>looking for a new game >ask Simone if her game is creepy or wet >she doesn't understand >pull out illustrated diagram explaining creepy and wet >she laughs and says "it's a pacific northwest game, sir" >buy the game >it's both
Yeah, I feel like a lot of works mischaracterize PNW spookiness as being more similar to Stephen King New England spookiness. They are two very different regional varieties of spooky.
@@theaudjob3267For sure, the quirkiness is probably the most misrepresented . The media doesn’t understand pnw culture or their particular flavor of quirky at all, it’s like writers don’t bother to visit or research and just write based on what they imagine it would be like .
@@haleyc.3530 Agreed. theres also not a lot of our diversity shown, you either get folks from out in the woods, people from the suburbs, or cityfolk, when really we are all intermingling all the time. I mean, speaking of diversity you also dont see a lot of our indigenous communities, asian community's, or just overall ethnic diversity. Lots of pasty white going on.
@@MantasticHams True they definitely like to white wash severely, I’ve never seen a single representation of the massive Mexican community in Idaho either . Or the weird particular pnw flavor of republicans (not that I care if they have representation but they are there irl so its weird they’re never in media). They also never represent religious diversity even though that’s a part of our culture that is unique and interesting compared to other parts of the US. Like we have a really high percentage of pagans due to our Scandinavian and Scottish cultural heritage, we have many types of Native spirituality, we have a lot of Asian spirituality, we have Mormons, we have a lot of middle eastern and African refugees with their various belief systems, and then we also have the basic atheists and christians that everywhere else has and we all mix together.
now if I want to get my cultural studies hat on (a carhartt beanie never once worn to do physical labor) part of the reason why the PNW has the spooky, cryptid reputation is becuase it was one of the lat US frontiers during the advent of mass media, and ethnography, so a lot of the stories from the isolated logging camps got published when creepypasta was called men's adventure magazines.
Seattle also successfully advertised itself as the last stop of civilization for all the fools heading to Alaska to pan for gold. So its had this "on the edge of the unknown" mystique for a long time. Also helped that its just straight up physically isolated from the rest of country making it feel even more remote and unknown. Nobody just a passes through Seattle, you only end up there because you specifically came. Or at least that's how it used to be.
@@joemiller361 because there are Idahoans there 💀 Its the kkk shit up north, crazy militia people, everyone carrying guns around, Mormons, fucked up politics, hate groups, lack of human rights, the string of murders lately, the terror of small towns in the middle of nowhere where unspeakable crimes could happen and no one would ever know, and of being in a place so remote that next city over is 6-12 hour drive away and you could never escape on foot, the cost of living being the price of a big city when you don’t have any of the benefits, the income to cost of living ratio, the fact that Idahoans are so sheltered and controlled that they don’t know there’s a better way of life out there in other states, the lack of healthcare workers and quality healthcare meaning if you need a doctor you’re screwed, the atrocities committed against the natives that still carry on to this day, the sketchy military stuff, the ghost towns, the volcanic regions where bizarre natural occurrences are abundant, the extreme dessert weather and wildfires, the fact that all the plants look half dead at all times giving a spooky ambiance of death and decay , the pnw lawn trash aesthetic creating a creepy atmosphere where a lot of buildings look like abandoned spooky shacks, the notoriously rude and unfriendly attitude of the citizens that makes Washington and New York seem downright pleasant , the fact that the citizens are so incredibly brainwashed and love nothing more than upholding their own oppression and defending their oppressors . And apparently it’s the ufo sighting capital of America ! 👽
Which was also very, VERY heavily inspired by Twin Peaks. I mean when Bill if first introduced his voice is literally just Alex Hirsch trying to do an impression of David Lynch.
As a lifelong Seattleite who has never travelled much, i took for granted how frequently you just run into a patch of woods, or at minimum a bunch of trees. most suburbs have trees all throughout their city center, and even in downtown you are rarely much more than a mile away from a trail leading through a few city blocks worth of woods, a large park, etc.
Fun Fact: Washington holds the world's largest temperate rainforest (meaning outside of the Tropics). There are only like 7 scattered across the world. I think this is a big reason why supernatural stories get set there, it's a place where the growth seems unnatural and our monkey brains feel like danger could be hiding within an arm's reach of us.
Depending on the definition of Temperate Rainforest, it's either Washington, British Columbia, or the Alaskan Pandhandle for the territory with the largest amount.
@@GallopingWalrusI have lived in both Alaska and Washington and this *has* to be based on a difference in definitions. I had to double check Wikipedia to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating but Tongass is the largest US national forest, and if Southeast AK where most of it resides isn’t a temperate climate I would be shocked. Alaska is generally considered part of the PNW for a good reason, the Panhandle gets just as much rain as BC and Washington. Very similar economies and cultures as well tbh. That being said I’m mostly fine with Twilight not taking place in Alaska lol.
The ending section made me want a horror game set in the pnw that mixes a cyberpunk-y tech dystopia and the creepy off putting supernatural vibes of twin peaks, et al.
It's always fascinated me seeing non-native perspectives on the PNW. I remember being in the valley with some people, and a few of them specifically mentioned how creepy it was, and reminded them of Twin Peaks. The only thing i had to offer was that we picked salmonberries and sxwosem (I literally can't remember the english name for them at the moment lmao) and had a wind dry rack just up the hill.
I think it's because they're good traveling vehicles for rainy/slightly rugged terrain. Lots of people who live in the city/suburbs like to camp, hike, rock climb, kayak, etc., and that can involve trips down dusty dirt and gravel roads. So they need something that's good for commuting/getting around town but can carry equipment/supplies to more remote locations.
I hope that the indigenous representation become the norm in these games in the fallowing years, my school district just made taking a BC first people’s class mandatory for graduation, so hopefully more creatives my age and younger can make this happen. (Pro tip: if you ever go to Vancouver or the Vancouver area try and see some of Bill Reid’s works, the Spirit of Haida Gwaii, aka the jade canoe is one of my favourite statues ever.)
I live in one of the towns Twin Peaks was filmed in! We went to the diner from the show for my mom's birthday. It's super crowded, you need a reservation to get in most of the time. It's kind of funny that sign at the beginning said the population was 50,000. That's more than double the combined population of all three towns they used in filming. That's not really a small town anymore. That clip from The Killing is kind of funny, they said they had a lot of rain to make it feel like the Pacific Northwest but as someone from there, they got the rain wrong! It does not rain like that here! At least not that frequently. Total amount of rainfall in Seattle isn't that high, it's the frequency of very light rainfall that's really high. They show a scene where they're holding umbrellas, a lot of people never use umbrellas here. Because it makes more sense to just wear like a coat that can take light rain instead. Oh I also live very close to a ghost town. My sister's been there. But we moved here recently I haven't had a chance to go to it yet.
