Latest Posts by willowyandcerebral - Page 3
7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable
Scientists call it the Naked Photo Test, and it works like this: say a photo turns up of you nakedly doing something that would shame you and your family for generations. Bestiality, perhaps. Ask yourself how many people in your life you would trust with that photo. If you’re like the rest of us, you probably have at most two.
Even more depressing, studies show that about one out of four people have no one they can confide in.
The Sad Bear 1, by Nedroid
The average number of close friends we say we have is dropping fast, down dramatically in just the last 20 years. Why?
#1. We don’t have enough annoying strangers in our lives.
That’s not sarcasm. Annoyance is something you build up a tolerance to, like alcohol or a bad smell. The more we’re able to edit the annoyance out of our lives, the less we’re able to handle it.
The problem is we’ve built an awesome, sprawling web of technology meant purely to let us avoid annoying people. Do all your Christmas shopping online and avoid the fat lady ramming her cart into you at Target. Spend $5,000 on a home theater system so you can see movies on a big screen without a toddler kicking the back of your seat. Hell, rent the DVD’s from Netflix and you don’t even have to spend the 30 seconds with the confused kid working the register at Blockbuster.
Get stuck in the waiting room at the doctor? No way we’re striking up a conversation with the smelly old man in the next seat. We’ll plug the iPod into our ears and have a text conversation with a friend or play our DS. Filter that annoyance right out of our world.
From outofbalance.org
Now that would be awesome if it were actually possible to keep all of the irritating shit out of your life. But, it’s not. It never will be. As long as you have needs, you’ll have to deal with people you can’t stand from time to time. We’re losing that skill, the one that lets us deal with strangers and tolerate their shrill voices and clunky senses of humor and body odor and squeaky shoes. So, what encounters you do have with the outside world, the world you can’t control, make you want to go on a screaming crotch-punching spree.
Oh, yeah. Right in the crotch, buddy.
#2. We don’t have enough annoying friends, either.
Lots of us were born into towns full of people we couldn’t stand. As a kid, maybe you found yourself in an elementary school classroom, packed in with two dozen kids you did not choose and who shared none of your tastes or interests. Maybe you got beat up a lot.
But, you’ve grown up. And if you’re, say, a huge DragonForce fan, you can go find their forum and meet a dozen people just like you. Or even better, start a private room with your favorite few and lock everybody else out. Say goodbye to the tedious, awkward, painful process of dealing with somebody who’s truly different. That’s another Old World inconvenience, like having to wash your clothes in a creek or wait for a raccoon to wander by the outhouse so you can wipe your ass with it.
The problem is that peacefully dealing with incompatible people is crucial to living in a society. In fact, if you think about it, peacefully dealing with people you can’t stand is society. Just people with opposite tastes and conflicting personalities sharing space and cooperating, often through gritted teeth.
Fifty years ago, you had to sit in a crowded room to see a movie. You didn’t get to choose; you either did that or you missed the movie. When you got a new car, everyone on the block came and stood in your yard to look it over. You can bet that some of those people were assholes.
Your parents, circa 1982
Yet, on the whole, people back then were apparently happier in their jobs and more satisfied with their lives. And get this: They had more friends.
That’s right. Even though they had almost no ability to filter their peers according to common interests (hell, often you were just friends with the guy who happened to live next door), they still came up with more close friends than we have now-people they could trust.
It turns out, apparently, that after you get over that first irritation, after you shed your shell of “they listen to different music because they wouldn’t understand mine” superiority, there’s a sort of comfort in needing other people and being needed on a level beyond common interests. It turns out humans are social animals after all. And that ability to suffer fools, to tolerate annoyance, that’s literally the one single thing that allows you to function in a world populated by other people who aren’t you. Otherwise, you turn emo. Science has proven it.
#3. Texting is a shitty way to communicate.
I have this friend who uses the expression “No, thank you,” in a sarcastic way. It means, “I’d rather be shot in the face.” He puts a little ironic lilt on the last two words that lets you know. You ask, “Want to go see that new Rob Schneider movie?” And, he’ll say, “No, thank you.”
So one day we had this exchange via text:
Me: “Hey, do you want me to bring over that leftover chili I made?” Him: “No, thank you”
That pissed me off. I’m proud of my chili. It takes four days to make it. I grind up the dried peppers myself; the meat is expensive, hand-tortured veal. And, now my offer to give him some is dismissed with his bitchy catchphrase?
I didn’t speak to him for six months. He sent me a letter, I mailed it back, unread, with a dead rat packed inside.
It was my wife who finally ran into him and realized that the “No, thank you” he replied with was not meant to be sarcastic, but was a literal, “No, but thank you for offering.” He had no room in his freezer, it turns out.
The Sad Bear #2, by Nedroid
So did we really need a study to tell us that more than 40 percent of what you say in an e-mail is misunderstood? Well, they did one anyway.
How many of your friends have you only spoken with online? If 40 percent of your personality has gotten lost in the text transition, do these people even really know you? The people who dislike you via text, on message boards or chatrooms or whatever, is it because you’re really incompatible? Or, is it because of the misunderstood 40 percent? And, what about the ones who like you?
Many of us try to make up that difference in sheer numbers, piling up six dozen friends on MySpace. But here’s the problem …
#4. Online company only makes us lonelier.
When someone speaks to you face-to-face, what percentage of the meaning is actually in the words, as opposed to the body language and tone of voice? Take a guess.
