🎃 We Never Stop Fearing: what scares us only changes... or stays
As children, almost half of the 105 respondents (46%) feared the dark, the unknown or the supernatural. As adults, only 13% still do. But the fear didn't go away: it moved. Performance and the future (10% → 40%), war, money and uncertainty took the place of demons, basements and the dark. The poster follows three questions: Two Worlds of Fear: how the types of fear differ between childhood and adulthood What Never Leaves?: the fears people still carry (snakes: 6 of 11) and the 16 childhood fears that vanished completely What Changes?: the biggest shifts, and how the top fears of each life stage swap places 91% still name at least one fear today, and 43% kept one from childhood. We never stop fearing; we just fear different things. Built in Power BI with the provided dataset only. Percentages are shares of respondents per life stage (people could pick several fears). Accessibility: insight-based alt text on every visual, a logical tab order with decorative images excluded, and WCAG AA colour contrast.The Midnight Shift: What We Fear Changes and What Stays
Where did the fears of childhood go? I turned the community’s anonymized fear survey into The Midnight Shift: a one-page, A4 Power BI story about the fears we leave behind, the ones that stay, and the ones that emerge as we grow older. The story in the numbers 199 of 255 valid adult fear selections (78%) were not also selected by the same respondents in childhood. 56 selections appeared at both life stages. Looking at people rather than selections, 45 of 105 respondents reported at least one fear at both stages. A report designed to be explored A donut chart separates adult fear choices that were also selected in childhood from those that were not. A line chart follows four fear categories across both stages. In the full sample, selections for war rise from 5 to 19, and uncertainty about the future from 4 to 14. Selections for heights fall from 13 to 5, and darkness from 11 to 2. A stacked bar chart compares childhood-only, shared and adult-only selections across seven categories. Age and gender slicers let readers explore the sample, while selecting a visual highlights related data across the report. All data charts are native Power BI visuals. The haunted setting adds atmosphere with optional motion, glowing lights and flying bats. The animation can be switched off and respects reduced-motion settings. Data and interpretation The report uses the anonymized survey dataset supplied for the contest, with no external data added. “None of these” and “Prefer not to answer” are excluded from the fear-choice comparison; the free-text response “Something else: War” is kept separate. These findings describe a retrospective, self-selected community sample. They are not representative of the wider population and do not establish that age caused a fear to appear or disappear. AI disclosure AI-assisted tools supported parts of the visual design and artwork. The analysis is based on the supplied survey data and is presented through the interactive Power BI report. Some fears fade. Others simply find a new name. Happy Halloween! 🎃The Monsters Have Come Knocking 🕯️
For this dashboard, I asked the data one question: when we grow up, where do our monsters go? 105 of you answered with your fears, and I sorted every one into three hiding places: Under the Bed, In the Heart and At the Door. Fears under the bed dropped by nearly two thirds, from 71% to 26%. Fears at the door more than quadrupled, from 12% to 51%. The monsters never left. They just moved. Open the report and it comes to life: the fears move into place as the story unfolds. Download the poster and it tells the same story standing still. As kids, one flick of the light switch made them disappear. I'm still looking for a switch that works on the monsters at the door. Happy Halloween, and happy dashboarding! 🎃
Fears, Data & Nightmares
What do childhood fears, war, and messy data have in common? They all appeared in a Halloween themed survey answered by 105 respondents, including me. For this challenge, I used Power BI to explore the survey responses and turn them into a visual story. The poster looks at childhood fears, current fears, and the data nightmares that analysts can relate to, alongside the geographical distribution of respondents. Being trapped in small spaces was the most frequently selected childhood fear, while war topped the list of current fears. For data nightmares, messy data came first, chosen by 23 respondents. The A4 poster combines charts, a country map, and an age-group slicer to present these findings in a single report.The Daily Fright by Pierre Bouet
Oyez ! Oyez ! Read all about it! Step right up, good people of the Data Kingdom! A fresh edition of The Daily Fright has just come off the press. The ink is still wet, and it may be slightly haunted. 🎃 For years, dashboards have been serious, grey and lined up with a ruler. They did the job, but they didn’t have much soul. This time I wanted to have fun and try something different : a dashboard you read like a newspaper, with headlines, columns and a few surprises along the way. The numbers are all there, accurate and true to the source. They’re just laid out so you’ll actually want to read them with a cup of coffee, and maaaaybe a fireplace ! So grab your copy, unfold it, and let it surprise you. And before you fold it away, one last headline, the only one that really matters: STOP ALL WARS. The only monsters we should ever meet are the Halloween kind.