Gravity Falls and the adaptation of Coraline were so validating in terms of animation that takes the Pacific Northwest as a place where fucked up magical towns with oddballs seriously. I'm a writer who grew up in the Willamette Valley and Oregon is such a rich setting for weird and creepy stories, so most of my novels take place here. The closest I can think to our current brand is Appalachia? Which I want to see more use of, PNW should not be alone in our oddity. AND HOW CAN I FORGET GOING UNDER! EDITING TO REMEMBER THAT GAME EXISTS!
When Old Gods of Appalachia did a live show down here in Portland, they were commenting afterwards that it was the closest they had felt to home in their travels, so I think your point scans. and remember, if you hear someone/thing in the woods call out your name, no you didn't.
Going Under is awesome, one of those little games that has unexpectedly lived in my head rent-free ever since I played it. But what does it have to do with the Pacific Northwest?
@@sebarus8108 it's implied the game takes place there. jackie has a banner in her room from "neo-cascadian university" and swomp jokes that he had to go fight in the "cascadian revolution", potentially a reference to the cascade mountains. i've always assumed cubicle is a parody of amazon because of its focus on delivery services, and amazon's HQ is in seattle. also, thematically, the game is basically a big commentary on startup culture. that's not unique to the PNW, but it's very prevalent here, with the massive tech boom going on.
Something I never appreciated until I moved away is that the forest has a certain magic to it. It's a place where nature is more in control then other places. Out on the planes, you could build a house with little struggle. To make a habitation in the PNW is to activly fight the forest for the plot of ground you want. Everything is in a state of being reclaimed. The trees themselves are covered in moss and sometimes mushrooms. And it's always connected to water, wether thats the rain, the sound, or the coast. It's the edge where humanity and nature live. The supernatural isn't to hard to imagine being possible.
Thank you for the Spokane mention. There’s nothing interesting here, the town peaked 50 years ago with a World’s Fair everyone forgot about. It’s just scrublands, hospitals and mediocre colleges.
@@polygon Highschool sports is one of the few things this town invests in, so we do have some nice ones. I’m glad you found something to enjoy! But do not feel obligated to return. We understand, we literally call ourselves the INLAND Northwest so we aren’t compared to the other side of the cascades, as we will always lose those comparisons.
Lifelong Portlander here. I think that your commentary on the woods is pretty on point, I know I was definitely raised to respect them and all that they hold, but to not stray too far from the beaten path. Also, exploring the old forts and derelict towns/camps growing up was not something that I had specifically pinned as being a PNW thing, but it absolutely makes sense in retrospect. Also, good deflection about the weird stuff that goes on in those places, its better if the outsiders don't know...
Definitely played in all the Ft. Worden tunnels as a kid. Would climb into small spaces above some of the bunkers' ceilings and slam doors behind tourists to make them think it was haunted
Oh man, thanks for the reminder of how hilariously over-the-top rainy "The Killing" was. Seattle isn't nearly as rainy as its reputation (less annual rainfall than many other major US cities), but it is overcast a lot.
Seeing the abandoned WWII bunkers was the Washington-childhood-core shot I needed; shoutout Fort Warden, gotta be my favorite definitely-haunted place to play Capture the Flag
This might be a meme answer but there is a lot of cultural and spiritual association with water/wetness and the supernatural/the dead/things beyond human comprehension. Mother ocean always is calling for us to come home…
Holy crap! I took a media studies course from Professor Groening at UW back in 2015. It was an excellent course, and he is an excellent professor. So cool to see him pop up in this, and glad to see he's still teaching at UW. As a Seattle native since 2005 it's great to see some PNW love. And yes, big tech is ruining the vibe up here, so they can go away. But another great video from Simone!
I moved to PNW a year ago from TX and I love the doom and gloom, the rain and subtle uneasiness I feel when I look out into the forest at night Its best place
Biggest surprise from moving to the PNW after (but not because of, mind) seeing movies like The Ring and Twilight is learning that those filters aren't as hyperbolic as they might seem. Sometimes this area just kinda, does that. Especially in early spring.
3:22 I didn't understand Twin Peaks when I tried to watch it. Now that you've explained it to me properly, I think I'm ready to try it again. Cool video!
One more comment lol. Even though Twin Peaks was one of the earliest “water cooler shows”, the very first was the night time soap “Dallas” in the 80’s. A lot of people that weren’t alive or old enough at that time don’t realize how big of a deal it was, especially during the “Who Shot JR” storyline. It was must-see tv before NBC coined the term, and everyone stayed home on Saturday nights to watch it, and then spent the following Monday mornings at work discussing all the newest events from the show. I also recommend it to anyone that loves well written drama. Don’t let the “soap” label fool you, yes it has plenty of typical soap opera tropes, but the characters are so intriguing, the stories are so well crafted, and the series as a whole is so perfectly paced that a lot of people would love it even if it doesn’t SOUND like something they would be into lol
As someone who lives in Spokane, thanks for the shoutout! But the image you guys showed is the from the Channel Scablands which are a couple hours west of us here! That region still has some breathtaking landscapes that reveal the geological history of the Missoula Great Flood, but Spokane looks nothing like that! I love living in the PNW and this video is terrific!
it's also worth mentioning that the Oregon state constitution made it illegal for non-white people to move there until 1925, and the language in the constitution surrounding these exclusionary laws was still on the books until 2002, and even when it was finally removed, 30% of Oregon voters wanted to keep it
My mom was such a Twin Peaks fangirl back in the day that she married a guy named Dale and moved to North Bend, one of the towns where it was filmed. Without Twin Peaks, I literally would not exist!
when she said that that buisness campuses prevent folks for engaging with the city, it really made we realize like "woah, if I want the city I live in to be a beautiful city I need to engage in the community" I have never thought about how engaging in a city builds up the city!
I’m debating whether we can claim The Shining as a creepy PNW movie because the real hotel that was the exterior of the Overlook, the Timberline Hotel, is in Oregon
It’s funny how the forests get this ‘dangerous and creepy’ reputation from the media when it’s like the safest natural environment to be in in the country (at least near Seattle). Theres no poisonous spiders or snakes, and it’s a very mild climate with a Mediterranean pattern (short, but very dry summers). Bears, cougars etc are more near the mountains or very isolated areas but you’ll probably never see one near where people actually live.