It’s 7 percent. The other 93 percent is nonverbal, according to studies. No, I don’t know how they arrived at that exact number. They have a machine or something. But we didn’t need it. I mean, come on. Most of our humor is sarcasm, and sarcasm is just mismatching the words with the tone. Like my friend’s “No, thank you.”
You don’t wait for a girl to verbally tell you she likes you. It’s the sparkle in her eyes, her posture, the way she grabs your head and shoves your face into her boobs.
That’s the crux of the problem. That human ability to absorb the moods of others through that kind of subconscious osmosis is crucial. Kids born without it are considered mentally handicapped. People who have lots of it are called “charismatic” and become movie stars and politicians. It’s not what they say; it’s this energy they put off that makes us feel good about ourselves.
When we’re living in Text World, all that is stripped away. There’s a weird side effect to it, too: absent a sense of the other person’s mood, every line we read gets filtered through our own mood instead. The reason I read my friend’s chili message as sarcastic was because I was in an irritable mood. In that state of mind, I was eager to be offended.
And worse, if I do enough of my communicating this way, my mood never changes. After all, people keep saying nasty things to me! Of course I’m depressed! It’s me against the world!
No, what I need is somebody to shake me by the shoulders and snap me out of it. Which leads us to No. 5 …
#5. We don’t get criticized enough.
Most of what sucks about not having close friends isn’t the missed birthday parties or the sad, single-player games of ping pong with the wall. No, what sucks is the lack of real criticism.
In my time online I’ve been called “fag” approximately 104,165 times. I keep an Excel spreadsheet. I’ve also been called “asshole” and “cockweasel” and “fuckcamel” and “cuntwaffle” and “shitglutton” and “porksword” and “wangbasket” and “shitwhistle” and “thundercunt” and “fartminge” and “shitflannel” and “knobgoblin” and “boring.”
And none of it mattered, because none of those people knew me well enough to really hit the target. I’ve been insulted lots, but I’ve been criticized very little. And don’t ever confuse the two. An insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred. A barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing.
Above: A flamboyant transvestite with about five times as many friends as the average person
Tragically, there are now a whole lot of people who never have those conversations. The interventions, the brutal honesty, the, “you know, everybody’s pissed off because of what you said last night, but nobody wants to say anything because they’re afraid of you,” sort of conversations. Those horrible, awkward, wrenchingly uncomfortable sessions that you can only have with someone who sees right to the center of you.
E-mail and texting are awesome tools for avoiding that level of honesty. With text, you can respond when you feel like it. You can measure your words. You can pick and choose which questions to answer. The person on the other end can’t see your face, can’t see you get nervous, can’t detect when you’re lying. You have almost total control and as a result that other person never sees past your armor, never sees you at your worst, never knows the embarrassing little things about yourself that you can’t control. Gone are the common quirks, humiliations and vulnerabilities that real friendships are built on.
Browse around people’s MySpace pages, look at the characters they create for themselves. If you’ve built a pool of friends via a blog, building yourself up as a misunderstood, mysterious Master of the Night, it’s kind of hard to log on and talk about how you went to prom and got diarrhea out on the dance floor. You never get to really be yourself, and that’s a very lonely feeling.
And, on top of all that …
#6. We’re victims of the Outrage Machine.
A whole lot of the people still reading this are saying, “Of course I’m depressed! People are starving! America has turned into Nazi Germany! My parents watch retarded television shows and talk about them for hours afterward! People are dying in meaningless wars all over the world!”
But how did we wind up with a more negative view of the world than our parents? Or grandparents? Back then, people didn’t live as long and babies died more often. Diseases were more common. In those days, if your buddy moved away the only way to communicate was with pen and paper and a stamp. We have Iraq, but our parents had Vietnam (which killed 50 times more people) and their parents had World War 2 (which killed 1,000 times as many). Some of your grandparents grew up at a time when nobody had air conditioning. All of their parents grew up without it.
We are physically better off today in every possible way in which such things can be measured … but you sure as hell wouldn’t know that if you’re getting your news online. Why?
Well, ask yourself: If some music site posts an article called, “Fall Out Boy is a Fine Band” and on the same day posts another one called, “Fall Out Boy is the Shittiest Fucking Band of the Last 100 Years, Say Experts,” which do you think will get the most traffic? The second one wins in a blowout. Outrage manufactures word-of-mouth.
The news blogs many of you read? The people running them know the same thing. Every site is in a dogfight for traffic (even if they don’t run ads, they still measure their success by the size of their audience) and so they carefully pick through the wires for the most inflammatory story possible. The other blogs start echoing the same story from the same point of view. If you want, you can surf all day and never swim out of the warm, stagnant waters of the “aren’t those bastards evil” pool.
Actually, if you count the guy holding the camera, this man statistically has more friends than most of us do.
Only in that climate could those silly 9/11 conspiracy theories come about (saying the Bush administration and the FDNY blew up the towers, and that the planes were holograms). To hear these people talk, every opposing politician is Hitler, and every election is the freaking apocalypse. All because it keeps you reading.
9/11 photos. Circled: Conspiracy
This wasn’t as much a problem in the old days, of course. Some of us remember having only three channels on TV. That’s right. Three. We’re talking about the ‘80s here. So there was something unifying in the way we all sat down to watch the same news, all of it coming from the same point of view. Even if the point of view was retarded and wrong, even if some stories went criminally unreported, we at least all shared it.
That’s over. There effectively is no “mass media” any more so, where before we disagreed because we saw the same news and interpreted it differently, now we disagree because we’re seeing completely different freaking news. When we can’t even agree on the basic facts, the differences become irreconcilable. That constant feeling of being at bitter odds with the rest of the world brings with it a tension that just builds and builds.
