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  • Here's an idea-- "Welcome to Night Vale"

  • shows us how uncomfortable we are with the unknown.

  • "Night Vale" is a small desert community where the sun is hot,

  • the moon is bright, and strange lights pass overhead

  • as we all pretend to sleep.

  • It's also a podcast-- a very popular podcast--

  • the most popular podcast in America, actually.

  • It's written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

  • and voiced by Cecil Baldwin, who shares his first name

  • with the main character, the host of Night Vale's

  • local radio news program.

  • However, the daily news happenings of "Night Vale"

  • aren't exactly quotidian-- well, I mean for Night Vale they are,

  • like the taco place is encased in amber and all of the what

  • and what byproducts have turned into snakes.

  • "Night Vale" radio station management

  • is an unseen horrible thrashing beast and the hooded figures

  • that you see around town are headquartered

  • at the dog park, which you shouldn't go to or think about.

  • And Cecil-- oh, Cecil-- reports all of these shenanigans

  • with his usual good cheer.

  • CECIL: One death has already been

  • attributed to the glow cloud.

  • But listen, it's probably nothing.

  • The creators of Night Vale have made this mysterious, engaging,

  • and funny podcast using most notably, though not solely,

  • the characteristics of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.

  • Lovecraft was an American novelist

  • who lived in the Northeast in the early 20th century

  • and he wrote stories-- many stories-- about how

  • the universe, it's machinations, and far flung inhabitants

  • are so dreadfully horrifyingly and infinitely

  • beyond human understanding.

  • He created the great Cthulu, wrote about impossibly shaped

  • ancient underground cities, and characters who are not

  • even a little what they seem.

  • And while Night Vale hasn't borrowed so much directly

  • from the Lovecraft universe, it has

  • borrowed much of Lovecraft's spirit-- specifically,

  • a spirit which embraces and makes

  • masterful use of the unknown.

  • Lovecraft's unknown is, unsurprisingly,

  • in service of boot quaking, sanity losing, forever

  • seeing horror.

  • In fact, Lovecraft saw his main contribution

  • to the art of horror writing as just

  • that-- capturing the ways in which a real person might

  • actually react if they are confronted with something

  • literally impossible, given their experience

  • and understanding of the world.

  • Philosopher Graham Harmon describes

  • Lovecraft as a writer of gaps-- a gap specifically

  • between what we understand to be possible

  • and what the characters are experiencing

  • in the story, expressed by the gap between the existence

  • of something and the ability of language

  • to accurately and appropriately describe that thing.

  • Lovecraft and much of Night Vale is constructed

  • of language dancing in compromise

  • around the situations it was not meant to apprehend.

  • In Night Vale, though, paralytic terror

  • is replaced with a sense of almost drab mundanity.

  • I mean sure, street cleaning day is

  • a horror beyond all comprehension,

  • but as long as you run-- run away.

  • Run as fast as you can.

  • Stay in-- everything will be fine.

  • You know the drill.

  • Night Vale undoes Lovecraft's central innovation

  • and turns unspeakable abomination

  • into unremarkable absurdity.

  • This, in turn, might be Night Vale's greatest innovation.

  • I mean when Lovecraft was writing,

  • the world was a much larger, more mysterious,

  • and unconnected place.

  • Today I [BLEEP] Love Science, Brain Pickings, Wikipedia,

  • V Sauce, Ze Frank when he's not lying.

  • NARRATOR: Here the angler fish waves

  • a lovely pashmina shawl just the size

  • for an unsuspecting shrimp.

  • Confront us daily with the strange

  • and seemingly impossible.

  • Are ubiquitous black helicopters and glow

  • clouds-- which, by the way, all hail the glow cloud--

  • and the constant dissipation of incumbent mayor Pamela Winchell

  • really that much weirder than a government organization that

  • spies on its own citizens, a shrimp that

  • can punch so fast it boils water, and Kanye West?

  • I say, no.

  • It's not that we've become numb to the peculiarities

  • of the world, but rather like Cecil and the citizens of Night

  • Vale, we've come to expect and kind of just deal with them.

  • I mean, we've I've seen it all.

  • But the reverse is also true and is a sentiment perfectly

  • captured in a Susan Sontag quote that Brain Pickings actually

  • recently posted.

  • Sontag wrote that needing to have

  • reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs

  • is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted.

  • In short, seeing is not metaphorically believing,

  • seeing and believing are the same thing.

  • We need the former in order to feel complete in the latter.

  • Or, as we say on the internet, pics or it didn't happen.

  • Both Lovecraft and "Night Vale" rely

  • on facility of language and audio

  • respectively to describe and their inability to depict.

  • In Lovecraft's time this was maybe less of a compromise,

  • as visual culture wasn't the exceptional force

  • that it is today.

  • His work was minted both creatively

  • and temporally outside of pics or it didn't happen.

  • For "Night Vale" it's different.

  • It's special for its lack of canonized depiction

  • and even its in universe hostility towards the idea

  • of seeing is believing.

  • I mean mountain believers, right?

  • This, interestingly, is at odds with the practices

  • of a modern fandom.

  • Cecil specifically is described as not tall, not short,

  • not fat, not thin, his smile is-- is that even a smile?

  • He possesses a set of characteristics so diaphanous

  • that language passes right through them.

