On Feb. 4, 2016, “Buzzfeed 
Unsolved True Crime” premiered 
on BuzzfeedBlue. Originally hosted 
by Ryan Bergara, the show’s creator, 
and Brent Bennett until Shane 
Madej took over for Bennett in late 
2016, the first season of “Buzzfeed 
Unsolved True Crime” was closely 
followed 
by 
the 
premiere 
of 
“Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural.” 
Both 
shows 
became 
almost 
immediate 
sensations. 
Within 
two years the Buzzfeed Unsolved 
Network was established to house 
everything Unsolved, and as of 2021 
the shows had pulled a combined 1.3 
billion views and over 16.6 billion 
minutes 
of 
watch-time. 
While 
typically staged as an armchair 
detective show with a presentation 
of a case and evidence, Bergara 
and Madej would also venture 
to locations where the episode’s 
central event had occurred. Much 
of “Buzzfeed Unsolved”’s success is 
owed to the high production quality 
of the show, the entertaining and 
well-researched 
presentation 
of 
cases and the chemistry between 
Bergara and Madej, a supernatural 
believer and a skeptic, respectively.
However, 
all 
good 
things 
must come to an end. Recently, 
Bergara, Madej and Steven Lim 

— 
another 
now-ex-Buzzfeed 
employee — left Buzzfeed to found 
their digital production studio 
Watcher 
Entertainment. 
They 
exited on a wave of other creators 
in a Buzzfeed mass exodus, with 
Bergara citing a desire for “other 
creative opportunities” and “actual 
ownership of the content we make” 
that they would not have had with 
Buzzfeed. Bergara and Madej kept 
contracts with Buzzfeed to finish 
“Unsolved” in 2021, before leaving 
to produce content on the Watcher 
YouTube channel. At the time of 
writing, Watcher has amassed 
2.27 million subscribers and has 
produced 
15 
shows, 
including 
“Dish Granted” in which Lim cooks 
lavish meals for friends, “Puppet 
History” in which a puppet host 
retells stories from history, “Too 
Many Spirits” where Bergara and 
Madej get increasingly drunk while 
reading audience-submitted ghost 
stories and, most recently, “Ghost 
Files.” “Ghost Files” is essentially 
Watcher’s version of “Buzzfeed 
Unsolved,” but it is the fully-fledged 
older brother of the original — it’s the 
show “that I (Ryan) wanted to make.”
“Ghost Files” follows virtually 
the same format as “Buzzfeed 
Unsolved” — Bergara presents 
Madej with a supernatural case of 
some kind, and the two explore the 
evidence and explanations together 
in armchair detective fashion. Each 

episode since the show’s premiere 
on Sept. 23 has also seen Bergara and 
Madej explore the corresponding 
supernatural locations to attempt 
contacting whatever is haunting 
the sites. Where “Unsolved” was 
rooted mainly in history and 
folklore, however, “Ghost Files” 
pulls evidence and anecdotes from 
audience members and uses these to 
shape the investigation. In the first 
episode, Bergara and Madej visited 
Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the 
supposedly haunted tuberculosis 
hospital they also explored during 
their time at Buzzfeed. Revisiting 
the same location may seem like 
beating a dead horse, but it actually 
allows audiences to see where 
“Ghost Files” excels and shines in 
comparison to its predecessor. 
The 
production 
quality 
of 
“Buzzfeed Unsolved” was always 
top notch for a YouTube show, but 
“Ghost Files” takes this quality to 
new heights. The office in which the 
presentation segments are filmed 
is industrially outfitted to truly 
resemble an underground bunker, 
whereas the “Unsolved” set looked 
more like a detective’s office from 
a noir film. During investigations 
on site, Bergara and Madej are 
still kitted with lights, camera and 
gimbals when not handling other 
equipment, but now they wear 
matching colors, green and orange, 
and “Watcher” branded clothes that 
offer the look of a cohesive team and 
production rather than two dudes in 
their plainclothes. There is also more 
team involvement in an episode of 
“Ghost Files” than in “Buzzfeed 
Unsolved” — the audience now 
catches glimpses of the team during 
on-site investigations, and they 
occasionally engage in dialogue 
with the hosts which adds to the 
feeling that this is a fully-fledged 
production. Of course these changes 
are largely aesthetic and surface-
level, but even minute changes 
like matching clothes gives “Ghost 
Files” a sophistication that I didn’t 
even realize “Buzzfeed Unsolved” 
lacked. This time around, Bergara 

