The Bizarre Modern Reality of The Simpsons

there is a mobile game called The Simpsons tapped out and as a mobile game there is nothing that special about it you tap the screen and build your miniature Springfield and slowly fill it with miniature Springfield ian's all the while the game funneling you down a carefully constructed rats maze of timed meters steadily depleting premium currency and gambling mechanics that are just subtle enough that you won't notice as they begin to pound on those soft squishy dopamine balloons and I kind of hate this game it's insidious in the way a lot of mobile games are and so why even talk about it well that's because it's helped me answer a question I've been thinking about for a while now why why is the Simpsons still going The Simpsons is still airing with its most recent 30th season seeing the most iconic family of the 90s contorted and shoehorned into the topical issues of 2019 Marge enters a reality TV show Homer gets a job in a self-driving car factory and bars becomes woke I'm not even going to make the argument that these episodes are bad just that they are not The Simpsons and how could they be The Simpsons is now over two decades removed from the IRRI culture and people that made the show what it was and so its left is nothing but an imitation with the TV ratings of this most recent 30th season hitting an all-time low and so why is it still being made well top tale released in February of 2012 and by October of the following year EA made an announcement that the game had generated over 100 million dollars in revenue with that number spiking to 130 million just three months later after which EA grew suspiciously quiet about just how much their little portable gambling simulator making but at over a hundred million downloads several thriving fan communities and the fact that the game has released nine content updates in the first half of this year alone it's a pretty safe bet the tapped-out is still making a lot of money The Simpsons name is still lucrative and what's more despite the fact that season 30 was one of the lowest reviewed seasons in the show's history it's still pulling in viewers by the millions and as long as that viewership remains higher than Fox's other shows and those profits stay consistence Fox will keep syndicating the show and The Simpsons will be trapped in its zombified money-making form and this unfortunately is the sad modern reality of The Simpsons friends thank you for joining me today if you enjoyed this video and would like to help support this channel okay no no no that's not the end of the video and we all know it's not see there's this other side to the Simpsons in 2019 one that is weird and fascinating and exists in a world entirely outside the scope of the show and to really talk about it we first need to cover the topic of memes look I swear to god this is going somewhere the term meme was originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene which described memes as comparable to genes except cultural instead of biological a meme could be anything from a style of painting to a composition of a song to even an ideological standpoint any idea or concept that could be passed from one person to another and just like genes would evolve and mutate as they did and it was a beautiful concepts before the the Internet ruined it but what the internet did do was allow for now even very small niche ideas to travel great distances and find large audiences anything can now become a meme a screencap of Naruto a poorly thought-out raid on an armed government facility or a clipped piece of animation from an old TV show and that's exactly what happened with the Homer Bushmen a piece of animation intended as part of a larger narrative but that was isolated compressed and uploaded to social media taking on new meaning as a visual expression of embarrassments with that meaning only evolving further as different people took the meme and changed whose use has become so widespread that even made it back into the TV show itself what's so curious about the Simpsons however is that the Homer Bush meme is not the only time this has happened not by a long shot people have been taking the Simpsons and re appropriating them for decades even long before the internet the Simpsons having a rich history of bootleg merchandise but what the internet did do was took that process and hyper-charged it anyone can now make their own version of the Simpsons and upload it and in doing so creating an entire online subculture of people repurposing the Simpsons in strange and far leading ways and this friends is what I want to talk about today the bizarre world of what The Simpsons has become on the Internet and to start I want to talk about a little blog called scenic Simpsons scenic Simpsons is dedicated to capturing quiet empty still shots from around Springfield which it does by screen grabbing moments from old Simpsons episodes and uploading them to Instagram most of these images don't even feature any characters and focus on very minor environmental details a fluorescent exit sign a still shot of homers hammock in the backyard or a nearly empty break room at the nuclear power plants and when you isolate these moments like this something really interesting happens the way we look at them changes it makes you think about the town of Springfield in a way you'd never would from just watching an episode and lets you appreciate the minimalistic and oddly surreal art style of the show there's also this really somber atmosphere to them you know these locations you've seen them dozens of times but without the yellow pop of characters they feel empty and cold like something's missing creating this nearly surreal sense