Add to the setting that PWN is both eerily quiet and terrifyingly noisy. Between the soft pine falls and the fog the forests in the Northwest can be nearly silent. You could walk for miles and hear nothing but water softly dropping into moss, even if you're just a 100 feet away from a main road. Also it's a windy region in a lot of places with wind howling through trees and buildings, angry violent storms, crashing dark grey waves. There are almost no settling noises here. Our architecture is strange, a blend of early age of enlightenment buildings, Chinese construction from the gold rush, 1930's housing boom ranch houses and late 2000's all-glass smart houses. We have train tracks that vanish into tunnels that go to places nobody knows. The afor mentioned gun forts that vanish into blackness, Amusement parks that were built over cold-war bunker complexes. Our loose housing approval tend to allow some exciting and exotic constructions. Every neighborhood has a haunted structure. Every other block has something strange built there. Add to the people that we're the melting pot's melting pots. We have cultures from every corner of the world assimilated along with their cultures and traditions. We also have a lot of religion. We have Scottish Rite temples, legitimate Druidic Groves, Even a Satanic Temple, and much much more oddball cults and quasi religions. We have more occult book stores than just about anywhere else. The Seattle freeze isn't really a thing but legitimately the PNW kind of does it's own thing and folks who move here really struggle to figure out how we socialize so if you're from the east coast we probably feel a lot like Twin Peaks characters. We also LOVE the Hell out of being weird, to the point that we're technical fans of it. You'll see folks walking around in cosplay in the PNW just because. We organize bar crawls where we dress up like zombies. We do Bookstore crawls, which sounds like an adorable affectation until the bookstore you're quietly reading in suddenly packs full of folks who are trading knowing glances and trying not to giggle. We're weird. Add to Supernatural, in addition to Bigfoot and too many Indian folklore monsters we have a number of water cryptids from the Chelan Dragon to Giant Crabs. We're also one of the most active areas for UFO sightings. Despite having millions of people in urban areas we have a lot of actual wilderness where no person has touched. We also have a fair amount of crypto-occult stuff going on in our architecture and history because so much of cities like Seattle is built on top of wild-west era construction. Everywhere you look are little markers and cues that a location is actually a different location, buildings designed to create optical illusions, clues and puzzles that make the region even more weird. Modern cities in the PNW only complicate the issue. You can live in your corporate archology and drive to Costco who whole foods for supplies, but you take a shortcut or get off on the wrong exit, and you're deep in the winding neighborhood roads and dark trees of that old PWN without much warning, where the city gets stranger the closer you look. Nowhere exemplifies this like Portland where going on adventures to the weird is a popular hobby of the suburban residents.
I would love media to focus more on the indigenuous representation in the PNW, and not just through the aesthetic and fashion but also the history and people. There is also creepy mythology in native american cultures.
As a huge Twin Peaks fan who was just a hair too young to be into it during it’s original broadcast run & caught it during the Bravo reairings a few years later, it’s easy to forget that this utterly bizarre Lynch show wasn’t some cult phenomenon in its day, but a massive mainstream hit. Which still sort of blows my mind.
Gig Harbor resident here! I loved watching this video. I grew up near Spokane and moved to the west side later on. This is a fantastic piece that captures the vibe and "weird" of the western side of WA/OR. Love the east side roast too (it's all true).
I also grew up in the Pacific Northwest but only the stuffy suburb parts, not the cool spooky woods parts >:( got a good chuckle out of the "Visit Beautiful Spokane" bit
It's fascinating how the PNW™ as a concept is so much the colonists' experience of the PNW. Fear of the unknown and a sense of not belonging? That's unique to the colonial experience. Meeting a sense of unease and distance when it comes to newcomers? Check. And as the last place the colonists would have gotten to geographically it's probably the place in North America with the most surviving anthropological ingigeneity, which uncaring colonists would probably just characterise as the supernatural anyway.
Yes because native Americans were just frolicking and giggling their way around in a region that’s home to temperate rainforests that are shrouded in fog and rain most of the year. Most Americans crypids are from Native American folktales, and your gonna tell me they didn’t also have a fear and fascination of the unknown and morbid? Why think when you propagate more self righteous noble savage bullshit all over every comment section like most of the Internet does.
Hey heads up if I’m remembering my Pacific Northwest Indigenous Art class correctly the Seattle Seahawks logo IS in fact problematic as they copied a sacred dance mask without asking (the one in the photograph shown) and the tribe that it originated from (iirc the Kwak’wakawakw who don’t even live in Washington they live in canada) has asked them to alter or change the design to no avail. The thunderbird design could be easily done in a Coast Salish style (tribes that actually live there.) and in fact many have already done this redesign. Sadly the Indigenous art shown in Twin Peaks and the other examples you gave are specifically Northern Formline styles and totem poles which are not from Washington but from tribes in British Columbia like the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian whose artwork has long overshadowed their southern cousins due to the history of collectors causing members of coast Salish tribes to have to imitate the northern styles to sell their works. Totem poles are not actually part of the culture of coast Salish tribes though story poles have been invented as a recent idea to create similar pieces in their own styles. In fact the totem pole in Seattle was stolen from Vancouver island (though I think the original no longer exists)
Simone always manages to get me hyped for things I never looked into, thanks for the video! 06:47 just a small lil funfact: while I'm sure they did some touch-ups in post, The Ring was shot with different blue tinted camera-filters, to give it its look from the get go. There was a thorough video about it somewhere on here, but I can't remember by whom. EDIT: It was by WatchingtheAerial !
A low-key trope in many of the mentioned media include: the (pacific north)western diner. Especially as a place of tension between its function as the local public house (full of strange and surly "regulars") and its function as a roadside restaurant for travellers, truckers, itinerant FBI agents, Arizonan transplants...
3:00 I’m going to go ahead and pause right now and tell every single person reading this, if you haven’t watched Twin Peaks before, DO IT NOW! It’s one of the most original, peculiar, creative shows ever made, and a perfect entry point to the world of David Lynch.
Speaking as someone who grew up in Washington… my grandpa told me to watch out when peeing in the woods, or the Sasquatch might carry me away to be his forest bride. So… just keep that in mind.
as a non-american, i appreciate the explanation on where exactly the pacific north-west is! i never realized a bunch of these shows and games all took place in the same region
I will agree that Frasier deserves to be mentioned on this list. Forget anything that happened in The Ring, you haven't felt tension until you've seen Frasier try to juggle two dates at the same restaurant on the same night. (Even though Niles TOLD him it was a bad idea.)
