If you’re a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious told in story format then the MrBallen Podcast is for you. Unlike other true crime / mystery podcasts, the stories on MrBallen are told in a very conversational story-like way. He really has a way of presenting the story such that it feels like he’s just talking to you one-on-one and off-the-cuff the way you might hear a story from a pal down at the local bar. Added bonus, if you watch the MrBallen YouTube channel, MrBallen, in his flannel shirts and backward baseball cap, actually looks like a pal you might hear a story from down at the local bar. He’s just a normal dude with a real knack for telling true stories in a way that are like, well, stories and not just documentary narration.
My only criticism (and a weak one it is) is that one side effect of the conversational telling of the stories is that they are very often laden with the transitory interjection “you know” as in: “As Clif was sitting there just, you know, working on his blog post a piano fell on his head.” This isn’t normally, you know, a problem because the stories are so engrossing, but occasionally one “you know” will catch my ear and then suddenly I’m taken out of the story noticing every one thereafter. For example, doing a CTRL-F search for the phrase “you know” in the transcript of one of MrBallen’s recent episodes (Murder and Meditation (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE) yields 9 “you know”s in the 40 minute episode. That’s a “you know” almost every 4 minutes!
But, as mentioned before, this is a weak and, admittedly, stupid nit-picky criticism and I definitely highly recommend the podcast to anyone who is (say it with me now everyone*) a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious!
*This will make more sense after you listen to the pod.
