thinking a lot about how seeing yourself as a character in a story can be either incredibly empowering or straight-up horrifying depending on who’s in charge of the narrative - if you’re in charge of your own story, either literally or metaphorically, you’re in control of what happens next and your future is up to you, but if you’re a character trapped in a plot that’s scripted or predetermined, you have no agency and are left with only the terrible knowledge of the things that are going to happen to you and no way to prevent them. so the recorded statement, which is such a staple of so many horror podcasts, is intrinsically horrifying bc it’s the moment that you go from the author of your own story to a side character in a larger meta-narrative that is acting on you without your consent or control… and the fact that some statement-takers have supernatural powers which compel people to make statements only adds to the violence that is being done when someone’s individual story is taken out of them in order to weave together a more complete collective narrative
avery gordon / tma ep 32