of loneliness and nostalgia if that sounds nice it really is and yet this account is followed by hundreds of thousands of people buts where things start to get a little crazy is that scenic Simpsons is just one of dozens of these accounts on Instagram there's also existential Simpsons surreal Simpsons psychedelic Simpsons open-mouthed Simpsons squinty-eyed Simpsons worst Simpsons faces and you get the idea all of which capture moments from old Simpsons episodes and re-upload them in ways that are funny and strange and weirdly beautiful as strange as Simpsons Instagram is this is just a fraction of how weird and obsessive and prevalence the Simpsons has become on the Internet there are other memes on an entirely different level take for example the phenomenon of steamed hams in late 2017 something really strange started to happen people started to take an old clip from The Simpsons and changing it the clip was from season 7 episode 21 titled 22 short films about Springfield's one of which told the tale of Principal Skinner having his boss supernintendo Chalmers over to his house for lunch only for Skinner to ruin that lunch and attempt to hide this mistake by passing off Krusty burgers as his own patented family recipe steamed hams it's a classic Simpsons bit the comedy of the scene coming from Skinner's increasingly ridiculous lies coupled with Chalmers absurd willingness to believe those lies happening in there karora borealis aurora borealis at this time of year at this time of day in this part of the country localized entirely within your kitchen yes mash it no but then 14 years later in the early 2010s things started to get weird different fan-made versions of steamed hams begin appearing online the meme slowly gathering momentum before exploding in late 2017 when hundreds of versions of steamed hams begin to float the internet but these uploads were strange and different people were now taking the entire scene recreating it either altering the events of the story through editing or reanimated the scene entirely in completely new videos there are so many of these videos esteemed times but it's minecraft esteemed times but it's a dating sim Miss Teen times as a surreal 3d animation or this there is always a skinner there is always a Chalmers there is nearly always a lie over a ruined roast but everything else was malleable but among the best of these videos something really interesting starts to happen and to talk about what I want to discuss a little video called steamed hams but it's edited in this style of near potometer Nier automata if you're unfamiliar is a Japanese or PG slash character action game that has this distinct muted visual style and unusual approach to storytelling covering the same narrative from the perspective of it's three different protagonists and encompassing themes like the futility of existence and the raw existential dread of just being a live it's not the kind of material that should mesh well with a 90s cartoon sitcom but something really special happens in this video like nearer were shown the events of the evening first from Chalmers perspective and then Skinner's BOTS the video uses this shift in perspective to do something really interesting an entirely new scene is added for Skinner's trip to Krusty Burger this is a moment that happens off-camera in the original episode but is now depicted with this near esque tech sequence as he narrates the experience of standing under the fluorescent lights of the fast-food restaurant and describes his grow anxiety over the evening as every second stretches on for an eternity and even exploring the guilt he feels over lying to Chalmers stating that he feels like he's being punished like he's trapped in his own personal purgatory I'm aware at this point I'm basically describing my emotional reaction to a Simpsons shitpost and I could be alone in that but this new scene combined with the addition of near somber music and muted color palette had me feeling genuinely bad for Skinner making it apparents how much this evening meant to him as well as his despair as it falls apart a perspective I never had from the dozen or so times I'd watch that original episode and I think this raises a really interesting idea and that is the potential for this kind of fan made contents to explore this world and these characters in a way that's not possible in the original show the world of The Simpsons is one designed to reset every 22 minutes whatever happens over the course of an episode there's a status quo that must be returned to by the end and that's how the show is able to continue it's infinitely repeatable cycle of episodes Bart will forever be 10 years old Homer will always return to his job at sector 7g and outside real-life events such as the deaths of the voice cast the world of The Simpsons will remain frozen in time as it has done for 30 years with the stories of that world leading to remain palatable to a primetime audience what this means is that there is a glass box surrounding these characters there is only so much of them we can explore in a 22-minute repeatable episodic format and this problem compounds with each new season as every possible character motivation and plot thread becomes exhausted to the point that these characters start to feel like parody of themselves and what I think special about fan-made contents like beat Nier automata video is it breaks the characters free from that format and now any number of subjects can be explored like the weird existentialism of being Seymour Skinner or even letting these characters address their feelings of being trapped in an infinitely repeatable worlds and it's here where I think some three powerful stories can be told one in