"There will never be another Petscop..."

thank you to the patrons for supporting the channel hey everyone this video was written by a friend of mine they wrote a whole script while I was working on a different video and were like here have it I've included some of my own thoughts in here and edited a little bit but I just didn't think I could take credit for it and uh I hope you enjoy [Music] analog horror a niche found footage sub-genre that was suddenly everywhere a style that was easy to replicate VHS filters and text on black backgrounds born from half-remembered emergency broadcasts and documentaries though this genre was only founded in as early as the 2010s something strange was already happening after an explosion of popularity in 2021 people began saying it was dying why was this is there an originality problem when it comes to analog horror and what makes one series original and the others a copy well to better understand we're going to need to look to the Past not too far just to 2017 to a series that inspired a similar found footage sub-genre we're going to need to talk about petscop [Music] petscop was one of those blind siding pieces of media that come from nowhere assemble a story in ways no one had tried before and leave a hole when they disappear petscop similar to most analog horror series is an online horror web series told through YouTube it tells the story of someone named Paul who finds and plays through a copy of the unreleased game petscop but petscop isn't a real game petscop is fictional and yet the story is told through an entirely believable player uploading footage of this fake game to YouTube the believability of the series helps amplify the impact of its horror as disturbing Revelations are found in game there's no suspension of disbelief to protect the viewer after all the game looks real I've actually covered this series previously if you're interested in learning more about what happens in petscop or you don't want it spoiled out of context check out this video while it won't really cover its plot in this video I may reference some minor spoilers for now I want to focus on pet scop's impact its Legacy petscop wasn't made in a void technically it isn't the first series to use this fake game format Creepypastas the online equivalent of urban legends beat petscott by a decent margin polybius a fictional subliminal messaging arcade game spread by urban legends in the 2000s garnered interest with images of fake machines and gameplay in 2007 Rogue synapse brought the game to life with a recreated PC port and arcade machine of the game invisible games a 2007 fiction blog written by Catherine M Valente was most famous for writing about kill switch a game that would erase itself if you died or finished the game causing it to become lost media and maybe most famously Ben drown an ARG created by Alex Hall which used convincing ROM hacks to tell the story of a ghost haunting a game of Majora's Mask other haunted games with their own gameplay and screenshots would soon overtake the Creepypasta genre following its popularity but original non-existent games were some of the earliest entries in the Creepypasta genre the haunted game genre was learning but not all of these old series hold up to time some rely heavily on the use of shock imagery or jump scares that were not always executed well and so over time people moved away from Creepypastas and then petscop came out in 2017. petscop took a lot of inspiration from Creepypastas and urban legends and it starts off much the same way as them person finds a weird game records footage uploads it online they hear about a glitch they can use to unlock hidden gameplay dark themes are present in the footage and a once Happy Children's game turns disturbing however petscop has an edge over early Creepypastas it uses Horror in a subtle tension-growing way rather than relying on more blatant ways to elicit scares not to mention the completely bewildering and oddly poignant story a lot of people were enamored by this approach to telling Horror Stories the level of effort put into the series to convince viewers it was real was impressive and no one knew who was behind it while it was running adding to the realism petscop's videos attracted millions of viewers and when the series ended people were left desperate for something to fill its void so the TGIF genre was created and no it doesn't stand for thank God it's Friday the game I found some of the first words uttered by Paul in the first episode of petscop capture the spirit of this genre some of the more famous ones being catastrophe Crow diminish illusion lock and some less well-known early entries like Dark Castle Mister Maker beta 95 and then direct parodies like petscop 277 and Sheriff domestic tgifs had a premise that was pretty easy to understand it had to be footage of a fake game typically with a narrator uploaded to an online video website like YouTube some had ARG elements others leaned more into telling an interesting story with minimal audience interaction however despite pet scop's success you might not even be familiar with the TGIF sub-genre of web horror and there's lots more series I haven't even mentioned so why isn't it more popular why aren't there more series like petscop well after petscop ended it left some seriously big shoes to fill I mean have you seen the guardian's feet since