The Autistic Horror of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (season 1)

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If you take a random comment from underneath a Jack Stauber short, you will find one of two things. It'll either be a multi-paragraph autopsy on exactly what this 30 second short means, or a snide comment from someone who thinks that first group is wasting their time. Now, my sincerest apologies for being a centrist about this, but I think both these sides are missing the bigger picture. Like, obviously the shit-fuckers telling people to not deeply analyze the work at all are wrong, Like I don't really understand how you could watch something like "Bumblebees are Out", and come to the conclusion that anyone trying to analyze it artistically is on an analytical wild goose chase. It's a weird, uncomfortable, and clearly intentful 30 seconds. I can't imagine seeing it and thinking all the artistic decisions were made on a whim. And even if they were, what kinda spoilsport do you have to be to think taking something that was perhaps made without clear intent and interpreting it for yourself is something to be ashamed about? If you find meaning in something that wasn't intended, it's not like you've been tricked or anything. The art made you feel something, and it's worth atleast trying to articulate why. But, one the other paw, while I commend their fervour, these other commenters' analysis are missing the mark just slightly. They are all essentially long winding justifications for a starkly literal reading of the onscreen events. Even taking it on assumption that these comments are accurate, and "Bumblebees are Out" is indeed a short story about child abuse, the analysis doesn't really end there, does it? Like if you ask me why I love Eraserhead and I replied by telling you it's a story about the anxieties of single fatherhood, I haven't really given you the entire answer. There's execution too. I don't think that Bumblebees are Out is such an uncomfortable viewing experience because if you pay attention, it's secretly about horrific child abuse, or atleast not only that. If I may volunteer my own piece of analysis, I think the hazy and distant tone combined with sudden shifts in narrative are what builds the sensation of dread. The child suddenly knocking over the vase and being sternly told to leave the house is jarring and kind of frightening. Immediately we see her outside, which is another sudden cut. Immediately after, the line "pick a flower" is interrupted with a bee sting with a discordant tone cluster ringing out on the keys, but it's muffled and dissociated. The video is really short, but almost every second is some new startling dark turn, and yet the quiet and fuzzy lo-fi character of both the visual and the music backing track never calls attention to this. The descent is swift and soft, almost matter-of-fact. And even is the viewer is probably aware of the half-minute runtime before they watch, the abrupt ending still comes as a surprise. The titular line is sung, and we are yanked away from the narrative as the background hiss subtly stutters and lurches to a halt as the video ends. Even Jack Stauber's cute little credit at the end seems shorter than normal. The tension and confusion is left hanging in the air forever. We don't learn anything about the relationship between these characters, which makes it confusing to me that so many people would be as eager as they are to fill in a detailed and horrific backstory for them. But after thinking about for a while, it makes sense. Like, I'm pretty sure that the surface-level darkness and confusion isn't lost on these analysts. What I believe has happened is that they took the feeling of dread that's elicited in them, and invented a story that properly matched it. They then proceeded to get the causation the wrong way around, positing that the dark themes of child abuse were what gave it the horrific edge. That's just something I've been thinking about recently. This is a video about "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared". [Jack Stauber - Bumblebees are Out (ft Anna)] *distorted voices, music starts* I have a lot of thoughts about Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, and almost no idea for how I'm going to get through them all. Due to the nature of the source material, we will be talking about really gorey shit, and also for some reason Applied Behavior Analysis. So that's your warning, it's very easy to not watch a YouTube video. Have a nice day. So. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is a 6-part satirical romp through the tomes and trappings of children's education, with a touch of horror. It was originally released as a standalone short film by directing duo Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling, and following it's viral success, it has since spawned 5 sequels and a currently airing TV Show. If you've already heard of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, you're probably dreading the though of sitting through yet another pseudo-intellectual analysis of this goddamn series, and... yeah, that's exactly what's about to happen, I'm very sorry. However, I'm going to go about this in a slightly novel way. See, I'm not satisfied with the many, many analysis pieces that have been made for this. There are a few compelling theories for what this whole thing is supposed to mean, and they all share pretty much the same structure. It is safe to say that if someone on Youtube is purports to be explaining Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, then that video will consist of 30 minutes to an hour of just... scouring