Overhearing the Unheimlich Home: Power and Proximity in “Shut Up Little Man!”

Hannah Spaulding

About this exposition

This article explores the relationship between home and the auditory through an examination of the “Shut Up Little Man!” recordings – secret tapes made by two men of their next-door neighbors’ fights. These recordings documented the vocal performances of an unheimlich domesticity, marked by poverty, violence, and what would become iconic phrases. Embraced as comedy, the tapes were traded and shared, gaining subcultural fan followings and broader popular cultural impacts. The “Shut Up Little Man!” recordings thus offer crucial case study of the permeability of the domestic soundscape, the struggle of ownership over sounds at home, the ethics and politics of eavesdropping, and the intervention of media technologies in these dynamics. Ultimately, this article argues that the tapes’ creation, power, and popularity stem from a desire to listen to the unheimlich home of the urban poor – a desire that underscores social distance, invites identification, and reminds us that proximity does not mean intimacy.

type	research exposition
date	02/11/2021
published	02/11/2021
last modified	02/11/2021
status	published
share status	private
copyright	Spaulding
license	CC BY-NC-ND
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1407092/1407093
published in	Journal of Sonic Studies
portal issue	22. Issue 22

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Overhearing the Unheimlich Home: Power and Proximity in “Shut Up Little Man!” (2021)

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