Serial: The Most Popular Podcast of All Time

[RottingCorpse]

We all crave the spotlight.

[Nubbins]

"Undisclosed" podcast has launched. You can find it in the App Store. It's Rabia's podcast about Adnan. Haven't listened yet, but it is supposed to contain new info about the case.

[nacho]

The app store? How about just online!

http://undisclosed-podcast.com/

What I find most fascinating about it is that it sort of proves that the uber-popularity of Serial was largely based on Koenig's drippy voice. This is a homemade law nerd podcast... But it comes from the people who first approached Koenig with the story. So the reframe isn't a different opinion, it's simply all the facts that the entertainment industry decided to leave out for the sake of a cleaner narrative. Something I'm very familiar with -- that WaPo article wasn't quite the real me, you know? While the edits and omissions weren't really lying or cheating the story, they were designed to carry the reader through to the end. This is a much larger (and now age old) argument with the media -- the full story can't be told or else we'll all go to sleep. But are there times when the full story simply must be told? Or does it matter as long as they have a drippy voice?

Of course, the flipside to the argument is that perhaps Koenig didn't go as in depth as these people because the conclusions are the same...they don't know. Even though they build it up to sound like they do know -- saying Adnan does remember the day and there's new evidence, new eyewitnesses, and a closer study of the technology behind the case -- they always come back around to guessing. Is it true? Dunno. They "throw things out" as not possible (evidence, witnesses), but their reasoning for doing so is based entirely on conjecture, despite looking through all the evidence. It seems like she couldn't have been there, etc.

And saying Adnan kept notes about the day and, in fact, has specific details for most of the day is actually less believable than saying he doesn't remember the day. Because nobody listening remembers January 13th, 1999 either, and nobody listening took notes of the day. Nobody listening would be able to tell you exactly what happened to them on January 13th, 2015.

[nacho]

Today's big news is the reveal of the identity of the "Mail...kimp?" girl. Her excuse is that she's a 14 year old Norwegian who was randomly approached while in line for the iPhone 6.  I don't think that stops us wanting to kill her every time we hear her mispronunciation. 

[nacho]

Seasons two and three announced...but no details.

I'm secretly hoping season two is all about the ongoing murder trial involving Screech from Saved by the Bell. (He stabbed a man to death a year ago and his trial has just begun.)

[nacho]

An odd choice for season two...

Well, you can’t accuse the makers of Serial of taking the easy road for the second season of their massively popular true-crime podcast. Most producers would give us more of the same—find an obscure, dense case (something tells me they may have received a few suggestions), dive into its details and evidence, try to figure it out over 10 or so hours.

Instead, Maxim reports, Serial 2.0 (debuting later this year) will tackle a case that’s already well-known, and loaded with political baggage: the mystery of Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, captured and held by the Taliban for five years after leaving his base in Afghanistan before being returned to Army custody in a prisoner swap, currently awaiting trial for desertion. Host Sarah Koenig and her team will join Zero Dark Thirty and Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal and former New York Times editor Hugo Lindgren in the investigation; Boal and Lindgren are currently researching and writing a film about the Bergdahl case for Megan Ellison’s Annapurna pictures, with Kathryn Bigelow slated to direct.

But that project can’t go forward until the conclusion of Bergdahl’s trial, so the duo will work with Serial, both in front of and behind the mic, to figure out exactly why Bergdahl left his base all those years ago, and what happened after he did. (And they’ll get a healthy slab of advance publicity for the movie to boot.) Taking on such a controversial and wide-ranging case isn’t exactly what we were expecting from Koenig and Company, but it’ll be interesting to see how the added stakes of a political hot potato like this impact their work.

[Reginald McGraw]

Mrs. McGraw and I listened to a few episodes of the original on a recent road trip. Really interesting with her having attended Woodlawn high.

[nacho]

So season 2 started today.

I'm so fucking exhausted by Bergdahl (and I'm the news blackout guy who barely knows his story) that I don't feel compelled to listen to the first episode anytime soon.

[nacho]

Man, lightning sure doesn't strike twice. Serial just went to a bi-weekly format to "ensure more thorough reporting."

I still haven't gotten around to tuning in this season.

[nacho]

Adnan got his re-trial.

[nacho]

The "new Serial" is Missing Richard Simmons -- and it's fascinating!

https://www.missingrichardsimmons.com/

Let’s get this out of the way: Missing Richard Simmons is the best thing I’ve listened to in a long time and is, by far, the strongest narrative podcast out there right now.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/missing-richard-simmons-podcast-review.html

[nacho]

Okay, so Serial bred a whole murderporn genre. The Richard Simmons podcast, Making of a Murderer, the Robert Durst stuff, etc.

We also know, looking back, that Serial was intensely focused on making a profit, creating false drama, and destroying the lives of everyone it profiled. Probably the most irresponsible reality program ever created -- and the other shows have followed suit to varying levels (most recently and notable the Richard Simmons thing).

We all got sucked in. We all made these programs go viral and we never thought about the people they were destroying because, of course, the narrative created shadows and doubt around them. The way the narrative was told -- with standard reality show cliffhangers and false lads -- wooed us, got us involved, made us crazy for more, more, more.

We didn't bother to stop and look at how that narrative was, by and large, one person's opinion and edited to hell and back to look exciting.

Enter American Vandal, Netflix's new comedy mockumentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3tkFOtM6go

It starts out as a straight-up (and very funny) parody and then brilliantly uses the same narrative techniques to fucking lock you into the real purpose of the show: An edgy, subversive social commentary that leaves you realizing just how awful you are for supporting the Serial genre.

American Vandal is almost lock-step with Serial and the TV show versions of the murderporn genre. The documentations speak in dulcet, even tones, they show themselves doing due diligence with all the evidence and theories, and then, in absence of answers or truly workable theories, they lead you down dark dead-ends, go off on pointless, slanderous tangents, and ultimately end up blindly following their own convoluted, nearly-fictional trail (which Serial did in the final episodes).

Well worth the watch. Especially if you enjoyed Serial or the other murderporn entries.