the entire series for background details, giving excruciating play-by-plays, and inventing a story based on all that. [Night Mind - Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: Explained] "The yellow guy and the duck begin theorizing on the meaning of time and its actual mechanics, and we catch sign of this." "Anyone watching for the first time would have been thrown completely for a loop by the sudden appearance of a swastika as the E portion of E = MC squared." [Nothing Explained - The Guide to Don't Hug Me I'm Scared] "And something else more puzzling lies there. We see swastika = MC squared." [Wowman - Don't Hug Me I'm Scared EXPLAINED (Part 1)] "Also weird thing to note is that in the duck's explanation, there's, for some reason, this?" "I'm going to choose not to look into this." Because... the series doesn't have a concrete narrative as most would define it. These explainers are basically just treading on water as they connect all the thread-bare plot elements and running aesthetic links into something coherent. And among all this, I have to notice what's missing from these pieces of analysis. Not once am I ever told how this work made them feel, y'know? Like, that definitely sounds pretentious of me, but it's really surprising how much the actual aesthetic experience of the series just seems to... not matter to these folks. Like, you've told me what it means, is it that hard to tell me what it means to you? So, I guess I'll have to take it upon myself to provide YouTube with its first ever surface level reading of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. We're gonna talk about what it is, what is does, how it made me feel, and why. I hope that sounds fun, cause y'know, it is! You can do it yourself if you want, anyone can do it! Now with that said, let us commence. The most well known and quoted scene in the entirety of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared happens in the very first episode, released all the way back when the possibility of a full series wasn't even on the table. The framing device here is that these three colorful dudes are being given a musical lesson in creativity by a singing notepad. And that's honestly all the setup you need. Here's the line. [Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 1] "Go and collect some leaves and sticks, and arrange them into your favourite color." "Blue!" "Red!" "Green!" "Green is not a creative color." This line is, for one, really funny to me in a very direct way. Like, why would green not be a creative color? It's outrageous! It's even set up by the previous line, sung in the same melody and rhyming 'color' with itself. It's like musical deadpan humor. Now, I'm going to try and explain why this moment is so great, and so emblematic of the series' successes when taken as a whole, but as forewarned, I will be getting a bit personal. As I said, I'm explaining how Don't Hug Me I'm Scared made me feel, and why. And 'why' happens to be weird bad shit from my past. *chuckles* I'm sorry. It's not gonna make sense for a bit, but I'll try and bring it around. This is The Incredible 5-Point Scale. It's a book of behavioral guides and practices for the parents and teachers of autistic children. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but that's me. I'm autistic. ...I'm sure this is incredibly shocking news for you. Autism is a very broad and difficult-to-define mental disability. It is a disability, don't get it twisted. In my specific case, it means that I feel emotions too much, I can't wear most clothes because of how it feels on my fur, I need to cover my ears when people applaud at the end of concerts, I randomly lose the ability to speak in full sentences when I'm stressed or wearing a bra, and I felt the need to get my artist to draw me perpetually holding this thing. *velcro scratch noises* It's a stim toy. I was diagnosed relatively early in life, which means I got to spend my puppyhood in Special Ed. And now, I'm going through the tedious and embarrassing process of discovering that I was severely traumatized by the experience. I, Patricia Taxxon, was fucked up by Special Ed. And this book, this slim little manual, was at the center of all of it. The Incredible 5 Point Scale was a omnipresent fixture of my life. I remember my puppyhood as a non-chronological blur, but it's all tinged with this book. The Incredible 5 Point Scale purports to be a new solution for a shared language between teachers and neurodivergent students, boiling everything from complicated social rules to uncontrollable inner emotions down into a numbered scale. For example, some autistic children can have trouble regulating the volume of their voice, like me. But some find it beneficial to conceptualize the appropriate indoor voice as being a '2' voice, and a '5' voice being only for emergencies. However, this wasn't the biggest problem for me as a puppy. I had meltdowns. Which if you didn't know, are involuntary and deeply unpleasant outbursts caused by sensory overload and/or emotional distress. Now you might not know this about me but I am taller than the average dog. Currently I'm 6 foot 6. I wasn't quite that big in grade school, but I was more of a physical threat to the teachers than the other students were. Their solution when I had a meltdown was to just... physically restrain me until I calmed down, usually one staff per limb. During a particularly bad episode, I even had the police called, who then pinned me to the floor and handcuffed me to a chair. I was 6 years old. And then SIA made an entire fucking MOVIE about it! Once they got this book into their hands, however, the method adapted with