It's interesting that Shadowrun, released originally in 1989, primarily set in the Seattle of the year 2050. Fun that they mixed the supernatural with the encroachment of tech-oriented megacorps that far back.
There should be more media set in the palouse like bro we got the windows xp hills just in our backyard, and also creepy abandoned farms that are most definitely cursed
If you counted season 3 of Twin Peaks you got 4 more squares on that bingo card: fog, mountains, water, and ghost towns (with how empty the town of TP is in season 3.) Tbh mountains and water should have been marked anyways with how iconic The Great Northern hotel is with its crashing waterfalls on the cliff side.
It's so funny to me, as a lifelong Seattle resident. This area has this reputation for being mysterious and scary, but to me it's home. Northern Exposure was another show that hit on a lot of PNW stereotypes. I will admit though, Twin Peaks did really capture something about the woods around here. Old growth temperate rainforests draped in moss definitely hold a certain vibe. Every time TP would show the trees in the wind...
There’s all the planes, trains, and automobiles preserved at the bottom of the Pungent Sound/Lake Washington. I’m desperate spooky for a game based under the waters of Washington, not just in and around them.
6:35 "It's hard to imagine a version of The Ring not set in Washington." Boy do I have news for you! The Ring was originally set in Japan, because the original was a Japanese film.
It's pretty isolated, all things considered. Not easy to pass through, not much to pass through *for,* not many cities. They've got broad temperate rainforests that are almost unique on the planet, and some of the most well-preserved indigenous cultures in the USA.
Grew up here my whole life and I can confirm that the eastern sagebrush steppes (of Oregon at least) are definitely scarier on a more rational level. I worked nights west of the Cascades literally in the middle of the woods and never had issues with people, but you'll see folks doing weirdass stuff in the middle of the day in the desert lmao. They tend to be more isolated as a whole out there, just in general.
I'm kinda intrigued that, in discussing the modern Seattle, there wasn't a mention of Boeing, which does also massively influence, and likely welcomed in, Microsoft and Amazon.
I'd like to add that IIRC the Icelandic delegation was the suggestion of an Icelandic producer; Sigurjón Sighvatsson, the co-head of the production company Propaganda Films.
>looking for a new game
>ask Simone if her game is creepy or wet
>she doesn't understand
>pull out illustrated diagram explaining creepy and wet
>she laughs and says "it's a pacific northwest game, sir"
>buy the game
>it's both
As someone from the pnw, I feel the media doesn’t overrepresent it’s spookiness but does misrepresent it’s spookiness. It’s spooky in a different way.
I feel like a lot of media aside from maybe Twin Peaks fail to capture the quirkiness of it
Yeah, I feel like a lot of works mischaracterize PNW spookiness as being more similar to Stephen King New England spookiness. They are two very different regional varieties of spooky.
@@theaudjob3267For sure, the quirkiness is probably the most misrepresented . The media doesn’t understand pnw culture or their particular flavor of quirky at all, it’s like writers don’t bother to visit or research and just write based on what they imagine it would be like .
@@haleyc.3530 Agreed. theres also not a lot of our diversity shown, you either get folks from out in the woods, people from the suburbs, or cityfolk, when really we are all intermingling all the time. I mean, speaking of diversity you also dont see a lot of our indigenous communities, asian community's, or just overall ethnic diversity. Lots of pasty white going on.
@@MantasticHams True they definitely like to white wash severely, I’ve never seen a single representation of the massive Mexican community in Idaho either . Or the weird particular pnw flavor of republicans (not that I care if they have representation but they are there irl so its weird they’re never in media). They also never represent religious diversity even though that’s a part of our culture that is unique and interesting compared to other parts of the US. Like we have a really high percentage of pagans due to our Scandinavian and Scottish cultural heritage, we have many types of Native spirituality, we have a lot of Asian spirituality, we have Mormons, we have a lot of middle eastern and African refugees with their various belief systems, and then we also have the basic atheists and christians that everywhere else has and we all mix together.
now if I want to get my cultural studies hat on (a carhartt beanie never once worn to do physical labor) part of the reason why the PNW has the spooky, cryptid reputation is becuase it was one of the lat US frontiers during the advent of mass media, and ethnography, so a lot of the stories from the isolated logging camps got published when creepypasta was called men's adventure magazines.
this is really cool!!
Seattle also successfully advertised itself as the last stop of civilization for all the fools heading to Alaska to pan for gold. So its had this "on the edge of the unknown" mystique for a long time. Also helped that its just straight up physically isolated from the rest of country making it feel even more remote and unknown. Nobody just a passes through Seattle, you only end up there because you specifically came. Or at least that's how it used to be.
It’s funny how the media never really portrays Idaho as spooky even though it is by far the scariest place in the pnw
How is Idaho spooky? (Genuinely asking, not trying to be sassy)
@@joemiller361the Mormons 😨
@@DerekCooper_ ya got a real good point...
Stephen Graham Jones set his book My Heart Is A Chainsaw and it's sequels in Idaho. Maybe Idaho is about to make a creepy breakthrough.
@@joemiller361 because there are Idahoans there 💀
Its the kkk shit up north, crazy militia people, everyone carrying guns around, Mormons, fucked up politics, hate groups, lack of human rights, the string of murders lately, the terror of small towns in the middle of nowhere where unspeakable crimes could happen and no one would ever know, and of being in a place so remote that next city over is 6-12 hour drive away and you could never escape on foot, the cost of living being the price of a big city when you don’t have any of the benefits, the income to cost of living ratio, the fact that Idahoans are so sheltered and controlled that they don’t know there’s a better way of life out there in other states, the lack of healthcare workers and quality healthcare meaning if you need a doctor you’re screwed, the atrocities committed against the natives that still carry on to this day, the sketchy military stuff, the ghost towns, the volcanic regions where bizarre natural occurrences are abundant, the extreme dessert weather and wildfires, the fact that all the plants look half dead at all times giving a spooky ambiance of death and decay , the pnw lawn trash aesthetic creating a creepy atmosphere where a lot of buildings look like abandoned spooky shacks, the notoriously rude and unfriendly attitude of the citizens that makes Washington and New York seem downright pleasant , the fact that the citizens are so incredibly brainwashed and love nothing more than upholding their own oppression and defending their oppressors .