petscop was so fresh in everyone's mind and the community really wanted there to be more pet scop it was inevitable any entry into the TGIF Community would be compared against petscop mostly to its detriment and it's true a lot of these series took heavy inspiration from petscott but they were expected to be as original and Polished right out the gate the community wanted a challenge to unravel something that built a slow burn of dread but wasn't just confusing something realistic looking unique that wasn't chock full of unity assets it had to feel similar to pet scop in some ways and yet different in other ways neither of which were well defined and for a fresh Community fans weren't willing to wait for the years of development a well-executed story might demand while Tony the creator of petscop had been developing the story of the series for many years before it ever saw the light of day so in this early stage there were a lot of just alright attempts to bridge the gap in content with a highly critical fan base this created some conflict game creators began to parody each other's works or the perceived reductive nature of the medium some in a lighthearted way others more mean-spirited there was a consensus that nothing would ever be as good as petscop it was a one-time deal everything else was just copying it a poor substitute or a good attempt I'd like to return to this idea of copying a series is it possible to start off with a copy of a piece of media and end up with something inventive can we use the exact same premise in format and take away a completely different message well there's two series that spawned out of the TGIF Trend that I think fit this bill and interestingly they both start off as parodies of petska Let me first introduce you to sheriff domestic foreign Sheriff domestic started as a fairly straightforward parody of petscop it started in October of 2019 and the description reads this is the one game I found in my dumpster a long time ago this is here to show what's inside this rare game this channel isn't taking itself seriously off the bat and begins as basically just a parodied version of events that we see in petscop I'll run through the videos but I'd recommend you watch the share of domestic videos yourself and if you care about spoilers for the original Pet Stop probably watch the original pets cup or my video about it information about Sheriff domestic was first revealed in a Reddit post by user bro leskowitz a parodied version of Paul leskowitz the Reddit user who initially posted about petscop the title of the post reads videos of mysterious unfinished PSX game from 1997 called Sheriff domestic there's something hiding in it with a link to the channel in that post so what was hiding within this game let's find out together but first I need to take out my trash [Music] whoa [Music] just like pets got before it Sheriff domestic starts with the PlayStation 1 booting up the developer splash screen reveals that the game was created by Dave mentioned before taking us to what might be the most badass title screen in the entire TGIF genre the game begins with our character driving down the road the rear view mirror revealing that the driver looks oddly familiar the opening Exposition vaunted in Comic Sans reveals the premise of this game you're driving to your first day of work your job being to catch criminals which I guess are crying criminals prompted to select a name from a bizarre list with such examples being lettuce idiot loser toilet and Daddy Cool the player fails to select the far more average name of Bob and is instead stuck with the name [ __ ] which I'll be shortening to DH for the most part in an attempt to not get struck down by YouTube taken to the Overworld we see this crude art style continue revealing the character to be a poorly drawn copy of the Guardian from petscop and this really reveals what this series will be in the beginning and in many ways continues to be a goofy parody of petscop following similar plot beats Concepts and visuals but with intentionally crude and Goofy execution it's important to note though that there is clearly a lot of skill and effort Behind these videos the Aesthetics of crudeness are betrayed by the clear effort and skill needed to put this whole thing together and accurately replicate the PlayStation 1 style and the music just bops the wacky sense of humor this series will have is almost immediately revealed after a phone sends DH on his mission to catch the criminals we see a sign give the helpful Pro tip of you can move with the controller also you can walk as well and then there's the collectible discs [Music] foreign [Music] s continue as DH arrests a Criminal by completing a simple movement puzzle mirroring the catching of pets in petscop for Sheriff domestic this also includes a screen which shows the cot criminals in cages after sneaking past the tedium of disc collection the player enters a room in which a series of button inputs can be seen flashing on screen briefly the player moves to the pause screen and cuts away for a moment before entering a different room which holds on a dark stilted angle of this room no player in sight so despite its spoofy nature it seems that this series is also trying its hand at having a bit of a spooky side my assumption is that the Cutaway before this room was the player entering the series of button