Hello dear readers, it’s Manuel powering back on for a quick update. You thought you’d heard the last of me, but there are still some projects coming down the pipeline and of course I have to keep you in the loop. The students from the journalism specialization have been working towards creating this year’s Emerge Magazine and it’s almost ready for you to read, right here online, at emergemagazine.ca.
This year, the magazine’s theme is the non-linear path, alluding to the various directions one can take while pursuing a career in the media industry. You can expect to read some interesting and insightful articles that will help you see further into into the industry you’re so passionate about. The Emerge Magazine will be live later this month so the wait is almost over.
While your anticipation for the magazine grows we have just the thing to help the wait go by faster. The second episode of Varsity Clues: Myths and Legends is now up and ready to be enjoyed on SoundCloud, Spotify and YouTube or on the Emerge Magazine website.
But before you go listen to that, keep on reading here to enjoy what you might call an appetizer to the main podcast entrée. In preparation of the new episode I caught up with the podcast’s personalities to learn more about their experience working on the project and their connection to the podcast’s theme.
What made you want to be a part of the podcast team?
David: I love to speak and I loved working with Jonina, Alex, and Bianca in the past so I
think it was a no-brainer to join the team.
Bianca: I also enjoy having conversations on interesting topics. Since my group and I have such great chemistry I knew doing this podcast would have great results.
Alex: I really enjoy having a lively conversation about interesting topics and Jonina, David, and Bianca are great people to talk to and work with.
Jonina: We all admire each other! It feels easy to be a part of a project as big or time consuming as this podcast is with the crew. The natural flow of all of our conversations is just one small reason why I thought it would be a good idea to join this team and create something out of our established friendship, which we hope other people will enjoy as much as we do.
How did you guys end up choosing the myths and urban legends theme for the podcast?
Bianca: I had done a previous assignment on a Shudder series called “Cursed Films.” After doing the assignment I pitched the idea to the group about doing a podcast on myths and legends. I am a huge horror movie fan and really enjoyed Greg Kelley’s class on myths and legends, so I thought it would be a really cool idea to touch upon topics and ideas that relate to horror and legends that would keep everyone on their toes.
What is one of your favourite myths or urban legends?
Alex: My favourite urban legend is the Slenderman. He was very popular back when I was in elementary school. He is a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid with a featureless head and face, wearing a black suit. It was an internet meme back in 2009. He targeted teenagers and kids in the stories and it still freaks me out to this day.
Bianca: My favourite myth or urban legend is called “Bloody Mary.” I remember being in elementary school and there was a myth about people going into the bathroom and shutting the lights off three times while saying Bloody Mary and when they opened the light the third time she would be standing right behind you. This story truly terrified me but it is a classic.
Jonina: There are so many chilling stories but my personal favourite is the one about the Bermuda Triangle. I’m sure most people know the story but it’s basically this region in the North Atlantic Ocean where boats have mysteriously disappeared. I think this is the coolest one because it holds such a mystery and is right here on our planet. You won’t know the truth about it until you yourself travel there which makes it that much spookier to me.
David: One of my favourites for a long time is a CreepyPasta story that made the rounds a while ago called “BEN Drowned”, the story goes that someone stumbled upon an old Nintendo 64 cartridge of the game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask and when he took it home to play the game he noticed strange happenings took place almost as soon as he loaded up the game. Through this the narrator decides to record all the footage of the game and upload it to YouTube, I won’t go into full detail but some peculiar things start happening including unsettling music being played in reverse and missing graphics leading to unsettling images, the video can still be found somewhere on YouTube but I haven’t had the courage to rewatch it since it was sent to me by a friend when I was younger.
What was the most unexpected challenge that you faced when starting the podcast?
Jonina: Luckily we all communicated our needs very clearly in the beginning of the project and prior to recording so we didn’t have many challenges. It was a little stressful at first when we didn’t have working headphones that connected to the Rode Caster to make sure we could hear ourselves clearly while speaking or that it was even recording; we didn’t want any surprises after recording the full episode. We did find a quick solution to that which was to do a test recording and connect the SD card to one of our laptops to see if it was working. It did! Minor setbacks helped us prepare for how to overcome any challenges, and with a team as collaborative and understanding as ours, it won’t be hard to overcome any future challenges we face.
The team’s discussions flow very naturally and you guys have a great dynamic, where does that come from?
David: It really just comes down to us being our authentic selves. We have all grown closer over the course of the past couple of years and the four of us naturally had chemistry with each other right from the outset, so it makes projects like the Varsity Clues podcast so much more enjoyable because that’s how we are with each other, it’s like having a regular conversation but with mics in front of us.
