Sarah Suggests: Welcome to Night Vale

 

[Source: Alpha-Geek deviantART]

I'm not really a podcast kind of girl. I prefer watching things to listening as an exclusive activity, and apart from a few episodes of "Made of Fail", I haven't ever really been interested.

But that changed when I started listing to "Welcome to Night Vale". I kept hearing about it everywhere on twitter and tumblr. I saw fanart that I didn't understand and people shipping characters I'd never heard of. From a podcast. Take a moment to wrap your head around that one. Anyway, I now listen to it on the train to work, which can be a really weird way to start your day.

 

[Source: Dean Grayson deviantART]

So what is Welcome to Night Vale? Well, going by their website, it's "a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale." What you also need to know is it's fictional. But I'm hoping you will get that by the end of the first episode.

The bigger question, is why is it suddenly the biggest podcast on iTunes? Techgeek attempted to answer this recently. Basically, it makes weird seem normal. Clouds that glow and rain dead animals, mysterious angels, a levitating cat and a ban on going to/looking at/thinking about the dog park are all part of life in the desert community.

The other interesting thing is that the popularity of the podcast seems to have been contributed to a lot by Hannibal fandom. I guess if you like Hannibal, you'll love this. And even if you don't like Hannibal, but like offbeat, quirky and unique things, you will love Welcome to Night Vale also.

Download from itunes here
Personal fave merchandise: Night Vale NRA stickers
Check out the fanart on DeviantArt here
Search the tumblr hastag here (must be logged in)

[Source]





Sarah Suggests is an ongoing serious in which I will highlight stuff I think is cool. It might be a book, a movie, a tv show, a magazine, podcast, song - whatever!