Phasmophobia May Have Inducted Me into a Cult

Hey, so I might be in a cult. I really don’t know what to do about that other than point the finger at Phasmophobia. It began innocently enough, like walking into 6 Tanglewood Drive, but it has devolved into something more like Brownstone High School. Let’s go back to day one and you’ll understand.

Shortly after Phasmophobia released on consoles last year, a buddy of mine reached out and asked me to play with him. I was hesitant because I do not like horror, as a general rule. I mean, sure, I’ve played my fair share and don’t hate horror games, but they’re never going to be my first pick. I am, for lack of a better word, a chicken. Honestly, there’s probably some trauma to be unpacked there around being forced to watch Jeepers Creepers at a drive-in movie theater when I was kid, but I digress. Slowly, our Phasmophobia party grew with two other friends.

Like Any Good Cult, We Had Humble Beginnings

We’re going to use codenames (because cult). My first friend always goes in with a video camera and looks for Ghost Orbs in Phasmo first, so we’re going to call him the Videographer. The second is a bit unhinged, always dies first, and cannot resist using Phasmo‘s Music Box Cursed Item, so we’re just going to call him Sacrifice. He also has much less play time than me and Videographer, but nearly the same amount of deaths. Phasmo really does hate him. Fun fact: he once died while standing outside Tanglewood. The third isn’t always able to play with us, and we’re going to call him Truck Princess. He’s not really one, but to be fair, every Phasmo group has to have a Truck Princess. We’re not going to give me a codename because A.) my byline is at the top of the article and B.) referring to myself in such a way seems like a weird way to write this.

Anyway, Videographer and I have played a lot. Phasmophobia is probably my most-played game of 2025 by far, although we’re very much just casuals compared to the community. Videographer is Prestige 3 and is only missing one Trophy: getting killed by a Demon’s abilities within a minute. That’s pretty baller if you ask me. I am about 20 levels, as of this writing, from Prestige 3. We both have Phasmophobia‘s Golden Apocalypse trophy because he got it first and I wasn’t going to let that slide. Sacrifice, meanwhile, is only Prestige 1 because he’s not there to play the game; he’s there to be an unhinged madman. Truck Princess isn’t even Prestige 1 because, again, he plays less. No biggie. We respect everyone here (in this cult).

I’m not just patting myself and Videographer on the back; it’s important to this origin story (of a cult). Bear with me. The core gameplay loop is tons of fun, but eventually, you have to raise that difficulty to enjoy it as much. We almost exclusively use Phasmophobia‘s custom settings, and we currently rock a 7.77x multiplier in most games. We lower it if it becomes too discouraging, but eh, the fun is in the challenge. But, over time, we began unleashing zany antics to kick up the fun.

Then It Took a Turn for the Weird

Featured - Phasmophobia Mistakes That Kill Characters

It started simple. We began actively taunting the ghosts in every hunt, never turning off our local chat. We began doing fun, silly little grinds like on Camp Woodwind. We were doing it for experience, we’d say, but then just do nonsense around the campfire. It was more of a battle royale game than anything at that point. Sometimes the host would just jump the difficulty to ridiculous extremes, and of course, we had a period where we exclusively used Cursed Items to try to kill each other. These feel like formative Phasmophobia experiences, but we couldn’t get enough. It would only continue to scale up from there while these became mainstays; this is just the average experience for us.

We now play roulette every time we see the Tarot Cards in Phasmo, circling one another as we pull cards. We constantly yell at the ghost, even mid-hunt. Maps don’t even matter anymore; some games really are just a battle royale. Then the glitches began. In Brownstone High School, I somehow glitched to where I couldn’t move from my spot. They watched as I rotated in Phasmo fashion while the ghost got me. We began searching out these glitches; there are also two spots where this could happen, that we know of, in Sunny Meadows. Sacrifice and I got stuck there last time, and somehow, ended up being the last two alive. We rotated and we learned that rotation was protection, well theoretically anyway. It was a fun experience. We continued to search for more unhinged experiences. Not long ago, we decided to abandon the character models that we have used since starting the game. We’re all now the same character in Phasmophobia because why not?

And I want to be clear: this only happens with Phasmophobia. If we play games like Terraria or Palworld, something like that, we really play them pretty normally.

Most of the time, we’re not even really looking for ghosts anymore. It’s just pure shenanigans. We can only play around dinner time for a couple of hours a few times a week, maybe more on weekends, but there’s something about searching out the strangest things we can do that makes Phasmo so thrilling. But dinnertime is important to this story too. Stay with me, we’re getting there.

The Cult Was Born

Somewhere in all of this, our messaging around Phasmophobia changed. It went from “Hey want to play Phasmo” to “ye.” It’s not even a question, there’s never a question mark. Why? Beats me. Maybe it’s just because it’s yes, maybe it’s a shorter version of Jey Uso’s Yeet (although I am the only WWE fan), or perhaps it was just funny. It became a calling card to see if we could play Phasmo, but it continued to devolve. We began attaching ye to the end of words. We began making little jokes out of it. The nonsense became second nature to us.

Those jokes have essentially evolved into their own language. For example, you cannot yeat while playing Phasmo because you’re not contributing. Yeat, of course, meaning eat. Again, we typically play around dinnertime and, more than once, one of us has had dinner or was cooking dinner while trying to play. It became the first law of the cult: no yeating while yee-ing. To Yeat while you yee is not yeeful, and if you do something against the ye, you have committed a yeen. Yes, yee + sin = yeen. The worst part? Taco Bell got involved. To ye is to play Phasmo, but the act of playing Phasmophobia is yeemas (Taco Bell’s live mas slogan combined with ye). If you break this rule or any arbitrary rule decided at the moment, you must offer X number of yeyes to yeemas, with yeyes really having no real-world bearing or word I can connect it to. Really, when a language starts inventing words, that’s when you know it’s trouble. This is just an introduction. We have an entire language.

And, from that, the cult of Yeemas was born. Our group chat is appropriately titled “Servants of Yeemas.” Yes, we are running around Phasmophobia, speaking about ye this or ye that, circling each other like vultures at times, hunting down cursed items for further shenanigans, and unfortunately traumatizing every Deogen, Yokai, or Demon we come across. None of them are as scary as one of Phasmophobia‘s characters yelling about ye. We all look the exact same, we search out spots for pure shenanigans, and the ghosts are accosted with yes (the plural of ye, not the word yes). I am…starting to wonder if there’s a reason the Demon leaves the Videographer alone. This may not sound like much, but honestly, I’m not sure how much further we can devolve. WE HAVE AN ENTIRE LANGUAGE.

I’m so sorry Deogen buddy.

The good news is that Phasmophobia‘s Chronicle Update is around the corner. Perhaps the new Sound evidence will keep us from devolving. We’ll no doubt, he said hopefully, focus on this new gameplay and less on appeasing yeemas. Or we probably won’t. With more audio-oriented gameplay, even if it’s just recording stuff, I am afraid we’ll find new ways to harass the ghosts. But, regardless, yes the Chronicle Update looks very good. Horror 2.0 is also a big deal for us because perhaps we wouldn’t have devolved so much if I hadn’t stopped being freaked out by everything around level 50, but that’s a year+ away…I am afraid of what we’ll look like by then.

Now, you’ve reached the end of this, and you’re probably wondering to yourself: “Joshua, why are you confessing all of this in front of a group of internet strangers? Joshua, you’re supposed to be a professional writer guy.” Listen. This is true, but also confessing is a strong word. I’m just really curious if we could talk further about yeemas 🙂