it. Now, if I got unreasonably upset at something, along with all of their normal trappings, they could just say "Hey, this problem is a 2, but your reaction is a 5." No matter what it was, I always had the wrong feelings. Fucking- Glassman was always taking over. D- Did anyone's teachers make them read Superflex!? Do any of you know who this... smiling dipshit is!? Okay, so Superflex is superhero who was presumably devised by people with names and addresses, who acts as the good counterpoint to an evil cabal of 'unthinkables'. These unthinkables would seek to supernaturally infect the minds of children and cause them to fall into descructive patterns of behaviour. But *chuckles* look at the fucking list. It's just symptoms of being autistic. "I make people get stuck on their ideas." "I distract people." "I get people to invade others' personal space." "I move people's bodies away from the group." "I get people to only talk about themselves." "I give people too much energy." "I don't like people to socially wonder about others." "I make people jump off topic." And NO, fuckers, you irredeemable squirming piles of shit, I'm not being infected by Glassman! ("I make people have huge upset reactions") I am having a normal reaction to the sensory nightmare that is this classroom!! You- I WANT TO DIE! And I handily internalized this shit. It's in here now. Like I remember constantly being told during meltdowns that I was being manipulative, that I needed to learn that crying wouldn't get me what I want. And you know what? The joke's on them. Now I cry everyday, at nothing. So... hm... 'Green is not a creative color.' This line triggers the ever-loving shit out of me. That isn't a criticism. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared reached into my fucking soul and yanked this piece of me out with this line. Like, we've already seen the singing notepad destroy a painting of a clown that poor little Dennis made, and the directing duo is taking maximum advantage of this new anxiety. The line right before the triggering bit is just as important. 'Go and collect some leaves and sticks and arrange them into your favorite color.' This initially reads like an intentionally absurd and impossible to follow activity written as a joke. We're given just a split second to be confounded by it, but then we see the students following along in a way that almost makes sense, writing the color names using sticks. But just as quickly, the rug is pulled again. 'Green is not a creative color.' There was never any hope of following the thread. Understanding is impossible. And that's it. That's me. I feel seen here. Like intentional or not, the aesthetic product here is essentially a perfect encapsulation of what it's like to grow up with Autism. Nothing makes sense. Attempts to understand what's going on are punished. And it all ends with an overwhelming sensory breakdown as everything falls apart. There's five more episodes. Hey all, so it's a new day in the recording studio, and I'd like to clarify that that bit about crying everyday at nothing isn't actually true anymore. Like, it was true when I wrote the script, but then it took me like a year to actually gain the energy and confidence to perform that first part. And that's the main paradox of making emotionally vulnerable art. Like, I can take my very most mental rock bottom as inspiration, but the payoff when I'm actually able to work on something, is when I'm mentally well, and it always feels like I'm lying to you. It's weird! Being an artist is fucking weird, don't do it! From a bird's-eye view, the second installment of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared might seem a bit redundant. But it's worth mentioning that this wasn't even gonna be a series until this episode came out. It is the spiritual debut, in a sense, and it fulfills a lot of the duties that you would expect from that. For one, this episode is where the affects and personalities of our main cast are first formulated and solidified. There's lots of little character moments here, especially in comparison to the first episode. Essentially, Dennis has an infantile affect, Eugene is more inquisitive and mature, and Harry is just really chill. [Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 2] "It's 9:30, there's fish everywhere. Fish everywhere." Then it does the thing that we're all expecting at the end. It's very viscerally harrowing, and... I don't have that much to say about this episode if you couldn't tell. But I'm content with this episode existing simply to solidify the personalities of the cast. If anything it allows us to more smoothly move into the undisputed highlight of the entire series. And that's Episode 3. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3 is a change of pace. It's really the point where the true vision of this thing fully comes into focus. For the first time, the emotional reality of the imagery this series employs is entirely recognized. The main theme here is 'love', but a lot of people have interpreted this particular story as being a statement on organized religion. And, yeah I can see that reading. Here we find Dennis, having just been emotionally and physically separated from his friends while out on a picnic, and he is then approached by a thinly veiled symbol for some sort of pastor or recruiter who aims to ensnare him in this time of vulnerability. This pastor then commences a lesson in the ways of love, but as the lesson goes on we begin to see that this is a strictly prescriptive, and dare I say coded, vision of love. Like, the omnipresent "special one" manifests as an imagined female version of Dennis, representing the illusory