And apparently it’s the ufo sighting capital of America ! 👽
i think gravity falls nails the eeriness but also the absurdity of pacific northwest legends/sideshows
they had a character literally named Pacifica Northwest
Except in the Summerween episode when it's dark by 6 PM in June. Yeah, no.
Still shipping her and Dipper after... how long hasnit been?
Which was also very, VERY heavily inspired by Twin Peaks. I mean when Bill if first introduced his voice is literally just Alex Hirsch trying to do an impression of David Lynch.
As a lifelong Seattleite who has never travelled much, i took for granted how frequently you just run into a patch of woods, or at minimum a bunch of trees. most suburbs have trees all throughout their city center, and even in downtown you are rarely much more than a mile away from a trail leading through a few city blocks worth of woods, a large park, etc.
Fun Fact: Washington holds the world's largest temperate rainforest (meaning outside of the Tropics). There are only like 7 scattered across the world. I think this is a big reason why supernatural stories get set there, it's a place where the growth seems unnatural and our monkey brains feel like danger could be hiding within an arm's reach of us.
yes! shoutout to the hoh rainforest!!
Depending on the definition of Temperate Rainforest, it's either Washington, British Columbia, or the Alaskan Pandhandle for the territory with the largest amount.
@@GallopingWalrusI have lived in both Alaska and Washington and this *has* to be based on a difference in definitions. I had to double check Wikipedia to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating but Tongass is the largest US national forest, and if Southeast AK where most of it resides isn’t a temperate climate I would be shocked.
Alaska is generally considered part of the PNW for a good reason, the Panhandle gets just as much rain as BC and Washington. Very similar economies and cultures as well tbh.
That being said I’m mostly fine with Twilight not taking place in Alaska lol.
I'd also like to credit Life is Strange for being brave enough to showcase the absolutely devastating forest fires
It's spooky but more weird in a comfortable way. Like we're all at peace with the weirdness
I’ve found that, too. People don’t get as many weird looks here as they do elsewhere.
The Twin Peaks and X-Files nods in Alan Wake speak to such a specific taste that I’ve never been able to pinpoint. This video is for me.
The ending section made me want a horror game set in the pnw that mixes a cyberpunk-y tech dystopia and the creepy off putting supernatural vibes of twin peaks, et al.
should check out Shadowrun Returns. one of the main spooky parts happens in Snohomish because obviously
Tails Noir very much straddles this line!
Nothing is more unsettling than the things we can explain that humans do. Ex. Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook here in Seattle.
i second this SO HARD
Pacific Drive exists, it basically fits exactly what you just said lol
Driving through Tacoma at nightfall is a bit like LARPing Pacific Drive…..
I know the meme is "hehe Tacoma scary" but you can literally go to Aberdeen and literally (in the literal sense) larp pacific drive. Xd
Yes but that would require going to aberdeen 😂@alphachicken9596
Whenever people are new to that area I always tell them to check out the luxurious strip on Hosmer ✨
Wait..is Twin Peaks the predecessor of Nightvale?
It's always fascinated me seeing non-native perspectives on the PNW.
I remember being in the valley with some people, and a few of them specifically mentioned how creepy it was, and reminded them of Twin Peaks.
The only thing i had to offer was that we picked salmonberries and sxwosem (I literally can't remember the english name for them at the moment lmao) and had a wind dry rack just up the hill.
Omg, is Simone from Port Townsend?? I’d know that old military bunker complex I used to play in while visiting my aunt and uncle anywhere!
I've been to those bunkers too! What a beautiful place
I was just at those bunkers on a trip like a month ago lol. Very spooky!
We always went near here camping as kids!! That clip brought back some memories 😊
Yeah, Fort Worden is great! I grew up about an hour from there, and went there a bunch as a kid. A few times since too.
@@bryanconrad4592I'm partial to Fort Flagler because my cross-country camp in high school was there, but Fort Worden is great too.
It's creepy and weird how many Subaru Outbacks are in the PNW.
True that and trucks driven by men who don’t haul anything but want to feel tough
If you don't have a Subaru Outback or a Toyota Tacoma you're not legally allowed to reside in the PNW
It's all the lesbians ghosts, oooooooo~ 🏳️🌈👻👻🏳️🌈
That is worth looking into. SO many Subaru Outbacks....
I think it's because they're good traveling vehicles for rainy/slightly rugged terrain. Lots of people who live in the city/suburbs like to camp, hike, rock climb, kayak, etc., and that can involve trips down dusty dirt and gravel roads. So they need something that's good for commuting/getting around town but can carry equipment/supplies to more remote locations.
No mention of Gravity Falls at any point. For shame.
AGHHHH I LOVE GRAVITY FALLS AND TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT IT. SHAME ON ME. - Simone
The Oregon Vortex is a great destination.
Also I think the movie Pig would have fit in well at the end there.
And iCarly, which is also creepy, but in a very different way
Right? I was surprised too
there is actually a gravity falls game mentioned in the list at 2:18! only there for a second though
I hope that the indigenous representation become the norm in these games in the fallowing years, my school district just made taking a BC first people’s class mandatory for graduation, so hopefully more creatives my age and younger can make this happen. (Pro tip: if you ever go to Vancouver or the Vancouver area try and see some of Bill Reid’s works, the Spirit of Haida Gwaii, aka the jade canoe is one of my favourite statues ever.)
I live in one of the towns Twin Peaks was filmed in! We went to the diner from the show for my mom's birthday. It's super crowded, you need a reservation to get in most of the time.
It's kind of funny that sign at the beginning said the population was 50,000. That's more than double the combined population of all three towns they used in filming. That's not really a small town anymore.
That clip from The Killing is kind of funny, they said they had a lot of rain to make it feel like the Pacific Northwest but as someone from there, they got the rain wrong! It does not rain like that here! At least not that frequently. Total amount of rainfall in Seattle isn't that high, it's the frequency of very light rainfall that's really high. They show a scene where they're holding umbrellas, a lot of people never use umbrellas here. Because it makes more sense to just wear like a coat that can take light rain instead.
Oh I also live very close to a ghost town. My sister's been there. But we moved here recently I haven't had a chance to go to it yet.
Rain on film has to be massively over intensified to get it to show up on the screen. All a light shower does is ruin hair and make up.
yeah the rain instantly made me think of somewhere like New York or Chicago or Boston, somewhere that gets that really heavy dark rain
I need basically zero excuse to watch a 20+ minute video about Twin Peaks so thanks Simone!