We humans used to have lots of natural ways to release that kind of angst. But these days…
#7. We feel worthless, because we actually are worth less.
There’s one advantage to having mostly online friends, and it’s one that nobody ever talks about:
They demand less from you.
Sure, you emotionally support them, comfort them after a breakup, maybe even talk them out of a suicide. But knowing someone in meatspace adds a whole, long list of annoying demands. Wasting your whole afternoon helping them fix their computer. Going to funerals with them. Toting them around in your car every day after theirs gets repossessed by the bank. Having them show up unannounced when you were just settling in to watch the Dirty Jobs marathon on the Discovery channel, then mentioning how hungry they are until you finally give them half your sandwich.
You have so much more control in Instant Messenger, or on a forum, or in World of Warcraft.
The problem is you are hard-wired by evolution to need to do things for people. Everybody for the last five thousand years seemed to realize this and then we suddenly forgot it in the last few decades. We get suicidal teens and scramble to teach them self-esteem. Well, unfortunately, self-esteem and the ability to like yourself only come after you’ve done something that makes you likable. You can’t bullshit yourself. If I think Todd over here is worthless for sitting in his room all day, drinking Pabst and playing video games one-handed because he’s masturbating with the other one, what will I think of myself if I do the same thing?
The Sad Bear #3, by Nedroid
You want to break out of that black tar pit of self-hatred? Brush the black hair out of your eyes, step away from the computer and buy a nice gift for someone you loathe. Send a card to your worst enemy. Make dinner for your mom and dad. Or just do something simple, with an tangible result. Go clean the leaves out of the gutter. Grow a damn plant.
It ain’t rocket science; you are a social animal and thus you are born with little happiness hormones that are released into your bloodstream when you see a physical benefit to your actions. Think about all those teenagers in their dark rooms, glued to their PC’s, turning every life problem into ridiculous melodrama. Why do they make those cuts on their arms? It’s because making the pain-and subsequent healing-tangible releases endorphins they don’t get otherwise. It’s pain, but at least it’s real.
That form of stress relief via mild discomfort used to be part of our daily lives, via our routine of hunting gazelles and gathering berries and climbing rocks and fighting bears. No more. This is why office jobs make so many of us miserable; we don’t get any physical, tangible result from our work. But do construction out in the hot sun for two months, and for the rest of your life you can drive past a certain house and say, “Holy shit, I built that.” Maybe that’s why mass shootings are more common in offices than construction sites.
It’s the kind of physical, dirt-under-your-nails satisfaction that you can only get by turning off the computer, going outdoors and re-connecting with the real world. That feeling, that “I built that” or “I grew that” or “I fed that guy” or “I made these pants” feeling, can’t be matched by anything the internet has to offer.
Except, you know, this website.
David Wong is the Senior Editor of Cracked.com and the author of the dongtacular horror novel John Dies at the End, available wherever books are sold or by clicking those words.
This is a resource post for all the Good White Person™s out there. You know, the ones who say things like “It’s not my fault I’m white! Don’t generalize white people!”, or “I’m appreciating your culture! You should be proud!”, or “Why do you hate all white people, look I’m a special snowflake who’s not racist give me an award for meeting the minimum requirements for being a decent human being”. Well, if you are actually interested in understanding racism and how it ties into cultural appropriation, please read instead of endlessly badgering PoCs on tumblr with your cliched, unoriginal arguments and repeating the same questions over and over.
On White Privilege aka don’t blame me just because I’m white:
It’s Not My Fault I Was Born White: Basics of White Privilege x
Racial Divide x
Endless Examples of White Privilege x
You Cannot Know What It’s Like To Be A Racial Minority x
Intersectional Feminism x
White Privilege Does Not Mean White People Have Perfect Lives x
White Privilege and White Supremacy: A Presentation x
You Will Never Experience Racism x
Understanding White Privilege x
White Privilege and Double Standards x
Systematic White Ignorance x
The Invisibility of White Privilege x
The Luxury of White Privilege x
White Privilege: The Harry Potter Analogy x
Privilege Denial Bingo x
Privilege and Cost x
Check Your Privilege 101 x
Whiteness x
Whiteness is Not A Culture x
White Privilege and Racism x
Deeply Embarrassed White People Talk About Race x
When White Anti Racists Talk About ~Their Struggle~ x
White Privilege As A System x
On Reverse Racism aka you are being racist against white people:
Are White People Racially Oppressed x
White People, the new Racial Minority x
People Don’t Value Pale Skin!! x
There Is No Such Thing As Reverse Racism x
Racism vs. Not Racism x
But White People Are Discriminated Against In Foreign Countries x
The Myth of Reverse Racism: Why Cracker is Not N**** x
Satire: A Step Wise Guide on Being Reverse Racist x
Racism Against White People vs. Racism Against POCs x
On Cultural Appropriation aka I’m just appreciating your culture:
The Basics x
Identifying Appropriation x
But When We Wear It … x
Why Can’t I Wear It (Hipster Headdresses) x
Not Yours x
If You Take The Bindi x
White People Do It Better x
Multiculturalism and Appropriation x
Cultural Appropriation and Portrayals In Print Media x
Diminishing the Cultural Significance of the Bindi x
The Cultural Appropriation Bingo x
Why We’re Fed Up of Your Responses x
