I see a lot of people spreading false information about some cryptids, even trying to make peoples creatures in their cultures cryptids. What’s one of the things about the cryptid community that just makes you cringe?
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I’m curious, how could information about a cryptid possibly be false (or true for that matter)? Unless we’re talking blurry Ivory-billed woodpecker photos
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Everything really, from believeing in mythical creatures to misinterpreting sightings of real animals with no will to understand the truth.
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False as in people pulled it from someone’s culture (like native culture) or flat out doesn’t know what an animal is. And True there isn’t enough proof to deem a Cryptid real or not, but in some cases people like to edit photos, and fake their sightings.
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Nothing in particular. I just add the phenomenon to the steadily-growing pile of Dumb Things People Believe.
We really should tidy that up some time soon…
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There’s a good debate in whether/how much harm cryptozoology does to legitimate science for sure, but there’s definitely some social value: it brings like-minded people together, therefore building some kind of community. To me, it’s on par with sports fandoms. I’m not sure it’s any more fair to treat it any differently.
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I don’t like that people associate folklore creatures and aliens with cryptids, it’s what makes cryptozoology seem like a pseudoscience rather than the study of species that could possibly exist/animals in places they don’t belong. There’s some interesting stuff out there, like the deep sea fish that William Beebe saw in his expeditions during the 1930s, the Washington Sea Eagle, feral big cats in Britain, and cougars migrating eastwards in the USA. They really don’t deserve to be mixed together with crap like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
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That’s an interesting comment in that it shows a use of the word “cryptid” that runs counter to my understanding of it (which is basically that given by the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology).
I thought the whole point of cryptids and cryptozoologists, from the beginning, was a hostility to the scientific method. Things along the lines of “I think bigfoot exists, in the absence of objective evidence, because I would like my understanding of physical reality to conform strictly with my idiosyncratic spiritual views.”
Otherwise doesn’t conventional rare species biology / conservation biology have methods for adjudicating the sorts of claims you link to?
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Exactly! In my book Cryptozoology can be a valid science that brought e.g. light of Architheutis, coelacanths and other organisms… the whole “bigfood” “Nessy” and what not explorers I would not view as real cryptozoologists, but rather as pretty gullible people at the far end of conspiracy theorism.
If anybody is interested in trying to approach cryptozoology as a science, one might want to read the following (german) book I remember to be very interesting and down to earth about this topic.
" Riesenkraken und Tigerwölfe. Auf der Spur mysteriöser Tiere" - Lothar Frenz
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For me, it’s trying to push the continued push for the existence of dinosaurs. The whole idea stems from the belief that Africa is “primitive” and “stuck in the past”. This belief is manly held by young-earth creationist trying to disprove accepted sciences.
I find it funny how all the descriptions of “dinosaur sightings” use outdated depictions. No feathers, pronated wrists, other outdated features abound.
So basically, using cryptids to prove a preconceived notion and then faking “evidence” to support it.
TREY the Explainer makes great videos on the subject; here’s an interesting one.
Cryptid Profile: Mokele-mbembe and the “Lost” Dinosaurs of the Congo
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Personally I think it’s deplorable how Sasquatch has been labeled an “illegal immigrant” because of the sightings reported in both the US and Canada, implying he’s a serial border-crosser. It is not only xenophobic but also speciesist to apply our arbitrary human standards of “borders” to a non-sapiens hominid. If the accounts by Indigenous peoples are to be (hopefully) accepted as true by the so-called “scientific” community, then we all would accept that Sasquatch has lived in these lands long before we drew our imaginary lines and therefore we must respect his sovereign citizenship.
Please, check out my YouTube channel to see how else Sasquatch has been unfairly discriminated against, and find out what you can do to help.
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This both made my day and ruined it.
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Excellent Dad joke 
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Just putting all their time into the least likely species to exist I guess. Undiscovered species are a very common, real, non-mythical thing that happens in every country on the planet (maybe not the tiny ones like the vatican?). But the taller the tale, the more folks take an interest unfortunately.
There’s also the way edge cases are handled. New Guinea would be the easiest place for the Tasmanian Tiger to hide of its former range. I’d be shocked if even a third of the search effort has been put there. Gonna be a long time before the mystery is put to rest, found or not if people keep checking where it would be more convenient to find, rather than where it would be most likely to be to be hiding.
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The original question was what stereotypes of cryptids makes you cringe. And for me, it is when people ascribe seemingly supernatural characteristics to them. If Bigfoot really does exist, as an unknown species of anthropoid ape, then it will have behaviors and abilities in keeping with those of apes. Not the strange, quasi-magical ones that some believers ascribe to it.
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No fire breathing Jersey Devils then? :P
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Don’t say that, it reminds me of this guy https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.499.8032 - he found an animal species endemic to a 900 year old church building in the heart of Vienna… who knows what all could be lurking in the Vatican churches 
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Lol true.
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