Gravity Falls and the adaptation of Coraline were so validating in terms of animation that takes the Pacific Northwest as a place where fucked up magical towns with oddballs seriously. I'm a writer who grew up in the Willamette Valley and Oregon is such a rich setting for weird and creepy stories, so most of my novels take place here. The closest I can think to our current brand is Appalachia? Which I want to see more use of, PNW should not be alone in our oddity. AND HOW CAN I FORGET GOING UNDER! EDITING TO REMEMBER THAT GAME EXISTS!
When Old Gods of Appalachia did a live show down here in Portland, they were commenting afterwards that it was the closest they had felt to home in their travels, so I think your point scans. and remember, if you hear someone/thing in the woods call out your name, no you didn't.
GOING UNDER IS SO GOOD
Going Under is awesome, one of those little games that has unexpectedly lived in my head rent-free ever since I played it. But what does it have to do with the Pacific Northwest?
@@sebarus8108 it's implied the game takes place there. jackie has a banner in her room from "neo-cascadian university" and swomp jokes that he had to go fight in the "cascadian revolution", potentially a reference to the cascade mountains. i've always assumed cubicle is a parody of amazon because of its focus on delivery services, and amazon's HQ is in seattle. also, thematically, the game is basically a big commentary on startup culture. that's not unique to the PNW, but it's very prevalent here, with the massive tech boom going on.
As a fellow Washingtonian, Simone is making me very proud.
Just thinking the same thing
Something I never appreciated until I moved away is that the forest has a certain magic to it. It's a place where nature is more in control then other places. Out on the planes, you could build a house with little struggle. To make a habitation in the PNW is to activly fight the forest for the plot of ground you want. Everything is in a state of being reclaimed. The trees themselves are covered in moss and sometimes mushrooms. And it's always connected to water, wether thats the rain, the sound, or the coast. It's the edge where humanity and nature live. The supernatural isn't to hard to imagine being possible.
Thank you for the Spokane mention. There’s nothing interesting here, the town peaked 50 years ago with a World’s Fair everyone forgot about. It’s just scrublands, hospitals and mediocre colleges.
Well, there is the surrounding mountains, lakes, and rivers I would spend a lot of time at growing up. Not much beyond that though, lol.
i went to a knowledge bowl tournament there once and the high school was really fancy - simone
Having moved from Olympia to Spokane, can confirm the vibes are big different. But hey, you get to celebrate the '74 World's Fair for the next month!
@@polygon Highschool sports is one of the few things this town invests in, so we do have some nice ones. I’m glad you found something to enjoy! But do not feel obligated to return. We understand, we literally call ourselves the INLAND Northwest so we aren’t compared to the other side of the cascades, as we will always lose those comparisons.
As an east coaster, I only know Spokane because of Gonzaga
Dead Boy Detectives also was set in the Pacific Northwest for most the season, specifically Port Townsend Washington.
I found out about this LITERALLY the day the video came out and I'm so mad!!!! - Simone
Lifelong Portlander here. I think that your commentary on the woods is pretty on point, I know I was definitely raised to respect them and all that they hold, but to not stray too far from the beaten path. Also, exploring the old forts and derelict towns/camps growing up was not something that I had specifically pinned as being a PNW thing, but it absolutely makes sense in retrospect. Also, good deflection about the weird stuff that goes on in those places, its better if the outsiders don't know...
Live in the PNW on the Canadian side, I love living inside of an episode of X-Files or Supernatural!
Definitely played in all the Ft. Worden tunnels as a kid. Would climb into small spaces above some of the bunkers' ceilings and slam doors behind tourists to make them think it was haunted
Oh man, thanks for the reminder of how hilariously over-the-top rainy "The Killing" was. Seattle isn't nearly as rainy as its reputation (less annual rainfall than many other major US cities), but it is overcast a lot.
yeah. though i'd hate to think how many more people would move here if we hadn't convinced them it rains all the time.
Twin Peaks’ soundtrack being free to use in videos is such a boon for creators.
Seeing the abandoned WWII bunkers was the Washington-childhood-core shot I needed; shoutout Fort Warden, gotta be my favorite definitely-haunted place to play Capture the Flag
I totally forgot the name of fort warden, as kids my parents took us camping near there almost every year and the bunkers were always a must-see!
it’s from the wet
that unsightly wetness
the wet
This might be a meme answer but there is a lot of cultural and spiritual association with water/wetness and the supernatural/the dead/things beyond human comprehension. Mother ocean always is calling for us to come home…
Holy crap! I took a media studies course from Professor Groening at UW back in 2015. It was an excellent course, and he is an excellent professor. So cool to see him pop up in this, and glad to see he's still teaching at UW. As a Seattle native since 2005 it's great to see some PNW love. And yes, big tech is ruining the vibe up here, so they can go away. But another great video from Simone!
I moved to PNW a year ago from TX and I love the doom and gloom, the rain and subtle uneasiness I feel when I look out into the forest at night
Its best place
Remember, if you're out in the woods and you hear someone/thing call out your name, no you didn't.
One of your best, Simone. This rules.
Port Townsend?! Bremerton here, waving back to you…and giving you a knowing look.
Biggest surprise from moving to the PNW after (but not because of, mind) seeing movies like The Ring and Twilight is learning that those filters aren't as hyperbolic as they might seem.
Sometimes this area just kinda, does that. Especially in early spring.
Polygon video team always kills it with their longform essays. Love it.
These are the types of videos that reminds me why I am subscribed to Polygon. 👍
3:22 I didn't understand Twin Peaks when I tried to watch it. Now that you've explained it to me properly, I think I'm ready to try it again. Cool video!
The greater internet is not ready to deconstruct 'The Seattle Freeze'
"...and british columbia. these regions were relatively late additions to the US." *nervously looks towards border*
One more comment lol. Even though Twin Peaks was one of the earliest “water cooler shows”, the very first was the night time soap “Dallas” in the 80’s. A lot of people that weren’t alive or old enough at that time don’t realize how big of a deal it was, especially during the “Who Shot JR” storyline. It was must-see tv before NBC coined the term, and everyone stayed home on Saturday nights to watch it, and then spent the following Monday mornings at work discussing all the newest events from the show.