and Madej have produced something 
that feels like a real television show 
without the restrictions that a 
television show poses (namely being 
allowed to say “fuck”).
In 
the 
same 
vein, 
the 
investigation 
quality 
has 
also 
improved 
in 
“Ghost 
Files.” 
I 
mentioned before that “Buzzfeed 
Unsolved” took a slightly more 
historical approach to investigations 
where “Ghost Files” approaches 
things 
more 
anecdotally, 
but 
these elements aren’t necessarily 
comparable other than to say that 
“Ghost Files” is able to employ more 
audience engagement. Nevertheless, 
this audience engagement allows 
Bergara and Madej to go more in 
depth with their investigations 
on site as they recreate scenarios 
related by audience members, and 
the last approximately 10 minutes 
of each episode is now devoted to 
each of the hosts going on a solo 
adventure in their location, which 
also gives viewers a chance to get 
each of their unfiltered explorations 
of the investigation. 
Additionally, Bergara and Madej 
are now using more, and more 
sophisticated, technology in “Ghost 
Files.” “Buzzfeed Unsolved” always 
employed some kind of tech — the 
spirit box, motion detectors and 
infrared cameras, to name a few — 
but it seems that the “Ghost Files” 
budget is bigger when it comes 
to equipment. This time we’re 
playing with pieces like the spirit 
box-Honeytone 
combo, 
which 
better allows for spirits’ voices to be 
heard, with REM Pods that create 
an electromagnetic field and alert 
users when something enters it and 
with the Ovilus, which is able to take 
environmental readings that ghosts 
manipulate and translate them into 
words or phonetic sounds. All of 
these technological improvements 
add up to an investigation that not 
only feels more reliable, but far 
more professional, sophisticated 
and 
thought-out 
than 
past 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts

In his new collection of 
short stories, “Liberation Day,” 
2017 
Booker 
Prize 
winner 
George Saunders flexes his 
talent for writing the human 
perspective. As readers, we’re 
often shown distorted, or at 
least incomplete, narratives 
— from wiped memories to 
multiple points of view, the 
narrators of Saunders’s latest 
work rarely tell the whole 
story. And they’re all the more 
human for it.
In an email interview with 
The Michigan Daily, Saunders 
wrote about his approach to 
these conceptual narratives. 
He pointed out one story in the 
collection, “Elliot Spencer,” 
which is written from the 
perspective of a man who has 
had his memory wiped.
“I just thought: I wonder 
what a person would sound like 
if you wiped out everything 
in their brain and made them 
start over,” Saunders wrote. 
“And that was challenging and 
fun, and as I tried to find and 
refine that voice, the world 
appeared and the story started 
getting told, in that voice.”
Saunders’s 
characters 
are often linked to or are 
even 
reflections 
of 
their 
environment. Like much of 
his work, the stories in this 
collection tend toward the 
speculative: 
In 
the 
titular 
story, we read of people known 
as “Speakers” who are bound 
to a wall and launch into vocal 
performances like a sort of 
sentient 
instrument 
when 
given prompts from a man at a 
computer.
But the tone of the collection 
is easy and light. One character 
tries to reassure the Speakers: 
“There are many of us who see 
this thing for the monstrous 
excess it is. You’re human 
beings. You are … help is 
coming. It is. Soon.” 
They’re unfazed. “Lauren 
and Craig and I exchange looks 
of: Wow, thanks, adult son 
Mike, we did not know, until 
you just now told us, that we 
are human beings.”
That 
tone, 
and 
the 
personableness 
of 
the 
narrators, helps the reader 
ease into even the strangest 
settings. These worlds are so 
naturally constructed, with 
their 
exposition 
sprinkled 
through the narration of their 
characters.
“The main thing is to keep 
yourself in the mindset of 
the character — don’t let her 
tell the reader anything that 
feels unnatural for her to be 
thinking,” 
Saunders 
writes. 
“Just like now, we don’t think, 
‘Clive took out his cellphone — 
a small digital communications 
device — and called Sally.’ So, 