particular being the webcomic Marge Simpson anime Marge has always been this vaguely tragic figure of The Simpsons she's this Bryce loving person who's always trying to see the best in those around her but is also someone who spent her life surrounded by people who do not understand or appreciate her she is creative and talented but becoming pregnant with Bart at an early age she's had to leave those ambitions behind and dedicate herself to the maintenance of her family and now at 36 years old she has no life outside the Simpsons house no close friends or anyone she can really talk to there's a sadness to Marge that is so ordinary and human and while the show does occasionally touch off this side of her the need for the world to return to its status quo as well as the need for a certain amount of levity means she will always be trapped in this existence that makes her unhappy and Marge Simpson's anime frees her from this cycle through a beautifully surreal sequence of watercolors it explores the isolation and loneliness of Marge even recontextualizing major moments in her life like the death of Maude Flanders which in the show is a moment mostly played for laughs but for here it's depicted as Marge losing the one person in her life she could really relate to Maude's death serving as the tragic trigger for Marge to go on an existential journey of self-discovery before she obliterates the world of Springfield in a massive blast of emotion and going on to find new happiness with her children Marge Simpson anime is [ __ ] beautiful breaking open the character of Marge in a way that would never be possible in the show itself and what's so cool is where as memes like steamed hams or the Homer Bush gif repurpose moments from the show directly by altering the clips themselves fan works like Marge Simpson's anime is that same Mema fication I'm so sorry it's the only word I can think of only taken one step further discarding the format of the show entirely and repurposing just the characters themselves meaning that the ideas and stories these characters can be used to explore are limited only by the author's ability to draw write them and through this the Simpsons can become really anything depressing Simpsons comics examines its creators feelings of anxiety loneliness and nihilism but gives them this light-hearted and relatable twist by conveying those feelings through the characters of The Simpsons The Ballad of dark Homer imagines an alternate reality world of The Simpsons where Homer has been transformed into a monstrous shadow of his former self and the effect its had on the people who loved him and the illustration collection Springfield on real estate puts the focus on the town of Springfield itself showing it indeed dead quiet of early morning or late at night creating this beautiful sense of atmosphere and place as if this is how the town would look when the cameras stopped rolling and it's no longer just the backdrop to a sitcom there is so much deeper we could go with this especially if you want to dive into the weird world of bootleg Simpsons scenes which cover everything from crude re-imaginings of classic Simpsons episodes to psychedelic reinterpretations of these characters to the just baffling scenic Simpsons hentai which combines pencil sketches of scenic Simpson with gente okay this is probably too far we are officially in too deep to me by far the most staggering impressive and ludicrous of The Simpsons fanworks comes in the form of Bart Kira on the surface it's hard to imagine two animated properties more different than the Simpsons and Kira one being a satirical dismantling of the American family the other being a dystopian exploration of mass destruction rooted in Japanese history and yet there are some curious historical parallels between the two both have their first American release just over a week apart from each other in December of 1989 both went on to redefine perceptions of what animation was as well as the kinds of people that could enjoy it and thirty years later both are still seen as beloved cultural touchstones still being celebrated today but no celebration of either individually could ever match the size scale and scope of Bart Kira which takes the over 2,000 pages of the Akira manga and redraws them up with the characters and locations of the Simpsons and just to be clear here I do mean every single page it took 768 artists two years to complete part Kira each one taking a piece of Akira and redrawing it through the lens of The Simpsons but each in their own distinctive visual style with the art of Brad Kira swimming beautifully from page to page one moment it could have all the pop and charm of a Saturday morning cartoon and then the next it transforms into a dense meticulously detailed rendering of a graphic novel the cartoonish style of The Simpsons contrasting is so beautifully against Akira's themes of mass destruction and dystopia there's something so cathartic and sad about seeing the landmarks of Springfield obliterated in the cat wisdoms of Akira with the characters of The Simpsons themselves inheriting new meaning as they take up the roles of the cast of Akira Principal Skinner for example is recast as the kernel and it just feels so right having Skinner as the last man alive fighting for peace and order in a world that is falling apart around him or Milhouse as Tetsuo with the hilarious and tragic 10 year old now using his cataclysmic psychic abilities to take revenge on the world that has been so cruel to him I loved this one page in particular I don't know if I've ever seen something that so purely captures the loneliness and vulnerability of just being Milhouse Bart Kira is bizarre and compelling and unlike anything