inputs which activated the strange room similar to how Paul uses a series of button presses to enter the new maker plane in the first pet stop these comparisons to petscott may be a bit tedious so I'll try to keep it limited but the series at this point is very clearly closely following The Narrative of the project its parodying the description of the next video video reads after the game crashing around five times in this one bird room I've found something weird this weird silly stilted writing style is a through line in this series from the descriptions to the Loading screens for instance this video starts with a loading screen which includes the pro tip don't forget to eat breakfast Tomatoes coming back to the idea of inputting codes with the controller the player moves around in an odd pattern which seems to allow them to enter a new door which has one of the best loading screens in the entire game I am out of here now we're in somewhere a lot darker similar to the new maker plane of petscop exploring This Strange World to its very edge DH ends up falling into a pit the next video loads into a scene of DH seemingly dancing around similar to one of the best episodes of pet scoff 21. most importantly though this introduces retract mode which seems to be a reference to the demo feature in petscop where inputs of a player are recorded and then could be played over different versions of levels to access new areas I bring this up especially because it's really interesting to see Sheriff domestic use visual parallels to an established Concept in petscop as a shorthand to let an audience familiar with pet Scopes sort of understand what's going on right off the bat DH enters what appears to be a buggy or unfinished room with a pink door locked behind the condition of collecting 60 discs that may take some time cutting back to our non-retract mode gameplay DH arises from the pit now as a ghost which allows him to no clip into a building which ends the episode the description of this video foreshadows what's next I don't think cheats would work with this the opening appears to show a cheat menu before the game boots in a clearly altered and perhaps broken State when the game loads well Welcome to Hell uh oh sheriff domestic has an anti-cheat the player is now on the clock to beat Minesweeper dear God time skips implied that the player is stuck here for a long time but when DH finally does find success something appears that has been censored for us viewers another concept borrowed from petscop and some text pops up congratulations you've wasted your time it seems beating this game was just a dangling carrot Sheriff domestic has no sympathy for cheaters this episode really starts to Mark a shift in the series before this things seemed like a pretty straightforward parody of Concepts and events in pet scop albeit with some creative execution but this anti-cheat concept in Minesweeper gameplay this is new this is a unique idea executed in a really creative way this parody is starting to become a vehicle for new ideas the description for the next entry hints at things we may see in the future so this is the one game I found in my dumpster long ago this channel is here to show what's inside of this cursed game I don't know what I'm actually seeing but it's something I should keep looking I'm planning to get the microphone so I can share some thoughts about what's happening in the future not sure when it would arrive though unlike petscop the player of this game has yet to provide any commentary up to this point but it appears they're planning on doing so in the future we pick up where we left off it seems that the game has sat in this anti-cheat room for a while when suddenly DH explodes the game seems to get stuck in a boot cycle Loop for a few days until finally booting correctly unfortunately it seems the save files have all been deleted we get some footage back in retract mode which shows the inputs of the first episode but played over a version of the world without the discs cutting out of her track mode the player finds a sign simply reading Dave's city where they are then loaded into Dave City this place is a huge change of pace from what we've seen in this series and in Pet Stop a Noir cityscape boosting ramps creepy figures including one that appears to be a cruelly drawn version of care from petscop and some banging music [Music] DH is thrown off a ramp leading to a new area a top-down cityscape dodging high-speed traffic definitely navigating the Hazardous environment the player finds and is then confronted with some strange character when suddenly nice and the gun with DH thoroughly strapped so ends episode 5. the description of episode 6 seems to imply that the uploader is getting irritated by the game the captions tell us that the first shot of this video seems to be a continuation of the last shot in the first video and this time we see something a dark figure wanders onto the screen but quickly seems to notice it's being watched [Music] when we move back to the standard game we can hear a barely audible incredibly compressed voice it appears the uploader finally got a mic like yeah damn then today the mysterious figure also appears in the background disappearing into the tunnel he tells us he's collected all the discs and should be able to get access to the Pink Door now but the locked message Still Remains