the world gets built naturally 
when you try to think like a 
person in that time and space.”
Even in the most extreme 
situations — like an amusement 
park 
in 
an 
underground 
bunker, with a suspiciously 
rigid set of social codes — 
Saunders’s 
character-first 
world building never feels 
artificial. And while there are 
certainly political or cultural 
themes 
baked 
into 
these 
worlds, the author says these 
ideas arise naturally in his 
process. 
“My method is to write, 
mostly by sound and humor, 
and then rewrite endlessly 
until something starts to take 
shape,” Saunders writes. “I 
do almost no pre-thinking 
or planning of the ‘What do 
I want to say?’ variety. I’m 
writing, really, to find out 
what I will say.”
In 
reading 
“Liberation 
Day,” you feel much of this 
spontaneity, 
and 
therefore 
closeness, with the characters. 
As the reader, we’re not living 
in an underground amusement 
park, we’re living in the head 
of the person assigned to play 
Squatting Ghoul #3 in that park. 
So of course we’d be served 
soup with a single KitKat for 
dinner. And of course we’d 
dutifully participate in the 
public beating of a coworker 
who misbehaved. 
It’s this absorption that 
gives Saunders’s short stories 
such 
impact. 
And 
visceral 
effect is his intention.
“I’m 
guessing 
that 
something got into my head 
about the way social media is 
mastering us,” Saunders wrote, 
“injecting us with agenda-
laced opinions that we then 
mistake for our own, and so 
on — but if that’s all I wanted 
to say … I could’ve just said 
that, you know? So I see my 
goal as being similar to that 
of a roller-coaster designer: I 
am trying to make something 
that will give the reader such 
a thrill that, for a few minutes 
after, she’s just sort of happily 
stunned and quiet.”
To young writers, Saunders 
offers some advice: “It really 
is all about rewriting … Instead 
of thinking of rewriting as 
‘fixing problems,’ I think of 
it as chance after chance to 
get more of myself into the 
story. I think of revising as 
being a little like that bit in 
‘The Matrix’ where time slows 
down during a fight. We get 
a chance to look at the events 
of the story with more care 
and curiosity than in real life, 
where everything is always 
happening so fast.”
“Liberation Day” is now 
on sale. Saunders will be in 
Ann Arbor on Oct. 28 to speak 
at 
First 
United 
Methodist 
Church, in an event organized 
by Literati Bookstore.

An interview with Booker 
Prize winner George 
Saunders, author of 
‘Liberation Day’

Wednesday, October 26, 2022 — 5

This image is from the teaser for “Ghost Files” uploaded to YouTube by Watcher Entertainment. 

JULIAN WRAY
Books Beat Editor

Hey there demons, it’s them, the boys

MADDIE AGNE
Daily Arts Writer

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

By Baylee Devereaux
©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/26/22

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis

10/26/22

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2022

ACROSS
1 Homes in 
Honduras
6 “Let’s put a 
smile on your 
plate” breakfast 
chain
10 Chop (off)
13 Like a brand-new 
candle
14 __ drum
15 Mimic
16 Receptionist at 
a high-rise hotel, 
one might say
18 Pothole filler
19 __ card
20 Kunis of “Black 
Swan”
21 Sharp cry
22 Instagram 
influencer, one 
might say
27 French article
28 Orchestra 
leader
31 Capital city on a 
fjord
34 Give up, as a 
right
36 In the know
37 Bartender 
pouring a 
selection of craft 
beers for tasting, 
one might say
41 Black Mission 
fruit
42 Eggs on
43 Rolls the credits
44 “The Office” 
sales rep 
who solves 
crosswords 
during meetings
46 Actor Meadows
48 Pathological liar, 
one might say
53 “Take a __ 
breath”
55 Fútbol cheers
56 Female sheep
58 Part of BYOB
59 Audiophile with 
an extensive 
collection of club 
mixes, one might 
say
63 Top of a 
semicolon
64 Place of refuge
65 Unleash upon
66 Approves
67 Bring (out)
68 Cereal tidbit

