This American Life on Vox

If you’ve ever been listening to This American Life while in a car with a friend, you know the drill — you’re captivated by the stories of the lives of ordinary people, and it’s inevitably a jumping-off point for your own conversations. “Oh, that reminds me of the time…” and pretty soon Ira Glass has gotten you sharing a long-forgotten tale with your entire carpool.

That experience, of course, is just what we’ve found with Vox. The everyday moments from the lives of those we love, those whom we’re curious about, or even those we’ve never met serve as inspiration and motivation for sharing our own stories.

Every once in a while, a Question of the Day on Vox might resonate with your entire neighborhood, and there’s a sense that everyone’s on the same page, maybe even literally. That uncanny sense of shared experience is what Ira Glass and the This American Life team have excelled at capturing better than anyone else. It is, simply put, the most arresting example in today’s media of the power of individuals telling their personal stories in their own voices.

This American Life began, of course, as a radio show, one of the most distinctive and compelling ones on the air. And recently, when the show came to TV on Showtime, a whole new audience began to discover why the show is so widely acclaimed. Even the skeptics who thought such a distinctive radio show could never translate to the visual medium have been bowled over.

Which leaves only one piece of the puzzle missing: The community. Because American Life fans are nothing if not passionate, So today, we’re proud to point not just to the official This American Life blog on Vox, but to the brand-new This American Life group on Vox.

The creators of the Showtime series will be sharing insights into the show with the Vox community, but more importantly, they’ll be asking all of us on Vox to answer questions or respond to themes that are central to each week’s episode.

We’re excited to watch the community come to life — there’s finally a way for everyone in the American Life audience to participate in those conversations that spring up around the show.

Though Vox means different things to different people, “vox” is, of course, the Latin word for “voice”. What Ira Glass and the team behind This American Life have always done is let people with amazing, compelling stories share their voices with the world. Starting today, all of us on Vox can join This American Life in the conversation.