I also recommend it to anyone that loves well written drama. Don’t let the “soap” label fool you, yes it has plenty of typical soap opera tropes, but the characters are so intriguing, the stories are so well crafted, and the series as a whole is so perfectly paced that a lot of people would love it even if it doesn’t SOUND like something they would be into lol
As someone who lives in Spokane, thanks for the shoutout! But the image you guys showed is the from the Channel Scablands which are a couple hours west of us here! That region still has some breathtaking landscapes that reveal the geological history of the Missoula Great Flood, but Spokane looks nothing like that! I love living in the PNW and this video is terrific!
Outside of the big cities, there are a LOT of skinheads and neo-nazis in the PNW. We had a few close calls going on tour through there.
it's also worth mentioning that the Oregon state constitution made it illegal for non-white people to move there until 1925, and the language in the constitution surrounding these exclusionary laws was still on the books until 2002, and even when it was finally removed, 30% of Oregon voters wanted to keep it
My mom was such a Twin Peaks fangirl back in the day that she married a guy named Dale and moved to North Bend, one of the towns where it was filmed. Without Twin Peaks, I literally would not exist!
I love the Pacific Northwest music so much. Psychonauts 1&2 and Thimbleweed park are my favourite Pacific Northwest vibe games.
when she said that that buisness campuses prevent folks for engaging with the city, it really made we realize like "woah, if I want the city I live in to be a beautiful city I need to engage in the community" I have never thought about how engaging in a city builds up the city!
I’m debating whether we can claim The Shining as a creepy PNW movie because the real hotel that was the exterior of the Overlook, the Timberline Hotel, is in Oregon
Only halfway through the video, but this comment is the third time so far that there's weird interplay between the Pacific Northwest and New England.
I've lived in the PNW my whole life and I must say it's pretty spoopy
Hey, hawk is pivotal! I agree though, past that. The indigenous peoples here are broadly ignored in twin peaks and elsewhere.
It’s funny how the forests get this ‘dangerous and creepy’ reputation from the media when it’s like the safest natural environment to be in in the country (at least near Seattle). Theres no poisonous spiders or snakes, and it’s a very mild climate with a Mediterranean pattern (short, but very dry summers). Bears, cougars etc are more near the mountains or very isolated areas but you’ll probably never see one near where people actually live.
Add to the setting that PWN is both eerily quiet and terrifyingly noisy. Between the soft pine falls and the fog the forests in the Northwest can be nearly silent. You could walk for miles and hear nothing but water softly dropping into moss, even if you're just a 100 feet away from a main road. Also it's a windy region in a lot of places with wind howling through trees and buildings, angry violent storms, crashing dark grey waves. There are almost no settling noises here. Our architecture is strange, a blend of early age of enlightenment buildings, Chinese construction from the gold rush, 1930's housing boom ranch houses and late 2000's all-glass smart houses. We have train tracks that vanish into tunnels that go to places nobody knows. The afor mentioned gun forts that vanish into blackness, Amusement parks that were built over cold-war bunker complexes. Our loose housing approval tend to allow some exciting and exotic constructions. Every neighborhood has a haunted structure. Every other block has something strange built there.
Add to the people that we're the melting pot's melting pots. We have cultures from every corner of the world assimilated along with their cultures and traditions. We also have a lot of religion. We have Scottish Rite temples, legitimate Druidic Groves, Even a Satanic Temple, and much much more oddball cults and quasi religions. We have more occult book stores than just about anywhere else. The Seattle freeze isn't really a thing but legitimately the PNW kind of does it's own thing and folks who move here really struggle to figure out how we socialize so if you're from the east coast we probably feel a lot like Twin Peaks characters. We also LOVE the Hell out of being weird, to the point that we're technical fans of it. You'll see folks walking around in cosplay in the PNW just because. We organize bar crawls where we dress up like zombies. We do Bookstore crawls, which sounds like an adorable affectation until the bookstore you're quietly reading in suddenly packs full of folks who are trading knowing glances and trying not to giggle. We're weird.
Add to Supernatural, in addition to Bigfoot and too many Indian folklore monsters we have a number of water cryptids from the Chelan Dragon to Giant Crabs. We're also one of the most active areas for UFO sightings. Despite having millions of people in urban areas we have a lot of actual wilderness where no person has touched. We also have a fair amount of crypto-occult stuff going on in our architecture and history because so much of cities like Seattle is built on top of wild-west era construction. Everywhere you look are little markers and cues that a location is actually a different location, buildings designed to create optical illusions, clues and puzzles that make the region even more weird.
Modern cities in the PNW only complicate the issue. You can live in your corporate archology and drive to Costco who whole foods for supplies, but you take a shortcut or get off on the wrong exit, and you're deep in the winding neighborhood roads and dark trees of that old PWN without much warning, where the city gets stranger the closer you look. Nowhere exemplifies this like Portland where going on adventures to the weird is a popular hobby of the suburban residents.
Fort Worden is goated. If you've never played hide and seek in military bunkers you're missing out
shoutout to bellingham and its high per capita serial killer representation
I would love media to focus more on the indigenuous representation in the PNW, and not just through the aesthetic and fashion but also the history and people. There is also creepy mythology in native american cultures.
Simone gives all the effort of BDG and makes it so much more grounded. Great ep!
"it's not that weird" (proceeds to talk about how she went to the backrooms as a child)
As a huge Twin Peaks fan who was just a hair too young to be into it during it’s original broadcast run & caught it during the Bravo reairings a few years later, it’s easy to forget that this utterly bizarre Lynch show wasn’t some cult phenomenon in its day, but a massive mainstream hit. Which still sort of blows my mind.
Gig Harbor resident here! I loved watching this video. I grew up near Spokane and moved to the west side later on. This is a fantastic piece that captures the vibe and "weird" of the western side of WA/OR. Love the east side roast too (it's all true).
I love when there is a Simone video it always improves my day :) also the soapbox bit made me laugh irl thank you
Clicked for Alan, stayed for simone
In Oregon; found a body in the woods when I was a child.
2:23 *sees that about half of those games are my favourite* Thank you for the other half of recommendations, just in time for Steam Summer Sale. :)
I also grew up in the Pacific Northwest but only the stuffy suburb parts, not the cool spooky woods parts >:(
got a good chuckle out of the "Visit Beautiful Spokane" bit
It's fascinating how the PNW™ as a concept is so much the colonists' experience of the PNW. Fear of the unknown and a sense of not belonging? That's unique to the colonial experience. Meeting a sense of unease and distance when it comes to newcomers? Check. And as the last place the colonists would have gotten to geographically it's probably the place in North America with the most surviving anthropological ingigeneity, which uncaring colonists would probably just characterise as the supernatural anyway.
