Founded and hosted by David Nadelburg, the Mortified Podcast\nuncovers the embarrassing, funny, and captivating tales of our childhood and\nadolescence, memories that we simply forgot or purposely buried. Adult men and\nwomen join the podcast through submitting audio recordings of their own diary\nentries, written letters, poems, or other media, reading these wise words of\ntheir younger selves almost verbatim. Various recordings are then pieced\ntogether under a common theme for each episode, pieced together by David in the\nsame awkward manner that the stories are told, inviting millions of listeners to\nride the rollercoaster of youth once again, second-hand embarrassment and all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After running through advertisements, upbeat music suddenly\nfloods your ears, followed by the age-old words \u201cDear Diary\u201d. To capture the\nnature of the podcast, The Mortified Podcast<\/em>\u2019s intro continues with different\nvoices each mentioning either a year, a grade in school, \u201cFebruary 14th<\/sup>\u201d,\nor the cringe-worthy phrases \u201cwhy did she break up with me\u201d or \u201cmom, don\u2019t read\nthat!\u201d. Each shout carried a wide range of tones and sincere emotion behind\nthem, allowing the audience to feel the raw honesty behind the upcoming\nstories, as well as encouraging listeners to recall their own memories. The\nintro served its purpose as a hook \u2013 the awkward atmosphere is instantly set,\nand the humor of the podcast peeks through. However, the comedy of the rest of\nthe podcast becomes variable, as it is left up to the guests themselves, or\nrather the guests\u2019 younger selves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Episode 168: Roughin It, three stories are pieced\ntogether under the common theme of outdoor adventures, though for some reason,\nthe first story is told more in a narrative format while the others were written\nentries read aloud almost verbatim. Perhaps the first story is told in a\ndifferent format to capture the audience\u2019s attention more quickly, as it was\nshorter and more entertaining; nonetheless, the two distinct styles of\nstorytelling offered a good comparison of how narrative podcasts can be structured,\neven within one episode. Immediately\nafter the introduction ends, a new voice begins, \u201cWhen I was thirteen\u2026\u201d, pushing\nthe audience right in to the first story about a teenager\u2019s stomach-turning\ntime in a wilderness camp. The story was read in a straightforward storytelling\nmanner \u2013 similar to a \u201cthese are the most memorable things that happened\u201d type\nof story. David, the podcast\u2019s single narrator (who acts like a moderator), interjects\nevery couple sentences to offer more context and to break up the recording to\nmake it more digestible, but still ensures Marina, the storyteller, is in the\nspotlight. David also adds some sarcasm in his comments, adding to Marina\u2019s already\nfunny recollection. Because the story is told like a summary, only the most\nfunny and interesting parts of her outdoor horror story are shared, like the\ntime she tried to \u201chypothetically break her ankle\u201d to get out of a hike,\nkeeping the podcast engaging and humorous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast with this first type of storytelling, the other\ntwo tales are shared through direct readings of a diary and a self-authored movie\nscript, each of which David only briefly introduces and concludes to connect\nthem together. Since he backs out of the show completely, the show takes a risk\n\u2013 if the stories are funny, the show as a result is also funny, but if they\nstart to drag on, there is no way to save it. While the solo-reads offer a more\npersonal connection to the author, simply reading kid-composed sentences directly\nfrom a piece of paper is bound to be both awkward and unfocused, resulting in a\nmore uninteresting segment of the podcast. David makes up for his lack of\npresence with a fake studio audience (clapping and laughing), but these monotonous\nand almost ingenuine features overshadow the actual story and start to induce\nheadaches. Additionally, both of the latter stories seemed to rely heavily on swear\nwords for humor, which quickly lost its jest and became repetitive, along with\nthe \u201cDay 1, Day 2, Day 3,\u201d and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By including both storytelling methods, the compelling sections\ncontrasted more sharply with the less enjoyable sections, emphasizing what the\npodcast did well \u2013 the introduction was seamlessly produced, with good music,\nappropriate words that matched the nature of the podcast, and memory-provoking\nemotion behind each shout. Also, with David\u2019s voice mixing with Marina\u2019s in the\nfirst recording, the podcast kept me engaged and more understanding of the\nstory. Since Marina\u2019s narrative was told in a more general summary, it seemed\nmore relatable, as her descriptions were less scripted and more genuine from\nmemory. Matching the ambience perfectly\nwas the music throughout the entire podcast, which was attuned to accompany\neach story. On the other hand, while David connects the stories well with each\nother, the last two readings turned out to be less interesting with a single\nnarrator and awkward language, as well as constant fake cheering and laughing. I\nam curious to see how the storytelling methods are varied in future episodes,\nand if the episode I chose was unusually slow paced. (Word Count: 839 words)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Founded and hosted by David Nadelburg, the Mortified Podcast uncovers the embarrassing, funny, and captivating tales of our childhood and adolescence, memories that we simply forgot or purposely buried. Adult men and women join the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}