Identities Are Not Costumes x
Hinduism And Appropriation x
Religion and Privilege x
Bindis Are Cool x
Exotic India x
What’s Wrong With Cultural Appropriation x
Racism, Bindis and Ganesh Tattoos x
BUT YOU’RE SPEAKING ENGLISH! x
Cultural Appropriation Trolls x
Guide to Being An Appropriating Douchefuck x
New Age ~Culture Mixing~ x
In case you’re tired of the prose, here’s poetry x
Why You Shouldn’t Wear A Bindi x
Appropriating and Sharing x
Our Culture is A Punchline Until It’s a Trend x
Homage Or Insult x
Tattoos and Appropriation x
Bollywood is Not Synonymous With Indian x
College Party Costumes and Stereotypes x
Dotheads x
Bindis and Racist Humour x
Hindu Iconography x
Misuse of Hindu Iconography x
Your Appreciation Doesn’t Help Us x
Assorted Vials of White Tears and Miscellaneous Antidotes aka I can’t change that I’m white/not all whites are racist/we are all humans:
Unoriginal Arguments Refuted x
Quick Checklist: You Might Be Racist If x
Your Opinion Isn’t Necessary x
I’m Not Responsible For My Ancestors x
The Kumbayah Myth x
Proud to Be White x
Good White Person x
We Don’t Hate White People x
Brutality of Colonialism And Why You Can’t Tell Us To Forget the Past x
People Who Claim Not To See Race Are More Likely to Be Racist x
All Races are Beautiful Said the White Girl x
Race Blindness Is A Luxury x
Well, You’re Racist For Calling Me Racist x
I’ve Read About Its Significance, I Know What It Means
Angry Because Someone Called You Racist x
We’re Not All Like That x
People Only Care About This Trivial Shit On The Internet x
I Can’t Apologize for Being Born White, It’s Not My Fault x
Why Can’t You Tell Me What I’m Doing Wrong x
It’s Easy to Be Color Blind When You’re White x
A Diagrammatic Guide To White Tears x
Conversations I’m Sick Of Having With White People x
Why Do You Hate White People x
I’m Trying To Be Cultured x
Sisyphean Conundrum x
What is Your Problem x
We Are All Human, We All Bleed Red x
It’s Just A Bindi x
How Not To Respond To Accusations of Racism x
I’m Italian And 0.009% Native American x
What White People Think Racism Means: A Venn Diagram x
White Guilt x
White Pride!!!111!!! x
I Like *Insert Foreign Country* I Want To Live There x
You Have So Much Hate, Fighting Fire With Fire Won’t Help x
BooHoo, Don’t Call Me Racist x
Not Everything Ended With Your Ancestors x
The Racist Reaction x
I Don’t See Why That Is Racist x
Crummy Apologies x
Okay. I agree. I’ve been socially conditioned not to notice racism and recognize my privilege. What can I do?
Listen x
A Step Wise Guide x
I don’t care about this bullshit; you’re making a big deal out of nothing, go home and delete your blog:
The Clueless White Person Bus x
i am gonna make it though this year if it kills me
If you've never given horror fiction podcasts a try...here is my list. Perfect in the dark!
Reposting from this beautiful podcast post on reddit
All credit goes to u/Tinnis_
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As we come into October, you might want to check out some Horror fiction audio podcasts!
Narrated or dramatized fictional stories between 20 mins to an hour, released for free either weekly or more intermittently.
Includes both standalone short story anthologies or continuous series.
Full list below, sorted A-Z, with genre/format notes and show descriptions.
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My personal top suggestions would be:
Short stories: Pseudopod; Knifepoint Horror; Nightmare Magazine; Tales to Terrify
Series: The White Vault; The Magnus Archives
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If new to podcasts, I would recommend using (free): Podcast Addict (Android); Overcast (iOS)
Feel free to share your own favorite shows or specific episodes.
Enjoy!
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Alice isn't dead - sci-fi / horror, series
A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights - horror, standalone
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights is a horror fiction anthology podcast, with each weekly episode featuring several creepy tales from talented authors, brought to life by professional voice actors, and accompanied by SFX and music. ('Simply Scary Podcasts' network)
Dark Dice - horror / fantasy, series, rpg
Dark Dice is a horror actual-play D&D podcast that uses immersive soundscapes to create an added layer of immersion. Six travelers embark on a journey into the ruinous domain of the nameless god. They will never be the same again. (Features the initial six voice cast from 'The White Vault')
Darkest Night - horror, series
Darkest Night is a binaural audio drama that places you, the listener, at the center of a recovered memory that sounds as though it’s happening around you in real time. Each chapter delves into the last memories of the recently deceased, slowly revealing a horrifying master plan. Who is weaving this master conspiracy, and what is their ultimate goal?
Down Below the Reservoir - horror, standalone
A horror podcast series from creator & writer Graham Tugwell.
Hellfire Fables - horror, arcing, series
A weekly fictional adventure into the weird, tragic, and obscene.
Horror Hill - horror, standalone
A multiple story, horror-themed audio storytelling podcast, spun off from Chilling Tales for Dark Nights and its popular YouTube channel of the same name. The show stars voice actor / illustrator Jason Hill, and the hand-picked work of dozens of accomplished independent and previously-published contributing authors. ('Simply Scary Podcasts' network)
King Falls AM - sci-fi / horror, series
King Falls AM centers on a lonely little mountain town's late-night AM talk radio show and its paranormal, peculiar happenings and inhabitants.
Knifepoint Horror - horror, standalone
Tales of supernatural suspense by Soren Narnia.
Nightlight - horror, standalone
Creepy stories with full audio production written by Black writers and performed by Black actors. So scary it’ll make you want to leave your night light on.
