There Are No Stories Told In A Vacuum, There Is No Prophecy Lighting Our Way (Atlas, Guante, 2014).

(Wilson, 2012).

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. (Cranor, 2012).

Welcome to Night Vale is a bi-monthly podcast that the creators describe as being “in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events” (Commonplace Books, 2015). Kate Leth, of Kate or Die fame, describes it as “It’s like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman started building a town in The Sims and then just…[sic] Left it running. For years.” (Kate Leth, 2013).

Welcome to Night Vale is strange. And wonderful. But mostly very, very strange. Far better people than me have attempted to describe it, with far better results and far greater word limits. My focus isn’t even WtNV itself – but rather its fandom, as it constructs itself and is spread over social networks.

Fandom, for those not in the know, is the collective noun for a group of fans—a kingdom is to monarchs as a fandom is to fans. Think people dressing up as their favourite Harry Potter characters and paying a lot to meet Tom Felton for five minutes – think people painting their stomachs blue and rioting when their chosen sports team doesn’t win the grand finals. I honestly believe that fandom is an excellent illustration of the space/place concept as Tuan (1977, p. 6) describes: “What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we … endow it with value”. For fandom, what begins as blank ‘space’ is turned into a very specific ‘place’ by the participants—that is, the fans. “Online spaces are also public spaces”, and therefore performance is a core mechanic of online spaces (Van Luyn, 2015). This core mechanic is what enables users to transform space into place, and the Internet—specifically, blogging platforms like Tumblr—are designed to let users co-opt their mechanics to the users’ own ends – in this case, delightedly screaming over how adorable Cecil was in the latest episode.

(Want to know more about what I'll be talking about? Trot on over here and download the episodes!)

References:

Atlas, D. & Guante. (2014). Matches [Recorded by Sifu Hotman]. On Embrace the Sun [MP3 file]. Retrieved from https://sifuhotman.bandcamp.com/track/matches

Commonplace Books. (2015). Welcome to Night Vale. Retrieved from http://commonplacebooks.com/

Cranor, J. (Producer). (2012, June 15). 1-Pilot [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/welcome-to-night-vale/id536258179#

Kate Leth. (2013). Welcome to Night Vale. Retrieved from http://kateordie.tumblr.com/post/57020380877/its-like-stephen-king-and-neil-gaiman-started

Tuan, Y. (1977). Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. London, England: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd.

Van Luyn, A. (2015). BA1002: Space: Networks, Narratives, and the Making of Place: Week 3: Space and Identity: Genre and Transformation [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

Image Reference:

Wilson, Rob (Artist). Welcome to Night Vale logo [Image]. (2012). Retrieved from http://commonplacebooks.com/