I, like many people, have started to feel a little icky consuming so much true crime content in the past few years. I can’t shake my interest in unsolved mysteries and spooky stories, but the callous treatment of victims by many current content creators has turned me off from some channels and pods I used to enjoy and depleted any urge to find new ones. SHOOK slid into my TikTok DMs and I decided to give them a listen and I’ve been hooked since they started. It is the perfect combination of all the great true crime adjacent subjects I enjoy: the paranormal, magic/illusions, history, mysteries, legends/folklore, and more! (When there is a story involving death, it typically has happened in the distant past, and Amanda and Sannah treat the departed with the utmost respect.)
The stories are very unique and come from diverse source material — they’re not just reading a Reddit post or Wikipedia article. As someone who has consumed probably too much true crime and related content, I feel like a lot of the same stories get told over and over again, but almost everything I’ve heard on SHOOK has been brand new to me.
I tend to gravitate toward podcasts/channels hosted by 2-3 people with a lot of side stories and tangents, so I like the conversation at the beginning of the episode and after the stories. I love the banter between Amanda and Sannah — I’m a young millennial who gets on TikTok to feel cool and still remembers Vine, so I understand most of their references and enjoy their sense of humor. The stories themselves are pretty focused and I don’t feel like they interrupt each other very often aside from little jokes here and there.
Lastly, as a layperson with no technical experience in editing or producing, I think the production quality is pretty high for a new podcast. They have cute studio setups that are very on theme, and I highly recommend watching on YouTube for the ~vibes~.