sanctity of heterosexual monogamy. The line "He's made for her, she's made for him, and that's the way it's always been" is spoken over the image of two gravestones dated 1906, with crosses for flavor, showing the absurdity of following tradition for it's own sake by way of visual irony. And it's right before our pastor mentions that it's protected with a ring... like, But hardly any of this matters in comparison to the sheer bluntness of the finale, where Dennis is draped in a priestly garb, sat before the god figure Malcolm, and is told that if only changes his name and gleans his brain, he'll never be alone. Alright, I think I'm picking up what you're putting down. Christianity is like a cult. Or rather, the Christian vision of love and relationships is like a cult. They were real subtle about it, but I managed to suss it out anyways, go me. So, if you've watched a lot of analysis pieces for this fucking series, you can wake up now. I'm acutally gonna add something new to this interpretation, because as pointed as the religious imagery is here, it really only shows up right at the end. It seems more like a punchline, like it's couple jabs that they make just to transition into the spooky cult ending. It's kind of insignificant when taking this episode as a whole. So, what's my interpretation? Well, it's more Autism trauma bullshit, I'm sorry. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3 depicts the teaching of social roles as perceived by a confused neurodivergent child. That's what Dennis is doing in the story. He spends the entire short being me. I don't know how else to explain it. I kin the yellow guy from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. Take this exchange: [Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3] "But if you follow me, maybe you will see that love is everywhere." "But what is love? Is it in the sky?" "No, it's a feeling, deep inside." "Because I'm hungry." "No, you're lonely. I can see it in your eyes." "I don't understand." "Don't worry, you will soon!" The recurring head of this jam session is basically just different iterations of this. Dennis placing his feelings, often not fully understanding them himself, and then being lovingly reprimanded and corrected. Here's another one that just kills me everytime. "I love my friends so I give them a hug!" "I made this for you cause I love you so much!" "I love my pet, cause he's a crab!" "I love this tree, and I love this stick, and I love-" "No no no, that's not how it's done!" "You must save your love for your special one." "My special one?" "Every one has a special one." Here, Dennis is actually attempting to observe the patterns around him, just to try and participate, only to again be told he's doing it wrong. Love isn't just the lesson that Dennis is being taught, it's the language it's being taught in. Dennis spends this entire episode completely smothered in the artifice of love. What looks like understanding, acceptance, Empathy. That word is... poison to me. Because just as Dennis is in this short, I was expected to give something that was only given to me in theory. I was told my Autism was an inhibition of my empathy and I needed to learn it. What neither my Special Ed teachers nor Shrignold understand is that their love was merely a projection. An expectation for others in their midst to follow their scripture of expected behavior. This is why Don't Hug Me I'm Scared still gets to me. Like, even as I've grown past it's shock value and broad-stroke satire, the emotional reality of this piece is just... so vivid and close to me personally. That precise feeling of being controlled and strung along by people who don't care to understand you and seem to believe that you can't understand them. That's it. This is the most concentrated form of that hyper-specific feeling that plagues me to this day. I still tear up a little when Shrignold offers to hold Dennis's hand and then flies away, without missing a beat. It's simple, maybe even a little juvenile. But... it's mine. Anyways, it keeps going after that. And I won't pretend that the rest of the series isn't worth mentioning. Quite the opposite in fact. I think that it's around this point that the formal horror elements that were punchlines in earlier installments become a fully fledged aspect of the piece unto itself. The fourth episode is a fan favorite, and it's pretty easy to see why. For one, it is bar none the most quotable episode in this entire series. [Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 4] "Wow! We're all computer-y" "Oh yeah." "Wow." (line looped, repeated 3 times) " 'cause of the computer." But this is also the first time that it's been kinda difficult to explain why it is also shit-your-pants scary. Like, the computer-y guy tells the gang the three things they can do in digital space, and then it begins looping, growing faster and more distorted in a nightmarish escalation. I've described the climaxes of these shorts as being akin to overstimulated meltdowns, but this ending is definitely the most like that. [Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 4] *phone dial tone* *distant sped-up song* *phone dial tone grows louder* *sped-up song* *muffled sped-up voice* *phone dial tone grows louder* *distant sped-up song* *muffled sped-up voice* *phone dial tone grows louder* *distant sped-up song* *loud retro noise* *phone dial tone grows louder* *sped-up song* *muffled sped-up voice* When it comes to the general filmmaking craft of these shorts and their ability to build tension, it seems that it comes with experience. But that's not the only important thing that happens in Episode 4. This is also when the plot starts, or something that resembles a plot. At the end of the episode, Harry just steps away and opens a door outside of the set. There he finds some kind of in-progress simulacrum of the show we've been seeing thus far. And then he fucking dies. Don't worry, he's okay. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 5 is a fucking nightmare. If we're judging this just on its execution as a piece of horror media, then 5 is the absolute highlight. Even more so now than before, the moment when we properly enter the scary part is hard to pinpoint. The whole thing exercises in dreadful tension, boiling underneath until it spews forth in pure darkness and gore. The sense of confusion and chaos that I've talked about before elicited from the dialog is almost weaponized here. The main theme of the lesson is food and nutrition. The steak man and the veggie can give a winding, contradictory, and almost panic-inducing set of guidelines for healthy eating. It's incredible. The way they're able to toe the line with this nonsense lyricism and have it almost make sense but ultimately leave you feeling punished for even attempting to understand it. They have it down to a science at this point, and they still manage to make it funny! [Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 5] "Oh no! Look, it's all broken and on the floor!" *retching sound from the body model* But this time it's even more distressing, because one of the characters is actually trying to push back. Eugene noticed that Harry isn't there anymore, since he left at the end of Episode 4 if you remember, and the series feels different when one of the characters actually begins acting in a way that invites us to identify with their struggle instead of seeming merely unaware of the horror and abuse that's going on around them. aving that happen and yet still being met with the same blithe cruelty we've been seeing this whole time. It... It just hurts, man. Like, this short makes me wanna cry. "Maybe we should wait-" "No!" "before we put it on a plate!" "Enough!" "Or it could be too late-" "I don't wanna do this anymore!" *harsh audio cut* I also like how the series goes from all of the gore, to some of the gore, to just a little bit of the gore, to basically none of the gore, and then this shit happens. It's *laughs* so good. Okay, Episode 6. I have conflicted feelings on this one. Bare with me. We're almost finished. One aspect of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared that I've been giving comparatively little attention to is the plot. It's been mostly like general aesthetic imagery theme analysis over here. And that's because, for the majority of the series, the plot may as well not exist for thread-bare it is. Like, the first status-quo change in the entire series is Harry leaving at the end of Episode 4. He's absent in Episode 5, but is shown to have been attempting to make contact from the outside. This is the only thread of continuity between any of the episodes so far. The thing is, there's another side of the story that I've left out until now. That is the dozens upon dozens of YouTubers who have made their careers on explaining what was going on in the series as it was going on. The kinds of people who are probably in the comments right now, furious that I would dare imply that Don't Hug Me I'm Scared doesn't have that much of a overarching plot. I'm sorry guys, it doesn't. I know about June 19th and Oats. (Hi!) (Cat! Wanna say hi?) (Wanna say hi? *kisses*) (*chuckles* *meow*) Without this very precise context, it's hard to understand the direction that this last episode takes. Or, for that matter, the direction it had already started taking on Episode 5 if you knew what to look for. So, to summarize, the leading theory around when Episodes 4 and 5 came out was that Don't Hug Me I'm Scared literally takes place on the set of a evil television show that runs authoritarian propaganda for children. June 19th, 1955 is important because it's Father's Day, and also within the same year as the launch of Independent Television for London, the birthplace of a lot of children's programming that Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is riffing on. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, allegedly, tells the story of a once authentic fictional show becoming gradually overtaken by corporate interests. In the first episode of the show, a heart is desecrated with glitter. A cake of raw meat is made, eaten by rats in the wall, and paid for in oil. The second episode depicts the existential dread imparted by those who only wish to sell us things. The third one depicts repressive social norms being pushed on children. The fourth one shows us an attempt at forced assimilation, and the fifth details a scramble to pick the pieces up again after one of the group desists and exits the show. There's a nervous energy here. Like, they're really trying to convince the cast that being a fancy and showoff-y food will you get you kicked out of the party. It's there. In Episode 6, we're essentially treated with the textual conclusion of this story. Harry is shown mucking about in the real world after having escaped the set. He's unfulfilled by normal adult life and none of his friends has escaped with him yet, so he symbolically re-enters the space by taking his clothes off and performing a little song and dance, like it's some sort of metaphorical child dimension. There he finds a control station, which generated facsimiles of the teachers we've seen throughout the series, as well as a few more that were probably on the back burner, diegetically. Then he's accosted by this guy. Remember him? He was on screen for