Yes because native Americans were just frolicking and giggling their way around in a region that’s home to temperate rainforests that are shrouded in fog and rain most of the year.
Most Americans crypids are from Native American folktales, and your gonna tell me they didn’t also have a fear and fascination of the unknown and morbid?
Why think when you propagate more self righteous noble savage bullshit all over every comment section like most of the Internet does.
Hey heads up if I’m remembering my Pacific Northwest Indigenous Art class correctly the Seattle Seahawks logo IS in fact problematic as they copied a sacred dance mask without asking (the one in the photograph shown) and the tribe that it originated from (iirc the Kwak’wakawakw who don’t even live in Washington they live in canada) has asked them to alter or change the design to no avail. The thunderbird design could be easily done in a Coast Salish style (tribes that actually live there.) and in fact many have already done this redesign.
Sadly the Indigenous art shown in Twin Peaks and the other examples you gave are specifically Northern Formline styles and totem poles which are not from Washington but from tribes in British Columbia like the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian whose artwork has long overshadowed their southern cousins due to the history of collectors causing members of coast Salish tribes to have to imitate the northern styles to sell their works. Totem poles are not actually part of the culture of coast Salish tribes though story poles have been invented as a recent idea to create similar pieces in their own styles. In fact the totem pole in Seattle was stolen from Vancouver island (though I think the original no longer exists)
Ever since I first watched Twin Peaks, I've had a urge to go explore the forests of Washington.
i think it's funny, as someone from central/eastern washington, how almost all media set in washigton is in approximately 1/4 of the state
Simone always manages to get me hyped for things I never looked into, thanks for the video!
06:47 just a small lil funfact: while I'm sure they did some touch-ups in post, The Ring was shot with different blue tinted camera-filters, to give it its look from the get go.
There was a thorough video about it somewhere on here, but I can't remember by whom.
EDIT: It was by WatchingtheAerial !
PNW isn’t really weird and creepy, it just plays one on TV
yeah, its quite boring here actually
A low-key trope in many of the mentioned media include: the (pacific north)western diner.
Especially as a place of tension between its function as the local public house (full of strange and surly "regulars") and its function as a roadside restaurant for travellers, truckers, itinerant FBI agents, Arizonan transplants...
It only took 4 seconds and I am already SO invested in this video thanks to that editing and Simone's expression! 😅
3:32 That's David Lynch as a child, right?
Right?
Somehow, right?
it's his kid!
Seeing Lighthouse: The Dark Being unlocked memories of playing that game as a kid. Small wonder I got as into horror as I did.
3:00 I’m going to go ahead and pause right now and tell every single person reading this, if you haven’t watched Twin Peaks before, DO IT NOW! It’s one of the most original, peculiar, creative shows ever made, and a perfect entry point to the world of David Lynch.
Speaking as someone who grew up in Washington… my grandpa told me to watch out when peeing in the woods, or the Sasquatch might carry me away to be his forest bride. So… just keep that in mind.
as a non-american, i appreciate the explanation on where exactly the pacific north-west is! i never realized a bunch of these shows and games all took place in the same region
I will agree that Frasier deserves to be mentioned on this list. Forget anything that happened in The Ring, you haven't felt tension until you've seen Frasier try to juggle two dates at the same restaurant on the same night. (Even though Niles TOLD him it was a bad idea.)
It's interesting that Shadowrun, released originally in 1989, primarily set in the Seattle of the year 2050. Fun that they mixed the supernatural with the encroachment of tech-oriented megacorps that far back.
I grew up in Bellingham WA and the scariest stuff was the cost of living and entry level job market.
There should be more media set in the palouse
like bro we got the windows xp hills just in our backyard, and also creepy abandoned farms that are most definitely cursed
I really enjoy your video essays. Keep up the good work!
I always love the personal spin of Simone's vids, it really draws you in.
Whenever simone gets a professor on with no warning i know the vid will be amazing
omg the professor wearing seattle sounders shirt! xD I love him already!
This was a delightful break from watching Twin Peaks and an excellent segue back into watching Twin Peaks, thanks!
Ive started watching frasier recently and i actually recognized that clip you showed! I'm glad my research paid off
Thanks for the Spokane shout out.
Personally, I'd argue any place not in a crowded city can be spooky. Looking at you area surrounding PennWest-Clarion AND Penn Hills Pennsylvania.
If you counted season 3 of Twin Peaks you got 4 more squares on that bingo card: fog, mountains, water, and ghost towns (with how empty the town of TP is in season 3.)
Tbh mountains and water should have been marked anyways with how iconic The Great Northern hotel is with its crashing waterfalls on the cliff side.
You mentioned Alan Wake 2 and summoned me to this video I think xD! This is a great and very fun video!
It's so funny to me, as a lifelong Seattle resident. This area has this reputation for being mysterious and scary, but to me it's home. Northern Exposure was another show that hit on a lot of PNW stereotypes. I will admit though, Twin Peaks did really capture something about the woods around here. Old growth temperate rainforests draped in moss definitely hold a certain vibe. Every time TP would show the trees in the wind...
There’s all the planes, trains, and automobiles preserved at the bottom of the Pungent Sound/Lake Washington. I’m desperate spooky for a game based under the waters of Washington, not just in and around them.
6:35 "It's hard to imagine a version of The Ring not set in Washington."
Boy do I have news for you! The Ring was originally set in Japan, because the original was a Japanese film.
It's pretty isolated, all things considered. Not easy to pass through, not much to pass through *for,* not many cities. They've got broad temperate rainforests that are almost unique on the planet, and some of the most well-preserved indigenous cultures in the USA.
Grew up here my whole life and I can confirm that the eastern sagebrush steppes (of Oregon at least) are definitely scarier on a more rational level. I worked nights west of the Cascades literally in the middle of the woods and never had issues with people, but you'll see folks doing weirdass stuff in the middle of the day in the desert lmao. They tend to be more isolated as a whole out there, just in general.
You missed Shadowrun, the gaming franchise that combines high fantasy, cyberpunk, and shamanic religions, all set in Seattle
I'm kinda intrigued that, in discussing the modern Seattle, there wasn't a mention of Boeing, which does also massively influence, and likely welcomed in, Microsoft and Amazon.
Port Townsend shout-out! Those bunkers are cool as hell
I'd like to add that IIRC the Icelandic delegation was the suggestion of an Icelandic producer; Sigurjón Sighvatsson, the co-head of the production company Propaganda Films.