else I've ever experienced it's a weird and hypnotic testament to two of the most impactful and iconic pieces of animated media ever and transforms both to create something that feels so new and special and what's more it's all available for free online which just like everything else I talked about this video I will link in the description below we've covered a lot today but there's one more thing I want to talk about and I leave this to last because to me this more than anything else we've discussed reflects the modern reality of the Simpsons and it is the surreal worlds of Simpsons wings on October 27th 2015 a video was uploaded to vine that layered an old season seven clip of The Simpsons with the track resonance from the artists home [Music] and whatever it was something about this six second video just captivated people it went on to be viewed 31 million times and over the course of the following year would spawn an entire sub-genre of YouTube videos with different people layering ambient vaporwave mixes over old clips of The Simpsons BOTS people taking the process a step further and creating entire music videos by heavily altering these Simpsons footage itself adding integrated VHS effects to make the animation feel aged and nostalgic or breaking apart these video clips entirely to create these surreal dreamlike experiences and these friends are some of my favorite videos on the Internet [Music] [Applause] [Music] my favorite of these videos do something really special and that is use old episodes of The Simpsons to piece together their own distinct narrative and in particular the videos of you seen hues whose 2010 black sky collages old clips of Milhouse to create this really sweet and sad coming-of-age story likewise the video ded Bart builds this horrifying alternate reality where a deranged Ned Flanders forms an unseemly relationship with bars before murdering him and the video crisis may be my favorite of them all sees Homer trapped in this gorgeously surreal but sad existence as he becomes lost in a world of loneliness infidelity and isolation and it's in this video particularly where I think Simpsons wave starts to touch on something deeper there's a feeling of sadness to a lot of Simpsons wave which show their characters as confused and depressed even frightened struggling as the world around them distorts and becomes alien and they lose control of both themselves and their reality and there's something so appropriate about that as if these characters have lost their place in time and now suffer in this strange nebulous existence and I think in reality that's what's happened The Simpsons has lost its identity the lives of these characters have been artificially extended and distorted to the point that they no longer have any meaning and what I think is so beautiful about these videos is that that's how they feel these characters feel lost like they no longer know who they are or why they exist and in showing this they so perfectly captured the place of Simpsons it's hard watching what happened The Simpsons this is a show I cared a lot about a show that was a huge part of me growing up and it helped develop everything from my sense of humor to how I interpret media to even personal stuff like coming to terms with feelings of isolation and loneliness or making me realize that I will someday die I think that was a lot of people's experience with the Simpsons and why so many years later people are still so passionate and powders we miss that old show we miss what the Simpsons used to be and I think that's what makes what the Simpsons has become in the internet so beautiful when Matt Groening created The Simpsons it wasn't a media empire it wasn't a global phenomenon or a merchandising machine it was just one struggling cartoonist guttural reaction to the sanitized idealized depiction of the American family and so he took that depiction and distorted it changing it and giving it new meaning and in doing so creating something so beautiful drew Bell yes and powerful that 30 years later were still talking about it were still drawing it and were still making videos about it and that to me is the beautiful thing about Simpsons wave or Marge Simpson's anime or Bart Kira when I read these comics or watch these videos I can feel that there's an entire community of people out there who still care about the Simpsons the same way I do and so while there's still the license series with its mobile game and so identity there's also something else there's the online community of people still expressing their love for the classic show in countless strange and limited ways and to me this is where the Simpsons is on this is the Buzard modern reality of The Simpsons friends thank you for joining me today I have two quick announcements one I'm going to be a guest at caño itchy and Casal Germany from the 6th to the 8th of September I'm doing a ton of panels and signing so if you're in the area be sure to follow my twitter for more info I will also be guesting a Q Khan in Belfast Northern Ireland from the 30th of August to the 1st of September Q Khan is a Khan I go to every year and honestly it's one of my favorites so do check it out a giant giant thank you to my patrons for this video this is one of those videos that would be completely impossible without their support so honestly thank you for giving me the ability to do exactly the kind of things to want to and a very special personal thank you this week to Kourtney James Clark Matthew peachy Lydia Falls L or whole of few words and doctor beep PhD as ever you can find me hosting B let's read a boss with your game podcast or on Twitter at PI patch wolf friends take care of yourselves and I'll see you next time