causing a bit of a gamer freak out episode 7 picks up exactly where we left off in episode 6 and well I think it's the best episode so here just watch the whole thing oh no oh the boot screen and the opening of The Next Episode is revealed to actually be an object in game and we're in some sort of bedroom as dialogue plays out between two unseen characters another storytelling technique lifted from petscop usually indicating that the dialogue is actually from two people in the real world that was overheard and put into the game by the developer so chances are this was a real-life conversation between two people at some point it essentially plays out as someone telling Dave to stop brushing his teeth with that and that it's not a toy with Dave rebutting it's my best friend especially with the emphasis later this thing seems to be a gun it ends on a slightly more ominous note this comes to a screeching halt as a software termination screen appears the screen seems to be in some way a reference to the ghost room keep console running image in petska but also a reference to Spyro Year of the dragon's anti-piracy message the pure absurdity of the game is even starting to get to the uploader as the description of the next video reads game from the dumpster Channel shows what's inside the game what the hell is happening the player still inside the room from the last video phases through the ground where we see a loading screen that references The Stanley Parable into a new bedroom with access to a computer and game console the computer seems to show the website for Sheriff domestic but like most text and Sheriff domestic it's mostly nonsensical rambling [Music] the game console allows DH to play Operation steel disc 5 which appears to be an incredibly broken hastily made top-down game which really just spells out a simple message [ __ ] After exiting the game a strange orb-like cursor begins floating about before seeming to find the right spot which boots us back into Dave City from here DH is launched from a ramp into a billboard and the game seems to reset now we're back in the car in the name select screen unwilling to choose any of the goofier names the player spams the unavailable name Bob until suddenly foreign the description of the next video pulls another narrative parallel to petscop hello we the group is now here to take over the investigation of this game this seems to imply that not all of the gameplay from here on will be from the same person and some outside force has taken control of the channel after a moment in retract mode showing DH using some kind of assumedly Dev tool to no clip around we cut back to the character select screen where Bob has completely been removed as an option the player chooses pickle chin which loads us into an entirely different opening this time calling on pickle chin to help because Dave still has the gun the opening plays out very similarly to an old Super Mario hack Super Mario movie pickle chin loads into a sort of glitched version of the main Overworld but entering into a door leads us to almost an entirely new game pickle chin is now in first person avoiding traps and solving puzzles in a dungeon one of these puzzles which seems to show a photograph of a gun with googly eyes on top of a PS1 I guess this was Dave's best friend in the bottom right right there's three empty disk slots navigating past deadly saws and falling Boulders pickle chin comes across a cracked blue disc with a face who assures the player it's not the real blue disc that you're looking for this disc's name is song and clarifies that pickle Chin's goal at the moment is to collect three discs song joins pickle chin as a companion and we end this video with one final challenge to pickle chin do rap [Applause] the next video continues with this group apparently restoring recordings of the game that Ed found in the dumpster so the original uploader and player is Ed which we'll also see later in this video continuing to explore this dungeon in search of the three discs pickle chin and song pass through a shop adorned with countless buy signs and end up in a confrontation with a boss fight first needing to enter their actual real name Ed the intense scuffle of kicks and singing ends with pickle chin and song successfully defeating the speaker and collecting the blue disc exiting back through the shop the lights are out and when song offers pickle chin some food that they stole from the store the shopkeep teleports behind them and seems to send them to a room of more puzzles a path memorization game that may keep pickle chin for a while so we cut back to DH back in the bedroom when suddenly foreign now anthropomorphized like we saw in earlier depictions unable to properly entertain the gun it gets angry and blasts a hole through the door allowing DH to escape the description of the next video is odd the save files the save files this is their fault we find pickle chin back at the memorization puzzle who knows how long he's been there after what appears to be countless attempts song remembers that they can just fly over the door pickle chin enters a room full of numbered doors an entering one finds DH in the aftermath of a failed attempt at beating the Minesweeper cheater room from a few videos ago our player exits out and looks at the saves it seems that these doors correspond to game saves or save states