Nightmare magazine - horror, standalone
Edited by bestselling, award-winning anthologist John Joseph Adams, NIGHTMARE is a digital magazine of horror and dark fantasy. In its pages, you will find all kinds of horror and dark fantasy, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror. Every month NIGHTMARE will bring you a mix of original fiction and reprints, and featuring a variety of authors: from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven't heard of yet. When you read NIGHTMARE, it is our hope that you'll see where horror comes from, where it is now, and where it's going. The NIGHTMARE podcast, produced by Grammy Award-winning narrator and producer Stefan Rudnicki of Skyboat Media, is presented twice a month, featuring original audio fiction and classic reprints.
Nocturnal transmissions - horror, standalone
NOCTURNAL TRANSMISSIONS is a fortnightly podcast featuring inspired performances of short horror stories, both old and new, by voice artist Kristin Holland. Short stories and mutterings from the wrong side of midnight.
Old Gods of Appalachia - horror, arcing series
In the mountains of central Appalachia, blood runs as deep as these hollers and just as dark. Since before our kind knew these hills, hearts of unknowable hunger and madness have slumbered beneath them. These are the oldest mountains in the world. How dare we think we can break the skin of a god and dig out its heart without bringing forth blood and darkness? Old Gods of Appalachia is a horror-anthology podcast set in the shadows of an Alternate Appalachia, a place where digging too deep into the mines was just the first mistake.
On a Dark, Cold Night - horror, standalone
On a Dark, Cold Night is the ideal podcast for horror-lovers with insomnia; a creepy friend to tell you bedtime/ghost stories. The podcast involves Your Narrator telling you a spine-chilling yet soothing ghost story every week. Launched in January, 2018, the show is written, performed and produced by Kristen Zaza.
On the Threshold - sci-fi / horror, arcing series
Human understanding of the cosmos is like a tiny, flickering candle. This podcast follows Phil Glazer as he chases down accounts of those who have wandered to the edge of the candlelight, and becomes drawn ever further into the shadows himself.
Pseudopod - horror, standalone
You’ve found the world’s premier horror fiction podcast. For over a decade, Pseudopod has been bringing you the best short horror in audio form, to take with you anywhere. We pay our authors professional rates for original fiction and we reach more people every week than any other short fiction horror market. (Backlog feeds https://redd.it/hx5tp2)
Scary Stories Told in the Dark - horror, standalone
A multiple story, horror-themed audio storytelling podcast, spun off from Chilling Tales for Dark Nights and its popular YouTube channel of the same name. The show features master storyteller Otis Jiry, often whimsically referred to by his fans as "The White Morgan Freeman," and the work of dozens of independent and previously-published contributing authors. ('Simply Scary Podcasts' network)
Shadows at the Door - horror, standalone
From Shadows at the Door Publishing comes a chilling new podcast, bringing to life a collection of macabre tales and spirited debate. Drawing on the haunted landscapes of classic folk horror, the podcast lifts the veil on some of your favourite ghost stories, and presents new fables throughout a series of macabre audio dramas. Shadows at the Door: The Podcast artfully showcases the unsettling, the unearthly, and the uncanny, with new tellings of beloved ghost stories, and spectral yarns created exclusively for the podcast by some of the most exciting writers in modern horror. Join presenter Mark Nixon and voice actor David Ault as they bring you ghoulish dramatisations, and discuss what makes the ghost story such a powerful, enduring force in cultures around the world.
Sibling Horror - horror, standalone
Short horror stories written by The Fradd Siblings (Emma and Matt Fradd). A big thanks to Soren Narnia of Knifepoint Horror who inspired us to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) (Read by Kifepoint Horror's Soren Narnia)
Tales To Terrify - horror, standalone
Welcome to Tales to Terrify, a weekly horror fiction podcast that gets under your skin, lays eggs and hatches writhing baby horrors nursed on your darkest fears. We're unique in our simplicity, bringing pure tales of terror to your ears audiobook-style – unadulterated and unadorned.
The Dark verse - horror, standalone
Short stories of occult, metaphysical, and fantastical horror that will follow you to the visions of your sleep.
The Drabblecast - sci-fi / fantasy / horror, standalone
The Drabblecast is a weekly audio fiction magazine that offers strange stories for strange listeners.
The Hidden Frequencies - sci-fi / horror, standalone
Love the Twilight Zone and Tales from the Darkside? You'll enjoy this science fiction horror anthology of audio dramas.
The Liberty podcast - sci-fi / horror, series & standalones
Welcome to the world of Liberty – serialized sci-fi tales told audio drama podcasts. For centuries the colony of Atrius has been cut off from humanity and endured generations of civil war. What remains is a gleaming city and beyond its walls, a lawless expanse known as the Fringe.
The Lost Cat podcast - horror, standalone
The entirely true adventures I have had while trying to find my cat.
The Magnus archives - horror with arcing series
“Make your statement, face your fear.” A weekly horror fiction podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organisation dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join Jonathan Sims as he explores the archive, but be be warned, as he looks into its depths something starts to look back… New episodes every Thursday produced by Rusty Quill, featuring guest actors, short stories, serial plots and more.
The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality - scifi / horror, arcing series
Human understanding of the cosmos is like a tiny, flickering candle. This podcast follows Phil Glazer as he chases down accounts of those who have wandered to the edge of the candlelight, and becomes drawn ever further into the shadows himself.
The Night Bulletin - horror, standalone
The Night Bulletin is a monthly podcast featuring original short stories written and narrated by author TF Ahmad.