Channel: Super Eyepatch Wolf

Views: 1,826,149

Keywords: The Simpsons, Memes, Steamed Hams, Simpsons Wave, Bartkira, The Fall of The Simpsons, how it Happened, Tapped Out

Id: 8er83V2OJ1o

Length: 29min 45sec (1785 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Wakewokewake]

As I mentioned on youtube, I realised something form this video,

I don't know anyone who watches new simpsons, or has watched new simpson for years.

I've seen people mention new episodes but its never more than a footnote, its always just 'oh they did X' and leave a groan at that at most, we talk about old episodes and meme about the old stuff, but no-one talks about the new stuff.

Which is actually really bizarre, its like simpsons and its current fans are isolated from the world.

[u/Meltdown548]

Simpsons becoming it's own language of quotes and characters is the best thing that has happened to it in ages.

[u/LegendOfParasiteMana]

Just from the font I know it's an EyepatchWolf video

[u/Doughdboy]

Joho is at it again.

[u/striderhoang]

Reminds me of weebsimpsons on twitter as a microcosm of isolated Simpsons repurposing.

At this point it was never in doubt that The Simpsons would be forever. Not while crotchety old fans quote and meme Simpsons regardless of context. My dating profile talked like Troy McClure, if my match doesn’t know Troy McClure get out of here

[u/fighunter]

Maybe it's just me but that Marge Simpsons anime one just seems like someone's lesbian ship fic that he read too much into.

...Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong.

[u/Theproton]

I feel with Simpsons Wave, he should have touched upon the existence of Vapor Wave as the start of this genre of music that was heavily fuled by 80's anime, diluted dark colors that feel at place in an old Miami show, remixed (older) modern Jazz, heavy used of spoken dialogue to convey mood, and a strong emphasis on visual components. And its something that would have never existed without the internet and the current rampant cases of depression among the youths of today and the desire for many to find direction in their life by admiring the past through this moody nostalgic, but wiser viewpoint.

Vapor Wave, and its spin-off genres of Lo-Fi, future funk, etc, are all genres of music that reconstruct animation and old songs into something beautifully melancholic and often go hand in hand with their visuals.

Those 24/7 Lo-Fi Hip Hop & Chill channels would not be the success they are today without the visual components.

And Simpsons Wave while and early progenitor of that, is not a genre as much as it is a sub genre that substitutes the anime visuals or the movie sound clips for something that wholly Simpsons esq. I guess in a weird way there more of a sense of familiarity with these characters.

[u/Rivet94]

Uh ... guess i know what to do my master degree thesis on now . ( and i don't mean stealing the video just the concept of long term serialized storytelling and narratives in the modern age , flaws , communities and evolutions )

[u/ice_dune]

So the Simpsons was at its peak viewers during it's first season and has gone down ever sense and even at it's lowest is still one of foxes most viewed shows? Damn that says a lot about how popular it was in the 90s