  • Cecil and the rest of "Night Vale"

  • are at odds with our desire for visual confirmation.

  • This makes it hard, a sight unseen, to believe in him.

  • What's more, this makes it impossible to cosplay as him

  • or to cosplay as an immediately identifiable signifier of him.

  • And this is a problem because "Night Vale"'s

  • fandom is large and excited and involved,

  • so the gap must be transgressed in order to show it the fan

  • respect that it deserves.

  • Or in other words, cosplay or it's not a fandom.

  • Enter the emergent depiction of Cecil-- a non cannon,

  • fan imagined composite signifying

  • that which is ultimately unknowable.

  • How did we get this Cecil, the Tim Gunnish looking character

  • who is definitely tall and definitely

  • skinny with the tie and the tattoos?

  • Maybe it's the real Cecil's voice

  • or maybe it's the skill with which Fink and Cranor are

  • able to evoke the surroundings.

  • That is the power of radio, which

  • they do say is the most visual medium--

  • and by they, I mean a vague yet menacing government agency.

  • Either way, this isn't Cecil-- it isn't.

  • No depiction of Cecil is Cecil.

  • Cecil is a voice.

  • Cecil is as beyond language as the things on which he reports.

  • He is an unknown in the world of knowns.

  • He is a description in a world of depictions.

  • And as bizarre and defying of description as he is,

  • we still try.

  • And maybe we do it because of fan culture or because it's fun

  • or because if you don't, he doesn't exist-- or doesn't

  • exist in a way that we're comfortable with,

  • which means maybe we are a little

  • uncomfortable with the unknown.

  • Maybe it is a little scary, though certainly not

  • as scary as street cleaning day because nothing's as

  • scary as street cleaning day.

  • What do you guys think?

  • Does Night Vale show us how much we want visual confirmation

  • of the unknown?

  • Let us know in the comments and good night,

  • "Idea Channel" subscribers.

  • If I were a Titan Shifter, my Titan form

  • wouldn't knock down walls, it would knock down

  • preconceived notions of popular media.

  • Let's ee what yo guys had to say about Titans and evil.

  • First and foremost, I just got back from, uh,

  • XOXO in Portland, which was an amazing good time so hello

  • to everybody who I met there-- Martin, Lucy, Claire, Ben,

  • James, Matt, Mike, Jenn, a bunch of other-- I'm

  • going to forget everybody so I'm going to stop trying.

  • But it was great to meet you and say hi on the internet.

  • Daniel Huff says that the Titans from Attack on Titan

  • are only as evil as meat eaters and that the show might

  • be a case for vegetarianism.

  • KorintioX says that it might not be meat eating itself,

  • but the needless slaughter of animals.

  • That's-- yeah, am interesting taken on it.

  • Key Minor said that with the information we have from

  • the anime, you cannot say that the Titans are anything other

  • than neutral, but most importantly,

  • banishes everyone who posted spoilers from the manga

  • to a million years in the dungeon-- totally agree.

  • Legomaple make the case that normal Titans are not even all,

  • but that the Shifting Titans are definitely evil is and says

  • that it is a mistake to compare Eren with the other Shifting

  • Titans.

  • That-- that might-- there might be something to that.

  • Yeah.

  • To Dustin Bell, thank you for the pronunciation guide,

  • hagiography like hay, geography?

  • I should probably just read a dictionary.

  • To Lon MacGregor, I don't know if there's

  • a part of the human brain that craves meat,

  • but he thought about hunting is definitely a salient point.

  • There was actually a species of pigeon

  • that the humans have hunted to extinction.

  • So are we evil for doing that?

  • I think some people would certainly say, yes.

  • Omar Uchida draws a really good connection

  • between Saiyan children from Dragon Ball Z

  • and what happens to them when they

  • see the moonlight-- they turn into those big ape creatures.

  • Though I think Legomaple might disagree with this comparison.

  • Evan Sabourin and I are kind of on the same page

  • regarding what you learn by reading

  • the rest of the manga, which I have spent a lot of time doing,

  • and that even when you know everything

  • it's still kind of a hard question to answer.

  • But anybody else who's read it, don't write a comment

  • because you'll spoil it-- never mind.

  • Rotinoma asks whether or not capturing and experimenting

  • on the Titans is, in itself, evil.

  • This might-- this might align with how you feel about animal

  • experimentation in general.

  • Thanks again, FUNimation, for being really understanding.

  • And to anyone who wants to watch Attack on Titan,

  • we put a link to the watch page in the description.

  • Go click it.

  • This week's episode was brought you

  • by the hard work of these destructive toddlers.

  • And the Tweet of the Week comes from Buchina,

  • who points us towards a Tumblr that will replace television.

  • There's also a runner up Tweet of the Week from frequentbeef,

  • who points us towards a Clive Thompson

  • article about thinking in public which is really interesting.

  • And though I haven't read it, I have

  • heard that Clive Thompson's new book is killer.

  • So be sure to check that one out.

Here's an idea-- "Welcome to Night Vale"

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ナイトヴェールは未知のものとどう向き合うのか?| アイディアチャンネル|PBSデジタルスタジオ (How Does Night Vale Confront Us With the Unknown? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios)

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    Wong Billy に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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