a couple seconds back in episode 2 and has been a recurring easter egg ever since. He's behind it all. He's behind this precise and calculated simulacra of children's programming, with premade lessons and songs. Harry does the only thing you can do in this situation, walk up to the comically large power outlet and unplug the machine. [Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 6] *unplug, electronics power down* *jingle played on xylophone* *faint house ambient noises* *paper flap* *faint house ambient noises* *faint house ambient noises* *music from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 1 starts* "What's your favorite idea?" I'm not gonna bully you if this is how you interpreted Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. If you saw that Night Mind video and decided that he was making a lot of sense. That's your prerogative. I just... don't like it as a story. I don't like the interpretation. I wish it has not been canonized here. Now, due diligence. There's still room for interpretation here. It's not like we're handed the story on a platter, all at once right at the end. We're still firmly within the surreal language of episodes prior. There's every possibility that I'm making this out to be more clear-cut than it actually is. However, I think it's reasonable to say that this episode reveals to us that everything we've been seeing up until this point is part of a calculated and villainous scheme, which was always my least favorite of the "Media Theory", as it's called. And I'm very sorry, but I'm gonna talk about my personal life again. Look away. So, a funny thing about that Incredible 5-Point Scale that I only found out about after I revisited it today, is that my teachers were fucking using it wrong! See, fuckface, I'm supposed to be the one that tells you my stress level is at a 5! That was supposed to be ME! That's was supposed to be my way to communicate my emotional state as simply as possible without any room for ambiguity! And you were supposed to LISTEN! I doesn't matter that you think I should be at 2, you were supposed to FUCKING LISTEN TO ME!! *sigh* *blows raspberry* Sure. I'll admit that is a bit self-centered. I just kinda preferred it when the teachers were depicted as being incompetent rather than the recorded files of an evil schemer. But even if you don't have my specific baggage, isn't that atleast a little more interesting? Like... Okay, this is gonna seem like a random thing to bring up, but I just rewatched The Onion's Sex House the other day. It's a comedy-horror webseries poking fun at reality shows like Big Brother. And when I say it out loud like that, it sounds like it would be pretty boring right? It sounds like a premise to a bad Black Mirror episode. I bet you could imagine the kind of parallels they'd draw before you even start watching. Try it! Think through it yourself. This is by The Onion, of course they'd start bringing aesthetic calls to surveillance and our willing participation in our loss of privacy into the mix. Cause, Isn't Reality TV kinda fash-y? Really makes you think! This doesn't even come close to describing the absolute fucking nightmare that is this miniseries, I swear to God. It becomes very apparent very quickly that the inner workings of the titular Sex House are completely unknowable. The contestants aren't provided enough food and their remaining stock rots after a couple days. The upstairs bedroom is taken over by white mold. The show staff don't seem to understand what sex is or what anyone would want it. The primary motif of Sex House is decay and overgrowth rather than master manipulation or technology. And that's really unique, right? It's depicting a system that not only exercises horrifying degrees of power over it's victims, but also acts with no discernible purpose. It's a system that is both scary and not working right. "To call this place evil implies a clarity of purpose that I do not want to attribute to anyone involved." And I find this to be both more prescient to our current society and more effective as horror. So, imagine for a second the last episode of Sex House took a break-neck turn and explained the master plan behind the whole operation, simply removing the desperation and single-minded insistence of the host, granting motive to everything you just saw happened, no matter how absurd. That is the final episode of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. The almost improvisational tone of humor and horror is left to the wayside in favor of this vision where all of these songs we've been hearing were simulacra, taken from a folder by some master dude. ...Let me know if I'm taking that too literally. The earlier episodes spoke to a broader truth about the trauma generated through sheer mismanagement and misunderstanding. It makes more sense too. The humor is clumsy and haphazard. It's almost painfully apparent that these teachers have no idea that there doing, and I think that's a hundred times more chilling. There is infinitely more terror in the naked, literal depiction of overstimulation, of lack of trust in authority, of weaponized misunderstanding, the inevitability of pain, than whatever plot justification you could ever possibly give for these things. In conclusion, there's two kinds of comments on a Jack Stauber video. ... Let's make a third.

Info

Channel: Patricia Taxxon

Views: 757,218

Rating: undefined out of 5

Keywords: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, Theory, Analysis, Video Essay, DHMiS

Id: EZ7cStxqgFE

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 31min 54sec (1914 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 26 2022