DOWN
1 Talk a blue 
streak?
2 Those opposed
3 Replay tech
4 __ guitar
5 Completely 
stump
6 Kin by marriage
7 “2001” 
supercomputer
8 Some 
underground 
rock bands?
9 According to
10 After
11 Birthstone for 
some Libras
12 BOLO target
14 Advice from 
a nervous 
stockbroker
17 Spanish aunts
21 “Be glad to”
23 Heavy shoe
24 Fails to mention
25 Carry on
26 Sharp
29 Cocktail garnish
30 Chooses
31 Send-__: 
farewells
32 Buttonhole, e.g.
33 Bone-connecting 
tissues

34 Japanese cattle 
breed used for 
Kobe beef
35 Had a bite
38 She-__: Marvel 
role for Tatiana 
Maslany
39 Ancestry.com 
printout
40 Singer Lovato
45 Short snooze
46 Taxing trip
47 In and of __
49 Hypothesize

50 Stout and porter
51 Nasal partitions
52 Tinker with
53 Long-extinct 
bird
54 “Star Wars” critter 
that looks like a 
teddy bear
57 Art Deco icon
59 Spicy
60 Lifeboat blade
61 GI morale 
booster
62 Electric __

SUDOKU

WHISPER

“Why did 
Sally fall off 
the swing?”

“She had no 
arms. Happy 
Halloween.”

WHISPER

By Doug Peterson & Christina Iverson
©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/19/22

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis

10/19/22

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, October 19, 2022

ACROSS
1 Creature in the 
2019 animated 
film “Abominable”
5 Break sharply
9 Owlet’s home
13 Smartphone 
border
14 Fine-tune over 
time
15 German spouse
16 Aquarium 
decoration
17 Kate Middleton, 
to Archie and 
Lilibet
18 Tree trimmer’s 
target
19 Items sold in a 
pop-up shop?
22 “Geez!”
23 “Insecure” 
actress/writer 
Issa
24 Items sold in a 
pop-up shop?
32 Game with a 
numbered board
33 “The Fiddler of 
Dooney” poet
34 Actress Mendes
35 Stage award
36 Tigger’s creator
37 Home of Iowa 
State
38 Nemesis
39 Corral, as cattle
40 Floors
41 Items sold in a 
pop-up shop?
44 Post-ER place
45 Animated Olive
46 Items sold in a 
pop-up shop?
54 Many-axled 
vehicle
55 Lawn care brand
56 In base eight
57 “I Dream of 
Jeannie” star
58 Nefarious
59 Take one’s sweet 
time
60 Pizazz
61 Start of 
something big?
62 Give a hand?

DOWN
1 “Everything 
Everywhere All 
at Once” star 
Michelle
2 Old Testament 
scribe

3 One wearing a 
matching jersey
4 “None for me, 
thanks”
5 Layered style
6 Life or death
7 China __ 
McClain of “Black 
Lightning”
8 Sleeping spot for 
some dogs
9 TD caller
10 “The Devil in 
the White City” 
author Larson
11 __ Club: Costco 
rival
12 Oleo container
13 Email field
20 Tiny member of a 
collective
21 Big galoots
24 Party game “of 
unspeakable fun”
25 Projecting 
window
26 Looking over
27 Shrine artifact
28 Sheryl Crow’s 
“All I __ Do”
29 Madagascar 
primate
30 Makes true
31 Smart talk
32 Tip

36 Restaurant 
option
37 Had a farm-to-
table meal, say
39 Guitar accessory
40 Malicious 
trackers
42 Prep cook’s forte
43 Oft-pranked 
Simpsons 
character
46 Rey of the “Star 
Wars” films, for 
one

47 “Too true!”
48 Stellar 
explosion
49 Cereal whose 
flavors include 
grapity purple
50 Hindu spring 
festival
51 Tide 
alternative
52 Surname at the 
O.K. Corral
53 Artful
54 “__ who?!”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Cover art for “Liberation Day” owned by Penguin Random House.

