Local 58 (series)

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***Local 58*** is a horror web series created by cartoonist Kris Straub. The series is a spin off of Straub's *Candle Cove* creepypasta. Currently hosted on the YouTube channel **LOCAL58TV**, each video in the series is presented as footage of a fictional public access television channel located in Mason County, West Virginia named Local 58, with the call sign WCLV-TV, created in the late 1930s, which is continuously hijacked over a period of decades between with a series of broadcasts of ominous and surreal videos. While the series does not appear to have a continuous plot, nearly every episode seems to include cryptic references related to looking at the Moon or at the night sky, as well as references to the in-universe organization known as the Thought Research Initiative (TRI).

The series makes use of video and audio degradation to add to the realism and unsettling nature of each video. The series describes itself as "analog horror", a term that has since been used as a name for a niche subgenre of similar VHS-themed found footage web series that were either inspired by *Local 58* or use a similar style and techniques to the series. The series was initially hosted on the now-defunct web domain local58.info in 2015 and was later uploaded onto YouTube in 2017 and 2018. The series has since gained a cult following.

A website called **local58.tv** was created in September 2021 as an extension of the main storyline. The website features a "LookBack Web Archive" similar to the web archive service Wayback Machine, and features numerous Easter eggs and plot points for an associated alternate reality game that offers further detail on *Local 58*'s continuity.

## Episodes

*Local 58* consists of nine episodes, each ranging in run time. The episodes were originally uploaded to a separate website, however, as of late 2018, all episodes are now uploaded to YouTube.

## Development and reception

A television station called "Channel 58" first appeared in Straub's creepypasta *Candle Cove*, which took the form of an Internet forum thread about a bizarre children's program of the same name airing on the network. The show featured a human girl named Janice imagining to be friends with pirates played by string marionettes. The villain was a skeleton known as the "Skin-Taker" who wore clothing made from the human skin of dead children. Over the thread the details of the show grow more disturbing, until the users remember that it contained an episode of all of the pirates manically screaming as Janice inconsolably sobbed. The story concludes with a user stating that when he asked his mother in a nursing home about the show, she claimed that he would tune the television to static and watch the screen. Straub has confirmed on Reddit that the channel is the same one featured in the web series, and that the call sign WCLV is a reference to Candle Cove ("CLV = CandLe coVe").

Straub has identified themes of the series as "stillness, distrust of safety warnings, misuse of mass perception, parallel science that arises from unexamined bad intent, dogmatic thought."

Straub used iMovie to create the first two episodes of *Local 58* and Final Cut Pro X for the other episodes. All of the assets used in the series either come from public domain stock media (for example, the "2000's" Local 58 music, a stock track called "Entering Graciously") or created by Straub himself using Clip Studio, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash.

Since its initial debut, *Local 58* has inspired the creation of other series with similar themes, including *Channel 7*, *Analog Archives*, *Eventide Media Center*, and *Gemini Home Entertainment*.

As of December 23, 2021, *Local 58* has over 483,000 subscribers and more than 17,167,673 views with just nine videos.

A subreddit dedicated to the series was created on August 8, 2016, and currently has 23,700 followers as of May 1, 2022. Many fans of the series have created theories as to the possible meanings or overarching narrative of the videos, both on the subreddit and on YouTube. Straub himself has answered some questions about the series on the subreddit.

The emergency alert shown in *Contingency* has been compared to the 2018 Hawaii false missile alert.

On July 4, 2022, YouTube changed the rating of one *Local 58* episode, "Show for Children," from 18+ to "for kids." Despite Straub's attempts to change the rating back and to contact YouTube via in-site and other social media support avenues, as of July 5 the rating has still not been reverted. This has sparked renewed discussion about Elsagate and other concerns around YouTube's moderation algorithms.