Wednesday, January 13, 2016

WTFolklore Celebrates Its First Anniversary!

Once upon a time, Tyler (longtime podcast fanatic) introduced Gordie and Carman (neurotic, media-starved roommates) to some of his favorite internet radio shows. In the midst of our frequent laughter, one of us would occasionally sigh and say "This seems like so much fun. I want to do a podcast," we'd all nod, and then go back to laughing. One day, after giggling quietly to herself over the Blue Book of Fairy Tales, Carman approached the two fellows and said "Hey guys... so I've been reading these fairy tales and they are delightfully ridiculous. What if we did a podcast about that?" The two gentlemen naively agreed, not yet understanding the full scope of the word "ridiculous" in the context of fairy tales, and What the Folklore? was born.

We've nearly completed our first year of insane storytelling, and what started out as three friends just enjoying some silly stories has become a journey we never anticipated. We've watched our monthly downloads increase by the thousands, had wonderful conversations with fellow folklore fans from all corners of the globe, and had our brains slowly melted in the caustic acid pit of human storytelling.

It all started with The Wonderful Sheep, a lovely romantic story by the talented and completely-together Madame d'Aulnoy (long-time listeners will recognize most of that sentence as a vile, unforgivable lie). It was a tale I believe d'Aulnoy meant as a serious, dramatic story with a strong moral, something that might be represented with this very austere book cover:



But it came across more like this:




And thus we dove head-first into the wildly convoluted, heavily borrowed world of Folklore. From a girl whose random dream led to exile, interspecies romance, and heartbreak to a sausage who was apprehended by a dog for carrying forgeries while fetching firewood, there hasn't been a dull moment in the folktales we've found.

We're apprehensively looking forward to the next year of storytelling, and we're making plans to expand our little podcast into a multimedia exploration of the depths of weirdness achieved by these tales. This blog is our first step, where we'll be sharing some of the important life lessons we've learned as a result of this podcast's collection of fairy tales. It's our warped way of saying thank you to our listeners for the joy you've brought us this past year. We appreciate all of your support, your shared stories, and your feedback.

If there's anything you'd like to see us do in the next year of our podcast, please let us know by commenting or sending us an email at wtfolklore@gmail.com. We'd love to hear your story suggestions, guest post queries, general questions, and rad ideas for new tricks that we, as semi-trained folklore monkeys, can perform for you!

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