Welcome to Night Vale

I've actually been listening to Welcome to Night Vale for several months now. Night Vale is a podcast that takes the form of fictional community radio broadcasts in the eponymous town - a bizarre burg somewhere out in the deserts of the American Southwest. The show is a mixture of horror and comedy. Night Vale is a town where every conspiracy theory is true - black helicopters (along with blue, yellow, and some with intricate murals on them) hover in the sky, the city council is a group of bizarre immortals who might exist as a hive mind, and the town's main law enforcement agency is the Sheriff's Secret Police. It's a blend of X-Files and Lovecraft, but the town also has a kind of bizarre personality of its own, like Springfield from the Simpsons or Pawnee from Parks and Recreation.

The series has what I like to call "snowballing continuity." At the beginning, for example, the radio announcer has little personality, and seems to just be an omniscient narrator within the setting, but as time goes on, we learn that Cecil (as we find out is his name - and like many on the show, the character is named after the voice actor) is actually a very friendly person, though like anyone in the town, he's pretty weird, and there are the occasional hints that he is not exactly human, though given the nature of the show, it casts doubt on the notion that anyone in its universe is human in the way we would understand it.

Night Vale often goes off on surreal philosophical tangents or what sounds like the rant of a crazy person, or perhaps the communication of a dark and hidden supernatural force. And while the show can sometime be quite effectively terrifying (I made the mistake of listening to an episode called "Cassette" while in bed before going to sleep the other night,) the primary effect of all the surreal existential dread is actually humor. It goes so over the top that it kind of comes back around to a place of comfort and comedy.

In a very bizarre way, the horrors become familiar and likable. For instance, one character is "The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home," (who actually happens to be voiced by a friend I had in college, Mara Wilson.) Despite what I think should be pretty obviously creepy-as-all-fuck about the character, she actually comes off as benign, and even helpful and friendly. In a recent major plotline involving a villainous corporation/eldritch cult taking over the town, it was strange to find oneself cheering for many of the horrifying monsters of Night Vale turning against the vile Strexcorp (Strex and its Smiling God do actually manage to be more terrifying than all the other things in Night Vale.)

Night Vale is definitely not for everyone. Some might be turned off by its dark tone and unconventional narrative format. But it sent me almost immediately to my happy place, and clearly it does so with others, given that it often contends for the top spot on the iTunes podcast charts. I'll be going to a live show when they come to Los Angeles, which I'm very excited about.