loading into a save file marked loser we see a character reminiscent of Belle from petscop locked in a cage then we cut back to DH in retract mode gameplay sliding around with this no clipping tool stumbling Upon A Room of misplaced textures before the game freaks out and seems to corrupt the save Rihanna entering this save file there's a cut scene of a red car dropping DH back off at the house that they were in DH tries to leave through the door where he finds someone presumably Dave brushing their teeth with a gun and arrest them there's an unsettling cut scene of this arrest and then the game seems to corrupt again the next episode was uploaded on April 1st and is mostly just 20 straight minutes of a toilet at one point the retract mode indicator blinks SOS but that's about it the description of this next video warns us there were reports of people being cursed by simply watch this specific video we boot into what seems to be an even more crudely constructed game also made by Dave mention some sort of prototype or older version of sheriff domestic the owuglet Howe now taking place in a jungle swinging on vines like Pitfall or triumphant owuglet stumbles across a fire in the jungle faced with a choice of two buckets the awuglit seems to have chosen the wrong one as the jungle erupts in Flames escaping to the safety of a spaceship this Refuge is only 10 temporary as the ship crashes into the moon we are then treated to many minutes of aimless wandering on the moon's Barren surface as the Earth is engulfed in flames in the background eventually oglet stumbles across a Golden Disc the apparent goal of the game but in order to win it must defeat solvery the battle rages on and I will let defeats Solari handily the disc is get we get a game windscreen that features an incomprehensibly compressed rendition of you spin me round with a cute little awoo glitch spinning the game loads to a thank you screen reading thank you for playing the awooglitz how keep an eye out for our next game Sheriff domestic Dave mentioned Studios Boston however when brightening the image now we're in familiar territory we get some extra text which we'll never see the light of day as long as I breathe we also see a crudely drawn Freddy Fazbear which for those who don't know is further referenced to the fact that this was Scott cawthon the developer of Five Nights at Freddy's go-to technique for hiding secrets in the lead up to a game's release hiding text and screenshots that would be revealed when brightening an image so auglet Hal was the precursor to sheriff domestic and it seems that the awuglit character was the beta DH and soulri was the beta pickle chin the text hidden in the thank you screen seems to imply that sheriff domestic was never intended ended to be released which would explain why it was found in a dumpster in addition to this auglet how video we can also find an awugly how documentation Channel and through that on a Google at how website the channel contains a tool-assisted speedrun of a Wiglet Hal and the Channel's about page links to the owl how documentation website this website explains the backstory of a wooklet how initially released in the US to widespread a claim it also received Japanese localization the website contains a ton of images of box art music screenshots of gameplay and levels unseen in the main video images of what appears to be a Japanese video game review magazine which seemed to give the game glowingly positive reviews aside from the fact that the game is far from finished in the scary story section there's a creepypasta based around the game let's give it a read welcome back to the Creepypasta files today we're going to be reading the wooklet house 666 Creepypasta the following story has been told by a friend please keep in mind that this might be real I used to be a big fan of the game the awuclid house 6 but not after this experience one day I was walking around in my neighborhood after school on my best day ever because I got an A plus plus plus plus on my spelling test but in the corner of my eye I saw a garage sale after running over there I saw is a box of games sitting on top of the desk an old man was sitting at I asked him how much for the games and he said it's free because his son doesn't want it anymore I took the box of games and the old man said have a good day bye when I got back home I searched through the box and found the popular game everyone's talking about at my school named the awoogle at house six I walked to the PlayStation and booted it up the normal Dave mentioned startup played but for a split second it said dead mention I thought it was a glitch so I kept playing I pressed start when I got to the title and before I pressed start it said the awoogle house 666 on the title instead of the awoogle and Hal I was scared and almost cried I kept playing and got to the part where you pick up the cups to put out the fire in the jungle I picked up the cup that didn't have letters on it but then the player glitched to the one that said gas on it and everything set on fire a text box popped up that said you will never Escape Welcome to Hell I grabbed my sledgehammer I started smashing the disc but it wouldn't get destroyed I tried everything even burning it and shredding it but it stayed intact the whole time I got tired from it so I went to sleep I woke up at 3am and my phone was ringing