Just about everyone and their mother has an opinion about the cultural phenomenon that is Serial. It's exploitative! It's gripping! It's just so damn addictive! But, apart from a few minor instances, the real life participants of WBEZ Chicago's true crime podcast have yet to speak out.
Until now.
In an exclusive interview with CBS This Morning, the family of Adnan Syed — the convicted murderer at the heart of the mystery — finally weighed in.
"I wake up as soon as they put it on," said Yusuf Syed, Adnan's younger brother. "And, then I will listen to it. It's different, some days I will be like, 'oh, this is a really great episode' and some days I'll feel so down and depressed."
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Yusuf was joined by his mother, Rahman Syed, who continues to assert her son's innocence in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee.
As for the show's status as an Internet obsession (it's been downloaded and streamed more than five million times), Syed's brother is grateful for the renewed attention Serial has placed on his brother's case, but apprehensive about its place as entertainment.
"These are people, there's real victims, there's a real girl who died."
Watch the interview in its entirety below.