Why everyone needs to be listening to “Rabbits”
The immersive alternate reality podcast you never knew you needed
“You play the game, you never tell”. This is the overarching rule for the mysterious alternate reality game called “Rabbits”. Shrouded in secrecy, the existence and history of the game is disputed and to get even the most fragmented information on its origins, one must trawl the seedy underbelly of the Dark Net.
While much of the game is unknown, the Fight Club-esque stipulations are unquestioned; once you’re in, you play the game and you uphold its secrecy. However Carly Parker is going to change all of that as she tries to find out all about the game, reveal its secrets, and hopefully find her friend Yumiko Takata in the process. And she’s going to invite us all along for the ride. This is the set up for the new podcast from Pacific Northwest Stories and, if the first three episodes are anything to go by, this has the potential to be this year’s podcast phenomenon.
The premise is clearly laid out in the opening minutes of the first episode. Our narrator Carly Parker speaks to the listener explaining the mysterious disappearance of her friend Yumiko. The police, we’re told, have given up the search for Yumiko, convinced she’s just a runaway. However Carly suspects something more sinister is at play, especially once she discovers that, leading up to her disappearance, Yumiko had become increasingly obsessed with an augmented reality game known only as “Rabbits”. Convinced the game holds the key to her friend’s disappearance, Parker begins to investigate its origins, documenting her findings for the listeners of the podcast to follow her as she delves deeper into its history.
The podcast is not a true story but rather an immersive storytelling experience. Pacific Northwest Stories pride themselves on delivering high quality podcast storytelling and, in the case of “Rabbits”, are reluctant to definitively state whether it is true or not.
The podcast is delivered in a similar format to many of the most successful female-narrator-led podcasts of the past few years. Carly’s delivery of her past research, coupled by her in-the-moment investigation, is reminiscent of the most successful podcasts in the true crime genre, most notably Serial, In the Dark and Missing and Murdered to name just a few.
To supplement the listening experience, “Rabbits” has its own website where it posts up documents and images discussed in the podcast for the listener to pore over to search for clues themselves. Acknowledging the “Reddit Sleuth” culture that sprung up around previous investigative podcasts (most notably Serial), the makers of “Rabbits” are embracing the willingness of the listener to get involved in the mystery solving process and are providing plenty of material to keep them immersed in the world. This elaborate storytelling and commitment to the world they create is almost reminiscent of the more notorious viral marketing film campaigns of recent years, most successfully executed by Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight trilogy and J.J. Abrams for Cloverfield and Super 8.
While the producers’ coy refusal to officially call “Rabbits” a fictional story may seem an unnecessary distraction, it succeeds in creating an unease in the listener that makes them question if the world in which “Rabbits” operates is so far removed as to be categorically dismissed as a work of elaborate fiction. “Rabbits” is careful to root enough of its story in true events to allow the reader to buy into its premise.
In the second episode, Parker discusses the potentially addictive nature of video and alternate reality games and the way in which they could cause the player to lose sense of themselves and their safety, causing them to even “step in front of traffic to chase invisible creatures” — a clear reference to the Pokemon Go craze of last summer, when the world was temporarily transfixed by the quest to “catch ’em all”.
And the concept of a virtual game with deadly consequences is unfortunately not a fictional invention. It’s estimated almost 130 teenage suicides across Russia are linked to an online social media game called “Blue Whale”, where players have to abide by a series of distressing commands over a number of days that culminate with the instruction to kill themselves.
Irrespective of whether it is fact or fiction “Rabbits” is an intensive, addictive and genuinely unsettling listen, with the only drawback being the agonising two week wait in between episodes. So do yourself a favour and start listening now… if you dare.
