Peering Into Art

Looking into Welcome to Night Vale and how they've impacted people and encouraged more creatives to explore themselves. // A project for my English class-- feel free to interact!

[exploring-nightvale]

We have seen where Welcome to Night Vale started, why it started, and how it’s affected us since then-- but what affected the creation of Welcome to Night Vale, and its social media platforms? 

Environment

Podcast

Regarding the podcast form of Welcome to Night Vale, we see limitations already very clearly that affect the way the story is told. Most noticeably, the podcast is, well, a podcast. This affects several aspects: mostly how the story is told, and how we view the story.

How the story is told

The nature of the podcast allows for a special type of storytelling, through vocal infliction and the need to keep a listener’s attention without the aid of a visual aspect. We, as listeners, are captured by the pure base of the story and music, rather than any visual effects such as animation or art style. This is, of course, disregarding the fact that Welcome to Night Vale is written as if it were a radio show, which gives an entire formula (of sorts) that the podcast is forced to follow.

How we view the story

As said above, Welcome to Night Vale is a story without visuals-- which leads to no solid descriptions for many characters, or key elements that don’t come in until much later on in the story. This allows the fans the chance to allow their creativity to flow-- giving us many different versions of the characters in the story.

Social Media

Not only does the podcast itself show effects from the environment it was created in, so do the social media accounts created under Welcome to Night Vale’s name. The twitter account, for example, is stuck within a character limit, due to it being on twitter. However, while being restricting, it may be both a blessing and a curse, as the low character limit boils the tweets put up down to the very essence of Welcome to Night Vale’s mystery and strange allure.

[exploring-nightvale]

“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome… to Night Vale.”

Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast, book, and soon-to-be television series that has been running since 2012– and has since seemed to take the world by storm. It has struck the hearts of anyone and everyone– from the somewhat lonely to the curiously adventurous– with its easily lovable cast, compelling story line, and strange setting. As with any story, Welcome to Night Vale come from somewhere (supposedly), has a purpose, and an impact on the community, which I will discuss under the read more. 

Keep reading

[antidotefortheawkward-art]

The background was supposed to be transparent but it wouldn’t export right :T But hey have some wholesome Cecil and Carlos family action with Khoshekh

[haberdashing]

i love how podcast fandoms have a way of producing fifty million versions of the same character’s appearance and yet you know exactly which character it is every time

especially when there’s practically no canonical description of the character in question

i may not know what cecil “the voice of night vale” gershwin palmer or jonathan “the archivist” sims look like but i sure can tell them apart at a glance

[edgarallennope]

y’all i could write a whole E S S A Y about young queer folk who dreamed of living in Night Vale. We were so enamoured by this town that, at its core, was about acceptance, whether that acceptance was of gender diversity and sexuality, or for non-existent angels and natural disasters. All were met with affirmation and were treated as the norm.

Cecil is in love with the handsome scientist that’s came into town? Yup. Shouldn’t go into the dog park? Checks out. Librarians are monsters? Figures. Diane Crayton’s kid Josh not only experiments with gender but also with his own species? He’s a teenager, what do you expect?

Night Vale was never presented as traditionally safe, not once. There are very few episodes where deaths aren’t reported in the town, from some disaster or government testing or supernatural entity.

It became a sort of joke on tumblr where whenever someone would say they dreamed of living in Night Vale, they were being stupid and naive because Night Vale is a dystopia. Desert Bluffs is terrifying in a very different way, but Night Vale was horrifying too. But it became a safe place, despite the death and terror and weirdness, because it was a place of acceptance.

In the Year 2 finale, Kevin remarks that they can “fix” Janice, Cecil’s niece, who is a wheelchair user. Up until then, it had never been mentioned that she uses one, and the rage at the very idea that anything should be changed about her just because she’s different is a major part of Steve Carlsburg’s character arc. No one is expected to have to change themselves in Night Vale, difference is expected and celebrated.

So yeah, Night Vale is, by definition a dystopia. But what does that say, that in spite of that, so many of us found a home there because we knew we would be accepted? A whole community of queer kids who felt so rejected and were bullied and marginalised by the people that raised them that they fantasised about moving to a desert town where you would probably die in a freak accident. And there’s something tragic but also absolutely beautiful about that to me.

[cherriielle]

no photos, please 🚫

(i’ve been re-listening to night vale recently! i’m so nostalgic for this town)

[technically-human]

What is love? Baby don't hurt me

[exploring-nightvale]

“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome… to Night Vale.”

Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast, book, and soon-to-be television series that has been running since 2012– and has since seemed to take the world by storm. It has struck the hearts of anyone and everyone– from the somewhat lonely to the curiously adventurous– with its easily lovable cast, compelling story line, and strange setting. As with any story, Welcome to Night Vale come from somewhere (supposedly), has a purpose, and an impact on the community, which I will discuss under the read more. 

Origins

As stated, Welcome to Night Vale started from somewhere– as far as we know, it did not, in fact come from the hole in the ground behind the nearest Denny’s, calling, calling, calling…

We do know, however, that according to the end of (or the beginning, in some cases) some episodes of the show that it was written by Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor, produced by the former, and that the voice of our beloved Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin. While it was originally published by Commonplace Books, Welcome to Night Vale has since moved to being published by Night Vale Presents.

Purpose

With any story, there is a purpose. It appears that for Welcome to Night Vale, that purpose is to simply share their tale– from Cecil’s personal ups and downs to that of Night Vale itself. The story explores the weird town of Night Vale, where “Normal” has been flipped upside down, dipped in acid, and thrown into the nearest ditch. The first episode itself opens with news of the nearest dog park and its dangers-- and things only get stranger from there, leaving everything up in the air as to whether or not it could be canon. The fans of this podcast take this to heart in the form of art, writing, headcanons-- everything. 

Impact

As stated before, the fans of Welcome to Night Vale take the mystery shrouding the story to heart and run with it-- leading to loads of fan-made content. I will be reblogging examples for a more in-depth experience.