Ghosts, an allegory for communicating in our digital world
Why translating is so important when encountering difference
Ghosts, a UK television show that’s also been adapted into an American version, is magical. Everyone in my family, from my father to me to my kids, find the show engaging and hilarious. We actually watch both versions because they’re both excellent and quite different from each other, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll mostly focus on the American version here.
It’s rare to find a show we all enjoy. We’re from different generations and have different entertainment preferences. My dad watches lots of shows I have no interest in. I barely understand most of what my children watch on YouTube and TikTok, pulling from memes and digital phenomena I’m not attuned to. We have different frames of reference, and often struggle to understand each other and appreciate where each of us is coming from.
Which is why I think we all love Ghosts. It’s about a group of people who choose to make an extra effort to understand each other and to be understood — something deeply relatable in our digital world, where huge numbers of different voices communicate and interact every day.
After a near-death experience, Sam, a young woman who recently moved to an inherited estate with her husband Jay, finds herself able to see and hear ghosts. At first, this strains her relationship with Jay as he has difficulty believing ghosts are real and she’s actually interacting with them. Over time, however, he not only comes to accept her ability, he forms his own relationship with the ghosts in their home as she conveys what they’re saying to him. The ghosts, who have always been there, become real to Jay because Sam is able to connect them to him through translation.
The ghosts are all from different eras … and their attitudes, use and understanding of language, and cultural concepts reflect that. The American version includes an 11th century Viking, a member of the Lenape tribe from the 1500s, a Revolutionary War solider, a robber baron’s wife from the 1800s, a prohibition era jazz singer, a 60’s flower child, an 80s scout leader, and a 90s finance bro.1 In a Primetimer article titled Why Ghosts Gives Us Hope for a Polarized America (with the delightful subtitle A genuinely funny sitcom where characters from different backgrounds learn from each other? Yes, please!), Mark Blankenship writes: “They are the physical manifestation of the country’s past having a conversation with its present.”
Not surprisingly, and to much comedic effect, the characters are constantly saying and doing things that make no sense or come across as odd and downright offensive to the others.
The heart of the show, however, is the way the characters work together to find common ground and build a caring, inclusive, respectful community.
The key to their community-building is their mutual recognition that translation is often necessary to make sure they’re understanding each other … and their willingness to expend the time, effort, and energy to do so.
Characters often discover they’re not talking about the same thing even though they’re using the same words. Stories and examples that resonate with one character rarely make sense to the others. Even Sam and Jay, the living couple from the same era, don’t always understand what the other one means because they have different lived experiences, professions, and interests.
When they’re not being understood, the characters on Ghosts work to find synonyms or ways of explaining what they’re talking about. Other characters often jump in to help translate or explain as well. In doing so, they all learn things about each other, their communication improves, and their connection grows
As Melody Stanford Martin says in Brave Talk: Building Resilient Relationships in the Face of Conflict: “In big and small ways, we all communicate differently. Truly understanding another person … requires taking the time to orient to their communication style. As we interpret their words and intentions to the best of our ability, we should be aware of how we are communicating. In any given situation, we might also ask ourselves if there are any ways we can adjust for maximum understanding and connection.”
Occasionally, characters change their minds about deeply held beliefs as they communicate more effectively, grow to care about each other more deeply, and learn from one another. I don’t want to spoil epsiodes for you, but many of the changes are relatable, touching, and, of course, funny.
“[I]t’s profound to see these avatars of the American experience bicker, then listen, then heal,” says Blankenship in Primetimer. “It’s powerful to watch them become a more caring community. It’s a hopeful vision of what the entire country could become, if we would just listen to each other like our afterlives depended on it.”
But it’s not just Americans who need to listen to each other. We all need listen to each other because our collective future depends on it. The many challenges we now face can only be solved through collaboration and cooperation on a global scale. “We need to get to know each other: to say things that express what we think and feel, not what we think others want us to say; to listen to what others around us are saying; to intuitively hear each other without judgment and change as a consequence,” says David Edwards in Creating Things that Matter: The Art and Science of Innnovations that Last. “We have to care what others think because we’re not alone.”
Ghosts presents a hopeful world where, despite considerable differences, people expend the effort it takes to get to know each other and purposefully grow and evolve together. It’s an allegory for how we can choose to behave in online spaces, and how our commitment to understanding each other can positively impact our physical world.
Digital Media Takeaway: Embracing encounters with differences opens us to learning, growing, and improving. “When we grapple with perspectives that are not our own, we gain wisdom, facts, stories, and ideas that not only strengthen us, but balance us,” says Brave Talk’s Martin. “[T]he process of appreciating difference helps us build better families, schools, businesses, governments, communities, and ultimately, better selves.”
To have eye-opening online conversations with people from different perspectives, we need to communicate in ways a broad cross-section can understand. We have to abandon assumptions that whatever we say will be automatically understood or that we accurately understand others simply because we recognize the words. We must have the patience and consideration to both seek and provide more clarification whenever necessary.
Have you watched Ghosts (either the American or the UK version)? What do you think of the show?
Because the UK has a different history and cultural concepts, the UK ghosts include a caveman, a beheaded nobleman from the Tudor period (late 1500s), a peasant woman from the 1600s, a Georgian noblewoman (1700s), a Regency era (early 1800s) poet, a noblewoman from the Victorian era, a World War II soldier, an 80s scout leader, and a Member of Parliament from the 90s.
Lauren, both this newsletter and this particular essay speak to what I'm striving to address with my own work. I am delighted that you've quoted me here and that I've found your writing as a result. It's so nice to meet a fellow traveler!