I
find it eerily appropriate that my fresh copy of the Welcome To Night Vale
novel arrived at my doorstep at the
tail-end of October, right before the weather shifted into full-on Autumn mode,
and we spent a week drenched in a pervasive, endless, clammy, cold fog. Sometimes the universe (and sometimes the
World Government) sends us odd signs to mark off moments in our lives.
It
has been well over 3 years since the first episode introducing us to the
bizarre world of Night Vale aired, beginning with a warning to never approach a
certain Dog Park, and featuring a “weather report” by none other than Joseph
Fink himself. Since then, what began as a
small passion project has grown into genuine online phenomenon, with the
bi-monthly podcasts now being supplemented by a host of constantly-changing
merchandise, a series of unique live shows that have toured in North America
extensively and are even starting to foray into Europe and Australia, and finally
now in real-live book form. Having taken
up the podcast on a whim over 2.5 years ago, right around the release of the two-part
Sandstorm episode, I am now one small part of a growing (and global) fandom.
The
fun thing about being part of this kind of cult following is that you get to sort
of drift through the world with your own private love of something,
encountering fellow fans only in chance or in passing. It is not all-pervasive like Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, or gaggles of mysterious Hooded Figures. You either know WTNV or you don’t. You are in or you are out. No all-powerful movie franchise or Trilogy
phenomenon to eternally bind together the Hardcores and the general
citizenry. Just you, the device/website
you use to download each episode, and the Void.
This could very well change in the future; the writers have expressed
their general openness to all sorts of Night Vale-related projects, including a
possible film, so who knows what could happen?
But for now, for all the millions of downloads and all the sold-out live
shows (and the fact that the novel cracked the Top 5 Best Seller’s list on
Amazon when it came out), there is still a beautiful sense of quietness, of
privacy, and intimacy that reigns every two weeks when you sit down to listen
to each new episode. For all the wide
appeal the show has, it still feels remarkably personal in its touch.
Part
of this is thanks the incredible number of inside jokes, quotes, and references
that are so off-the-wall insane out of context that they can only possibly have
meanings to fans of the series. An
example; guess what my instant reaction was when my place of work, whose
corporate colors perfectly match the purple of the show’s logo, announced we
were switching over to a new IT program called “The Cloud?”
It
has also inserted itself heartily into the growing “convention culture” that
has been enabled by the Internet, where fans of even the most obscure things
can find ways and means to meet and connect.
The live shows have a festival-like atmosphere not unlike an anime or
comic convention, with many dressing up as their favorite characters (or
conscious entities, or bodies of matter).
We casually dismiss haters and sceptics as people who “just don’t get
it” when they scoff at our obsession.
And, perhaps most tellingly, the growing cast of characters have developed
their own fanfolk bases within our curious little community.
Why? Why this show? Is it the oddness of the writing? Have its myriad themes and philosophical
ramblings tapped into some unspoken part of the Zeitgeist? Has StrexCorp been forcing our hands all this
time? Or is it just the sexy voice (and
no shame if it is)?
I
have often wondered if much of the show’s popularity can be tied to its embrace
(at least, on a surface level) of an almost post-modern,
anti-religion/philosophy/ideology view of the nature of things. We are caught in the flux of a time of
immense, global change, and as part of that so many older social, political,
and cultural strictures/traditions/norms are falling away. Old ways of thinking are inadequate for the
stormy present, but no new sets of beliefs or ideologies have risen to replace
them. Cool detachment and wholesale
rejection of any dogma or system of belief (and I include any here, not just
religious ones) are both the order of the day.
While
it is highly debatable whether or not this is intentional on the part of the
writers, much of the content of the show speaks to this current vibe of our
time. How many lines of Cecil’s proclaim
an existentially empty existence, declaring humankind’s life utterly devoid of
meaning? I’ve lost count. Through an explosion in our development,
science is fast replacing religion as the accepted source of truth, and our
expanded knowledge has brought us a comprehension of our smallness that was
never truly possible before. This, too,
is a constant rumination in Night Vale- the universe is vast and inimitably
complex, there can be no grasping for meaning, no finding of God, perhaps no
God at all, for things are simply too big for that, and we too small, and the
only comfort we have is the silence of the Void. Are people drawn to the show because we all
secretly (or not so secretly) agree that all we experience is nothing, and
nothing is all there is?
Possibly,
at least for some. Although given that
no two people on the planet share the exact same beliefs about anything, I doubt
it, and the show’s creators have never given any indication they are trying to
form a system of thought or belief of any kind.
