LordanARTS
Channel on YouTube
Hosted, Filmed, & Edited by John Lordan
Associate Producer & Researcher: Christy Stracener

In April of this year, I discovered the LordanARTS channel while watching videos on the Asha Degree case. I was a bit skeptical at first; after watching the glossy productions of Cayleigh Elise (who deserves a review of her own), how could I enjoy a man in a baseball cap talking to a camera for forty-five minutes at a time?

But I couldn’t stop watching. Almost every night when I get home from work, the first thing I turn on is that day’s new LordanARTS video.

Sassy usually joins me, perched on my shoulder on the couch, intently watching the screen. I think she wants to pounce at the bouncing logo, or that the spooky, electronic intro music enchants her.

LordanARTS is a mostly-one-man show hosted by John Lordan. Part of Mr. Lordan’s charm is that he never fails to thank the people who make his show possible, whether that be his associate producer (Ms. Stracener), his wife, or his Patreon supporters.

While researching this review: John Lordan followed me back on Twitter and this is one of the proudest days of my life.

Mr. Lordan puts out new content every day Monday through Friday, a rate which easily puts me to shame. Mondays feature “Johnny Vlogs,” usually his reflections on the world. Once-a-week he posts an “Itchy Mystery” review, in the line of what I do here, but featuring more of a supernatural element than I typically include.

The bread-and-butter of his channel, the two features that bring me back time and time again, are “BrainScratch” and “BrainScratch: Search Light.” The former features either cold cases or more recent cases with puzzling public details; the latter profiles missing persons cases in which hope still exists for the missing’s safe return. Family members have often reached out to Mr. Lordan either to thank him for, supplement, or request videos on their missing or victimized loved ones.

The research that goes into these true crime segments is thorough, gathered by Mr. Lordan, Ms. Stracener, and fans of the show. Each segment features Mr. Lordan going through all the known information in his calm, oddly soothing (given the content) voice before offering interpretations of those facts.

Mr. Lordan is a skeptic in the best way possible; in a world where most choose between the most appealing of “alternative” facts, he allows his views to be altered by the facts. He admits to having been a bit of a conspiracy theorist in the past, seriously entertaining the notion of false-flag operations. He has since publicly announced his move away from those lines of thinking, which demonstrates real intellectual engagement and courage. His given reason for this shift was seeing the pain of mass shooting victims’ families when (usually right-wing) conspiracy theorists claimed the victims had never existed and that the grieving families were government-paid actors.

I think that degree of empathy and concern, above all the many virtues of the programming, is what brings me back to LordanARTS again and again.

5/5 stars: the facts, presented with humor and empathy
1/5 ‘fraidy cats: Mr. Lordan humanizes crime, not sensationalizes
1/5 ick-factor: No post-mortem or crime scene photos, as a matter of principle