The NoSleep Podcast - horror, standalone
The NoSleep Podcast is a multi-award winning anthology series of original horror stories, with rich atmospheric music to enhance the frightening tales.
The Other Stories - sci-fi / horror, standalone
These aren't the stories your mother used to tell you ... no, these are The Other Stories. The Other Stories is a weekly short story podcast. A modern take on The Twilight Zone, Tales From The Crypt, or The Outer Limits. Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller, WTF stories delivered right to your podcast feed every Monday morning.
The White Vault - horror, series
Explore the far reaches of the world’s horrors in the audio drama podcast The White Vault. Follow the collected records of a repair team sent to Outpost Fristed in the vast white wastes of Svalbard and unravel what lies waiting in the ice below. This Fool and Scholar production is intended for mature audiences.
The Wicked Library - horror, standalone
The Wicked Library is a Parsec Award winning show featuring horror fiction stories from upcoming, new, independent and bestselling authors. Our Tales of terror are read by Host / Producer, Daniel Foytik and other popular voice actors and feature custom music to bring the stories to life. Each episode features the work of some of the best voices in independent horror fiction. Authors of all types have contributed stories, like Jessica McHugh, KB Goddard, C. Bryan Brown, Stephanie Wytovich, and bestselling authors like Neil Gaiman and Owl Goingback.
Twilight Zone Radio Dramas - sci-fi / fantasy / horror, standalone
All 176 episodes of the Twilight Zone Radio Dramas which were produced and aired on radio during the 2000's. Each episode presents a stand-alone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone," often with a surprise ending and a moral. Although predominantly science-fiction, the show's paranormal and Kafkaesque events leaned the show towards fantasy and horror. The phrase “twilight zone,” inspired by the series, is used to describe surreal experiences.
Uncanny County - sci-fi / horror, standalone
Mystical truck drivers. Robots gone haywire. Killer clown demons. And pie. So. Much. Pie. This quirky, darkly comic, Southwestern-flavored anthology brings you a new paranormal audio play every month. Sit back, open your ears, and hold on tight. Because you're about to take a quick detour...through Uncanny County.
Welcome to Nightvale - sci-fi / horror, series
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE is a twice-monthly podcast 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. Turn on your radio and hide.
Well told tales - sci-fi / horror, standalone
Every Monday, the Well Told Tales podcast brings you an original short story — either sci-fi, horror or hardboiled. Think of them as audiobooks, only shorter — 15 to 35 minutes, the perfect length for your commute, workout, whatever. And did we mention they’re FREE?
Westside Fairytales - horror, standalone
Books that kill whomever reads them, strange dolls that bring death wherever they go, and tales from men and women driven to the edge by madness, poverty, and guilt. These strange and varied stories are guaranteed to stay with you long after you've finished listening. New episodes the first Friday of every month.
Wrong Station - horror, standalone
"Come on in, have a seat. It's been a while since I've seen you. There's this story I've been dying to tell you. Maybe you'll find it interesting..." The Wrong Station is a radio horror series in the tradition of Quiet Please and Lights Out, created by Alexander Saxton and Anthony Botelho.
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From my larger cross genre google sheet list, which also includes Sci-Fi & Fantasy specific suggestions and subtabs for genre & format sorting too.
Audio fiction podcast list (horror, sci-fi, fantasy)
This is a compiled list of some of my favorite pieces of short horror fiction, ranging from classics to modern-day horror, and includes links to where the full story can be read for free. Please be aware that any of these stories may contain subject matter you find disturbing, offensive, or otherwise distressing. Exercise caution when reading. Image art is from Scarecrow: Year One.
PSYCHOLOGICAL: tense, dread-inducing horror that preys upon the human psyche and aims to frighten on a mental or emotional level.
“The Frolic” by Thomas Ligotti, 1989
“Button, Button” by Richard Matheson, 1970
“89.1 FM” by Jimmy Juliano, 2015
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892
“Death at 421 Stockholm Street“ by C.K. Walker, 2016
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973
“An Empty Prison” by Matt Dymerski, 2018
“A Suspicious Gift” by Algernon Blackwood, 1906
CURSED: stories concerning characters afflicted with a curse, either by procuring a plagued object or as punishment for their own nefarious actions.
“How Spoilers Bleed” by Clive Barker, 1991
“A Warning to the Curious” by M.R. James, 1925
“each thing i show you is a piece of my death” by Stephen J. Barringer and Gemma Files, 2010
“The Road Virus Heads North” by Stephen King, 1999
“Ring Once for Death” by Robert Arthur, 1954
“The Mary Hillenbrand Cassette“ by Jimmy Juliano, 2016
“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, 1902
MONSTERS: tales of ghouls, creeps, and everything in between.
“The Curse of Yig” by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, 1929
“The Oddkids” by S.M. Piper, 2015
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson
“The Graveyard Rats” by Henry Kuttner, 1936
“Tall Man” by C.K. Walker, 2016
“The Quest for Blank Claveringi“ by Patricia Highsmith, 1967
“The Showers” by Dylan Sindelar, 2012
CLASSICS: terrifying fiction written by innovators of literary horror.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843
“The Interlopers” by Saki, 1919
“The Statement of Randolph Carter“ by H.P. Lovecraft, 1920
“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Pierce, 1893
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, 1820
“August Heat” by W.F. Harvey, 1910
“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843
SUPERNATURAL: stories varying from spooky to sober, featuring lurking specters, wandering souls, and those haunted by ghosts and grief.
