From Scare Tactic to Subculture: How Sliding Found a New Generation

Once a technique known primarily to Southern California haunt performers, sliding has grown into a recognizable culture of teams, characters, specialized equipment and millions of social media views. Insane Haunt Productions owner Cameron McGuinness has had a front-row seat to that transformation.

Long before TikTok edits, sparking gloves and dedicated slider teams were reaching audiences across the country, monsters at Knott’s Scary Farm were experimenting with a new way to scare.

The roots of sliding stretch back to the mid-1980s, when performers at Knott’s began dropping toward the ground and sliding toward unsuspecting guests. What started as experimentation eventually evolved into something much more technical. Protective equipment improved. Metal became incorporated into gloves and costumes. Slides became longer, faster and more theatrical.

By the 2010s, groups such as Decayed Brigade were helping push sliding beyond an individual scare technique and toward a performance style of its own.

For Cameron McGuinness, owner of Insane Haunt Productions, the next major transformation came when sliding began escaping the boundaries of the haunt itself.

“Sliding used to be something you really had to be around the industry to understand,” McGuinness said. “You'd see it at places like Knott’s, or you'd know somebody who slid. Now someone can see a 15-second video online and immediately go, ‘What is that, and how do I do it?’”

Building Gear for a Growing Community

McGuinness entered the sliding equipment market in 2020, at a time when finding purpose-built equipment could still be surprisingly difficult.

Many sliders historically built their own equipment, modified existing sporting goods or learned setups directly from other performers. That DIY culture remains an important part of sliding, but McGuinness saw an opportunity to make the activity more accessible.

Insane Haunt Productions began developing and selling equipment specifically around the needs of haunt sliders, eventually expanding into hand strips, foot pucks, gloves, knee protection, steel fingers and other specialized products.

“The original idea wasn't that we were going to create sliding,” McGuinness explained. “Sliding had decades of history before us. It was really, ‘How do we make the equipment easier to get? How do we make it more consistent? How does somebody in another state who doesn't have a veteran slider standing next to them get started?’”

That distinction is important.

The growth of sliding isn't the story of one company, park or performer. It has been the result of generations of scare actors passing down techniques, teams developing increasingly elaborate performances, manufacturers improving equipment and social media suddenly giving all of it a worldwide audience.

When Sliders Became the Show

Few groups illustrate that evolution better than Decayed Brigade.

Formed by performers with deep roots in Southern California's haunt community, the team helped demonstrate that sliding could be more than a monster rushing toward an unsuspecting guest. Coordinated slides, jumps, formations and stunt-driven routines turned the technique into entertainment that audiences could intentionally gather to watch.

That evolution has continued well beyond California.

At Hersheypark's Dark Nights, Decayed Brigade performers became a featured component of the Midway of Misery scare zone, with organized performances showcasing sliding as entertainment rather than simply an isolated scare.

McGuinness believes teams have been essential to the growth of the culture.

“The teams changed everything because they gave sliding an identity outside of whatever park you happened to work at,” he said. “Now you've got groups with names, logos, characters and fans. People follow the slider, not just the event.”

And increasingly, those individual characters have audiences of their own.

The Fryboy Effect

Perhaps no example better demonstrates the power of social media on modern sliding than Fryboy, the character performed by Carter P.

Fryboy's short-form videos introduced enormous audiences to a performance style many viewers had never encountered. Videos showing dramatic slides, sparks and interactions with guests accumulated millions of views online.

Suddenly, a niche skill originating in haunted attractions was being consumed as standalone entertainment.

“I think characters like Fryboy proved that there was an audience for the slider themselves,” McGuinness said. “People weren't just saying, ‘That's a cool Halloween event.’ They were asking who the performer was. They wanted to follow them, meet them and learn how they did it.”

That visibility created a feedback loop.

More videos created more interest. More interest created new sliders. New sliders created new teams and characters. Those performers posted their own content, exposing sliding to another wave of viewers.

For equipment suppliers like IHP, the effect was immediately noticeable.

“You could see demand change when sliding content went viral,” McGuinness said. “We started getting people who weren't necessarily coming from that traditional Southern California haunt pipeline. They might be in Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas or somewhere completely different saying, ‘I saw this online and I want to learn how to slide.’”

From Southern California to Parks Across the Country

For decades, sliding was closely associated with Southern California haunt culture, particularly Knott’s Scary Farm, where the technique originated.

That geographic boundary has become increasingly irrelevant.

Haunted attractions and theme parks around the country now incorporate sliders into their entertainment. IHP says its equipment has been used by performers at professional attractions including SeaWorld Howl-O-Scream, while its customer base extends from professional scare actors to independent performers and home haunters.

For McGuinness, park adoption represents another important stage in sliding's evolution.

“When an entertainment department sees thousands or millions of people reacting to this content online, they're seeing something guests already understand and want to experience,” he said. “There's value in that.”

But wider adoption also creates a responsibility to preserve the distinction between simply putting on kneepads and actually learning the performance discipline.

“Sliding looks easy when somebody who's been doing it for ten years does it,” McGuinness said. “It isn't. There is technique, equipment, physical conditioning, awareness of your environment and a lot of experience behind a good slider.”

Social Media Created a Year-Round Culture

Perhaps the largest difference between sliding today and the sliding community of previous generations is that Halloween no longer defines its calendar.

TikTok, Instagram and YouTube allow performers to remain visible throughout the year. Conventions provide additional opportunities for teams to perform in front of haunt audiences. Dedicated accounts document performers, tricks and equipment. Online communities allow a new slider thousands of miles away from Southern California to interact with people who have been doing it for years.

The result is something closer to a subculture than a seasonal scare technique.

McGuinness has watched that change happen from both sides — as someone working professionally in themed entertainment and as the owner of a company supplying the performers themselves.

“When I started selling sliding gear in 2020, I don't think I completely understood where it could go,” he said. “Today there are kids who know slider characters by name. There are teams people follow. There are people practicing year-round. Parks are incorporating sliders into their events. That's a very different landscape.”

IHP itself has evolved alongside that landscape, expanding its product offerings and working with performers, teams and attractions as demand has grown.

But McGuinness is hesitant to attribute the growth of sliding to any single company.

Instead, he points to an ecosystem.

The original performers developed the technique. Veteran sliders taught the next generation. Teams such as Decayed Brigade turned sliding into organized performance. Characters such as Fryboy demonstrated its potential on social media. Parks provided increasingly large stages. Content creators amplified it. Equipment manufacturers lowered the barrier to entry.

Each pushed the next.

What Comes Next?

McGuinness believes sliding is still early in its evolution.

As its audience grows, he expects greater emphasis on organized performances, standardized equipment, training and opportunities for performers outside traditional Halloween events.

There is also an increasingly blurred line between scare actor, stunt performer, athlete and online creator.

That may ultimately be sliding's greatest opportunity.

“The coolest thing to me is that sliding doesn't have to replace what it originally was,” McGuinness said. “At its core, it's still about a monster coming out of nowhere and scaring the hell out of somebody. That's where it came from.”

“But now it can also be a show. It can be a team. It can be a character. It can be something millions of people watch online. We're finding out how much bigger that world can actually be.”

Nearly four decades after haunt performers first began experimenting with slides in Southern California, the scrape of metal across pavement is no longer recognizable only to industry veterans.

For a growing generation of Halloween fans, they know exactly what's coming when they hear it.

And they're pulling out their phones to film it.