Another
possibility- is Night Vale merely riding the new wave of acceptance of the
fluid nature of human identity sweeping much of the West? Cecil himself comes out as gay not more than
5 minutes into the very first episode, and his ongoing relationship with Carlos
has been a staple of the Night Vale universe for years without ever being
overly emphasized. It’s never been
hammered into listeners as THIS IS SOMETHING MEANT TO MAKE A POINT. It is simply accepted by everyone in the
show, and by all of us as well, as something perfectly normal. Many of the episodes deal with the illusion
of physical differences, and while trans, queer, gender, or racial topics are
only sometimes, if ever, addressed directly or by name, there are clear
parallels in many episodic stories, describing a world that is open, inclusive,
and representative.
The
new novel has a prime example of this- the struggles of Diane Crayton’s emotionally
normal teenage son Josh with just about every aspect of his physical, mental,
and emotional identity is made explicit in how his physical body literally
changes form, shape, and size almost every time she looks at him. It makes the show a particularly refreshing
escape from our own world, where we still have so much to work on before these
issues cease to be seen as problems or “not normal.” The world of Night Vale is inclusive, in
ways, that, for the foreseeable future, ours can only dream of being. And if that is not precisely the sort of
escapism the realms of sci-fi and fantasy are meant to provide us, what
is?
All
of these are points in the show’s favor, and all are probably core aspects of
its success (that, and the generous funding the writers secretly receive from
the Apache Tracker). But in my opinion,
there’s another, less conscious reason why we have fallen for this show; WTNV,
and other recent works like it in the booming podcast market, have become the
conduit for us Millenials to uncover, in our own way, the joys and artistic
power of spoken-word storytelling.
This
despite past predictions to the contrary; the growing pervasiveness of camera
phones of various stripes, laptops, and the rising cultural presence of gaming
and online video were, until recently, taken as signs that my generation and
those following us would be increasingly visual-oriented in our outlook on the
world. Pictures, short texts/memes, and
videos have rapidly grown into the hottest forms of global communication, and
this convinced many that industries like radio, as well as older oral
traditions, would fall by the wayside, dying and forgotten as the world hurtles
forward towards God knows what.
In
one sense, this is not entirely untrue- the traditional forms of radio no
longer hold the place they used to (no President, for example, will ever again
think of using fireside chats as a way to plug policy ideas), and the
possibilities for video art and general communication enabled by the internet
are only just beginning. Plus, the
spread of technology (and a certain level of accompanying cultural
homogenization) means that many oral traditions, some tens of thousands of
years old, are becoming harder and harder to maintain, and many will inevitably
die out.
But
none of this means that simple speaking can’t still have force in our
world. Quite the opposite, in fact, and WTNV
is proof. We are animals that can never
be solely visual. In much the same way
that music lovers and producers (regardless of age) are rediscovering the
beauties of analog recordings amidst a torrent of digitalization, and certain
stalwarts in the film industry fight to maintain use of old-school film, the
spread of shows and podcasts like this one makes it clear that the incredible effect
of listening to a tale woven with just sound can’t be erased from the world, or
entirely forgotten, no matter how marginalized it might become. There is remarkable power to be found in
using nothing but our words and our attached collective meanings for them to create
something both communally enjoyable and intimately personal. Joseph Fink gives us words. From them, we each weave our own, unlimited galaxies
into existence.
The
show’s deliberate play on language is not just a part of its trademark, bizarre
humor, but rather its key feature- all the words it uses are real, English
words in our world, but many of them have entirely different meanings and
connotations in the universe of Night Vale than they do here (“librarian,” “antique,”
and the concept of what closing up a shop entails spring to mind, to provide just
a few examples). It’s a hilarious,
conscious, and brilliantly-executed play on the collective meanings of language,
and the various social constructs we create for ourselves and unquestioningly
accept as “the way things are.” Cecil
starts talking about something that we have one set of associations with in our
world, but in bits and pieces (or sometimes all at once) we learn that the
topic or word means something completely different over there.
And
that is the primary reason why the world of Night Vale is best conveyed through
spoken (and now also written) word, and not images- part of the excitement is
listening for what surprises lie in store for us, what literally unimaginable
aspects of the world are waiting for us to uncover in this week’s episode. If the show were a film or TV or Youtube
series, the oddities and differences would all be immediately visually
apparent, and it would be that much harder and more complicated to create the
never-ending cascade of surprises to our mental and imaginative senses that
make the show so much damn fun to listen to.
I
suppose I didn’t accomplish what I sent out to do with this post. I’ve rambled on like a drunken Five-Headed
Dragon, and I fear am no closer to understanding why Welcome To Night Vale is as beloved as it is. Perhaps there is no one reason. We are all here, together, in this
metaphysical space of endless imagination, for different reasons and ends, and
we arrived here along radically different paths. But here we are, and here I very much hope we
remain for a while yet. Night Vale might
be dangerous, and very often deadly (especially if you’re planning an intern
anytime soon), but there is something compulsive and compelling about its characters
and its strangeness, and the magnetic force of the words it’s built upon, that
make me confident it will stand for some time to come. Until, at the latest, the end of all things,
whatever form that may take.
-Noah Franc
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