“Nora’s Visitor” by Russell R. James, 2011
“The Pale Man” by Julius Long, 1934
“A Collapse of Horses” by Brian Evenson, 2013
“The Jigsaw Puzzle” by J.B. Stamper, 1977
“The Mayor Will Make A Brief Statement and then Take Questions” by David Nickle, 2013
“The Night Wire” by H.F. Arnold, 1926
“Postcards from Natalie” by Carrie Laben, 2016
UNSETTLING: fiction that explores particularly disturbing topics, such as mutilation, violence, and body horror. Not recommended for readers who may be offended or upset by graphic content.
“Survivor Type” by Stephen King, 1982
“I’m On My Deathbed So I’m Coming Clean…” by M.J. Pack, 2018
“In the Hills, the Cities” by Clive Barker, 1984
“The New Fish” by T.W. Grim, 2013
“The Screwfly Solution” by Racoona Sheldon, 1977
“In the Darkness of the Fields” by Ho_Jun, 2015
“The October Game” by Ray Bradbury, 1948
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, 1967
HAPPY READING, HORROR FANS!
the friend zone isn’t real
To Hell with Those “Date a Girl Who...” Essays; Date Any Girl You Want
It seems like every other essay on ThoughtCatalog these days claims to have discovered the perfect kind of girl to date, the girl who will be your other half, the girl for the relationship that will finally work out this time. Date a girl who reads, they’ll say. She’ll spend hours in your bed with the latest novel, she’ll wear those round patterned reading glasses that make her look so sweet you could just eat her right up. Date a confident girl, they’ll say, a girl who isn’t afraid to wear black lipstick or dance on the bar with a dozen guys leering at her.
But the idea that girls come in prepackaged categories, that girls come in different kinds like Barbie dolls or chocolates, is bullshit. Date any girl you want, because no girl is perfect like what they’ll try to convince you of in those essays. A girl with anxiety who constantly worries about the color of her hair or whether everyone in her life is about to abandon her can still be the one you’ll want to be with for the rest of your life. A girl who has never read a book in her life can still teach you as much about love and adventure as a girl who reads voraciously every single spare second. A girl who would rather stay home and eat frozen pizza and watch old TV reruns instead of going out for drinks or heading to loud house parties can make you feel just as whole as the girl who wants to spend all her Saturday nights out on the town. And the girl who eats five thousand different versions of macaroni and cheese for lunch and dinner can still teach you about healthy relationships just as well as the girl who exercises several times a day and eats nothing but vegan flatbreads and salads.
Every single star in the entire galaxy comes in a different color, size, rate of decay than all the other stars. Red dwarfs, blue giants, pulsars - but they all still put on a spectacular lightshow. And although the death of some stars may end in the formation of other stars while the death of still other stars may end in black holes, each ending still paves the way for a new beginning. A relationship with all those girls you were told to date have just as much of a chance at ending in a black hole as a relationship with all those girls that were written out of the equation, just as all of them have an equal chance of ending as a beautiful star.
Because when you tell someone to date this kind of girl, you’re really saying, but don’t date this other girl. She’s not good enough. She doesn’t burn as brightly.
The Morning After I Killed Myself
The morning after I killed myself, I woke up.
I made myself breakfast in bed. I added salt and pepper to my eggs and used my toast for a cheese and bacon sandwich. I squeezed a grapefruit into a juice glass. I scraped the ashes from the frying pan and rinsed the butter off the counter. I washed the dishes and folded the towels.
The morning after I killed myself, I fell in love. Not with the boy down the street or the middle school principal. Not with the everyday jogger or the grocer who always left the avocados out of the bag. I fell in love with my mother and the way she sat on the floor of my room holding each rock from my collection in her palms until they grew dark with sweat. I fell in love with my father down at the river as he placed my note into a bottle and sent it into the current. With my brother who once believed in unicorns but who now sat in his desk at school trying desperately to believe I still existed.
The morning after I killed myself, I walked the dog. I watched the way her tail twitched when a bird flew by or how her pace quickened at the sight of a cat. I saw the empty space in her eyes when she reached a stick and turned around to greet me so we could play catch but saw nothing but sky in my place. I stood by as strangers stroked her muzzle and she wilted beneath their touch like she did once for mine.
The morning after I killed myself, I went back to the neighbors’ yard where I left my footprints in concrete as a two year old and examined how they were already fading. I picked a few daylilies and pulled a few weeds and watched the elderly woman through her window as she read the paper with the news of my death. I saw her husband spit tobacco into the kitchen sink and bring her her daily medication.
The morning after I killed myself, I watched the sun come up. Each orange tree opened like a hand and the kid down the street pointed out a single red cloud to his mother.
The morning after I killed myself, I went back to that body in the morgue and tried to talk some sense into her. I told her about the avocados and the stepping stones, the river and her parents. I told her about the sunsets and the dog and the beach.
The morning after I killed myself, I tried to unkill myself, but couldn’t finish what I started.
Yesss, beautiful, so beautiful! I love this dearly. <3 <3 <3
Kingcup - Youth, innocence, dawn - Bog/Dawn :3
There’s abrightness about her that pulls, likethe lure of the sun’s first warmth after a cold winter. And there’s frost inhis veins and frost on his bones but one note of her song and he’s lost, lostall over again, drawn and held and wrapped in an innocence that hasn’t touchedhis kingdom in long years. She thaws the cold, melts the clinging frost, and for all his attempts, for all his preventive measures he can’t help it (can’t help falling, tumbling, crashing, helpless once again, how did this happen, how did he let this happen?)
