here’s the YouTube video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kFtaQlJKk8Y&t