Trick or Treat? Same bucket, different candy
At seven you went door to door with a bucket. My poster says you never stopped. 71 of the 105 people carry the same number of fears today as they did as a child, but only 3 of them name the same fears. The bucket is still full. The candy inside is completely different. What the poster shows 16 fears that children named are gone. They were named 53 times in all, and not one adult names a single one of them today. The biggest ones to leave: demons and the devil (9 children), basements and attics (8), being watched (5), cemeteries (5), aliens (3). Three fears moved in to replace them. War went from 5 children to 20 adults, the future from 4 to 14, money from 0 to 11. Together that is 9 mentions as children and 45 as adults. Five times as many. Nobody is born afraid of money. Zero children named it. And every one of the 5 children who named war still names it today. Only 3 people out of 105 name the same fears as they did at seven, and even those 3 have no fear in common with each other. One more question: what is your worst data nightmare? 23 of the 105 gave the same answer. It arrives a mess. Hope it makes you smile. Happy Halloween.
When the Monsters Change 👻 | Halloween DataViz Contest
Do our childhood monsters disappear or do different fears take their place? My A4 Power BI poster explores the responses of 105 community members, comparing recalled childhood fears with fears today. War selections rise from 5 to 19, while fear of the dark falls from 11 to 2. Looking beyond the totals reveals who selected each fear in childhood only, adulthood only, or both. 45 respondents (43%) selected at least one identical fear in both lists though this does not prove continuous fear. With a haunted green design, the complete story is visible on one page, without hovering. These are self-reported community responses, not a representative population study. Created by Nikita Tupe 🎃
The Monster Under the Bed Didn't Leave. It Moved.
We asked 105 people from the data community what scared them as kids, and what scares them now. As kids, 46% feared the dark, demons or the attic. As adults, 13% still do. Fear of the future, money and not being good enough went the other way: from 10% to 40%. The monster never left. It packed its bags, walked past the bed and moved to the desk. How to read the poster? It is built to work printed, with no clicks: one question per block, read top to bottom. Where did the fear go? Eight fear families, kid vs adult, sorted by change. Imaginary monsters lose 33 points, the future gains 30, separation and loss gain 20. What do we see? The same story in real people: the dark went from 11 to 2, money worries from 0 to 11, war from 5 to 20. Which fears never left? Everyone who feared war as a kid still does. Snakes, tight spaces and heights stay with a third to just over half of the people who feared them. The dark, demons, attics, ghosts and cemeteries? Nobody kept them. They get a small cemetery of their own. What I cared about? - One idea, one accent colour: pumpkin orange for what grows, night purple for childhood, grey for the rest. - Every number and every sentence is a DAX measure, checked one by one against the raw CSV. Nothing is typed by hand. - Honest data: a voluntary survey of 105 people, and some rates rest on 5 to 14 of them. The poster says it. - Accessible: WCAG AA contrast, alt text that states the insight, and a tab order that follows the story. - Two tooltip pages behind the small "i" icons, for anyone who wants every family and every childhood fear. We don't outgrow fear. We trade imaginary monsters for real ones. Happy Halloween! 🎃Going Up: where do our fears go when we grow up?
The monsters got off. The worries got on. The idea. The survey compares childhood fears with today’s fears, so the poster is an elevator ride from the ground floor (childhood) to the top floor (today). Elevators are a horror classic and part of my own survey answer. The #1 childhood fear? Being trapped in small spaces. You’re standing in one. How to read it. Floors are life stages, not fear intensity. Mint = as a kid, orange = today. % = share of the 105 riders, who could pick several fears. The story Dark and supernatural fears fell from 46% to 13% (−32 pts); fears about the future, money and not being good enough rose from 10% to 40% (+30 pts). War is the #1 fear today (19%), and none of the 5 who feared it as kids got off. Only 20% of childhood fears are still riding; 16 fears were left behind on G, elevators included. Design. Every element is part of the elevator, with hidden spookiness: a ghost in the mirror, claw marks, footprints that stop. The story works without tooltips. Clicks filter only the related panels, and every visual has alt text. Data. Starter dataset only, unmodified, plus my own measures and two helper columns. The answers are self-reported and the childhood fears are remembered, so read it as a campfire story, not a census. Note that I used Claude code to help me out on this topic and submission.