He’s old,gnarled and dark where she’s a new sprig, a pale, rosy morn, and it’s not right, it’snot natural. It’s the potion thatmakes her eyes curve the way they do, with a pleasure the sight of him shouldn’tpossibly be able to evoke in anyone. But in thedark he can pretend, just for a moment, that she sings with sincerity; that thesmall, delicate hands reaching for his do so with a desire beyond thewhims of a magic potion.
It’s not thetruth, but then the truth has always hurt him. This is better. She is better, more so than he could ever hope to be, and so he keeps her, this bright sundrop; keeps her in the dark and keeps her for himself, andpretends that her light is meant for him.
here’s my demo of the song A Kingdom from a Spark for the episode The Cooler. the lyrics are meant to be from an ancient story about the origin of the fire kingdom.
and the lyrics
there was a time before,
when we were still afraid of the dark.
then came the first spark.
a fiery birth,
It totally rocked.
sentinels crashing down out of the blue,
creating a kingdom of red hue
for me and you.
these sleeping gods of tremendous power,
can cause a new kingdom to flower.
so burn as bright as the sun,
my fiery one.
when light starts to dim awaken within,
the slumbering ones.
All she wanted was find a place to stretch her bones A place to lengthen her smiles and spread her hair A place where her legs could walk without cutting and bruising A place unchained She was born out of ocean breath. I reminded her; ‘Stop pouring so much of yourself into hearts that have no room for themselves Do not thin yourself Be vast You do not bring the ocean to a river’
you are oceanic - Tapiwa Mugabe, (via tapiwamugabe)
Sleeping at Last - Noble Aim
I want to be with you behind the scenes, before coffee, before the sun, when your hair is a fright and your skin is still dented by the mattress seam. I want to touch you then, when you’re prickly and unshaven, when you’re half dressed, or less, when you’re unmade and distracted and every bit yourself. I want to see you getting yourself ready for others. I want to live in that place. I want to be with you, behind the scenes, knowing I’m not one of the others.
Peregrine (via youreyesblazeout)
Dreamed I was swimming with fish, then I jumped out of the water and flew with the birds, then I fell and turned into a rock, then I grew into a tree.
"Seeing you even briefly would be reassuring."
"Reassuring of what, my long lost from another lifetime?"
"I had a hairdresser who did both my and her hair, she was always trying to set me up on dates but was particular about this one girl C. One day I’m getting my hair cut and she dials C’s number and hands the phone to me. We talk and she asks me out over the weekend but I was busy so perhaps another time. Eventually we went out to a nice restaurant in Portland, then to see ice skaters at a rink. We sat so close to each other that our legs were brushing, but neither of us pulled away. Our next date was me riding the Seattle to Portland 200 mile bike ride, she was to meet me at the finish line. Every 20 miles or so I’d ask my buddies, think she’ll be there? 'Shut up D of course she will.' She was, and had set up a picnic lunch for us to enjoy by Roslyn Lake. We sat there enjoying the view, she told me she had been thinking of me all the past week and I told her the same. She asked what about, and I said “I’d like to transition to an exclusive relationship to explore the purpose of marriage.” She said yes, and bam! we went from dating to me having a girlfriend."
"I was drunk one night and he worked at a gas station. Thought he was hot, so I gave him my number. We hit it right off... meaning we just had sex. It was casual for a while, then it progressed from there."
Trying to fall in love is like trying to make your heart beat backwards. It can’t be done. I am already what you are. And so we don’t fall in love; we simply notice that we are in love already, and always have been. We don’t fall in love; it is the ‘we’, the ‘me’ and the ‘you’, the ‘inbetween’, that falls away in love, revealing the intimacy of our own absence. We are all so deeply in love that we don’t realise it.
Jeff Foster (via lazyyogi)
"We both worked at Orchard but at separate times. He was there for a year, me a year later, then again the year after that. He went shopping there a lot and we talked some, then one day he asked me on a date and you know how things go. We had both gone to the same high school and didn't even realize it; never once had we seen or heard of each other. Funny how things like that happen."
Sometimes, and only sometimes, she drips with melancholy.
Dreaming of a time when all that existed were two curled bodies, intertwined in thought and mind.
But more often than not she smiles with false teeth.
Interlaced fingers, a soft note of contentment, kisses, sweet nothings and bittersweet smiles.
If you do something with your whole heart and it’s a mistake, you can live with that.
Florence Welch (via thespiritualslut)
When I shed my skin for you, I left intact my animal heart the desire to crack bones between delicate teeth.
Jeannine Hall Gailey, “The Animal Heart: She Warns Him,” from She Returns to the Floating World (via lifeinpoetry)
writingsforwinter:
Once, I died my hair to change colors with the seasons
and finally settled on red out of the mistaken belief
that it would lend me all the courage fire lends to wood.
Beneath the wave caps I thought I loved you the same way the sea loves
the coral that tattoos it to the ocean floor.
Now, I remember my legs, my phantom limb syndrome,
how I used to run so fast along the shore even the seagulls couldn’t catch me.
Those were the days when my head was still above water,
when I never once thought of shedding the scales on my wrists
and ending it all.
One day I’ll go back to those legs, to coming up out of the deep
and tasting the salty air again
without wishing to drown.
One day seaweed will stop reminding me of a noose.
One day I will love you with lungs full of fresh air.
There are still so many seashells on the shore left to collect,
and I’m finally going to find them all.
My lover asks me: "What is the difference between me and the sky?" The difference, my love, Is that when you laugh, I forget about the sky.
“Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?" "Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you.”