I picked up and said hello and I heard a satanic voice saying you will go to hell I am the awoogle it from that game you can't destroy a portal opened in my floor and I started getting sucked in and now I am in jail in hell as I type my final words before being tortured I beg to you do not find this copy of the game and play it because you will go to hell next oh no I can hear the devil now coming I have to go goodbye forever what do you think do you think that this game may be satanic the game every children loves the next video is Operation steel disk 5. and the description lets us know that this is also a separate game from Sheriff domestic maybe another related or precursor game considering all the focus on being collecting these discs the description also informs us that Ed has begun acting up against the group cutting out or hiding things from the videos and now he's straight up disappeared but the group is trying their best to upload what they have operation steel disc 5 Plays similar to the version we saw before including the fact that it's incredibly broken you play as DH wandering the Halls looking to steal a disc with the phone from the beginning of sheriff domestic by your side some letters in the game spell out the word Dave DH finds his way into a room with song the blue disc surprised by the sudden appearance of these individuals the phone hatches a Sinister plan with DH they're going to steal the blue disc and make tons of money pretending to just be lost DH and the phone seemed to acquire song or convince song to come with them and they escape by way of a first person maze a precursor to the first person areas of of sheriff domestic but also probably a reference to the game 3D monster maze considered to be one of the first horror games ever made it ends with a fiery image of DH song and a winged phone back to our regularly scheduled share of domestic we find pickle chin and song back in the failed Minesweeper room as the ground collapses beneath them now caged song must find a way to help them Escape song navigates through vent shafts and crypts puzzles and battle after battle with floppy disks songs expert use of Music keeping them at Bay eventually they stumble across a room full of other living discs after talking to them the yellow one agrees to help and follows them back where they free pickle chin from the cage oddly enough the other flying discs seem to already be acquainted with pickle chance the next video appears to show Sheriff domestic in an early build completing some puzzles in an unfinished opening area of the game there's not much to do here except see a series of progress images of song Sprite creation the character falls off the ledge and the game glitches out repeating congratulations pickle chin and song now free do they enter a new area a loading screen showing the words a cheeseburger for eating eat it this image is a strong visual parallel to the cotn incident a video discussing a fictional TV broadcast anomaly made by the creator of smile guide pickle chin and song find themselves in a burger joint but the green disc is the mascot the owner agrees to let them have the disc on one condition foreign pickled chin gets to work with his hardest challenge yet [Music] finishing the burger pickle chin delivers it to quad back in the kitchen pickle chin is interrupted by the phone who disappears just as quickly as it appeared tasked with making a pizza pickled oh that was fast back in the dining area we also get a glimpse of the mysteriously miked up character from a little while ago who judging by his head I'll call lettuce love that guy fickle Chin's next task is delivering this pizza and he's thrown into a first person vehicle sequence reminiscent of desert bus a Mini-Game in an unreleased Penn and Teller game where the player drives from Tucson to Las Vegas at 45 miles per hour taking a real-life 8 hours of continuous gameplay side note I played what I believe is a Gmod version of this during lockdown in 2020 and went genuinely insane the game boots back to the menu suddenly now with the words please stop playing this game even the game itself was getting bored by that drive we come back to DH in the computer room once again venturing through the house where he earlier arrested Dave he finds a closet of unlockable skins but some of the necessary assets for them seem to be missing from the game moving downstairs DH finds a darkened and unsettling room with a computer displaying the road from the opening area of the game which loads DH into that very place here DH completes a few more puzzles to make a few more arrests but DH isn't left alone for too long the gun is once again asking for attention now coming back to pickle chin and song the uploader annotates this gameplay in the beginning noting that there was some minor differences between the playthrough of this section that we're seeing and the first time they played it in which the recording was corrupted and lost we find pickle chin and song finishing their work at the Burger Joint gaining the green disc and moving to what seems to be the location of the final red disc here they find an unsettling game disc Factory endless production of identical gray game discs in a dark and cold Workshop exploring an endless field of disks they come across a green disc creature that's kind of like song Who hurries them aboard a UFO scrolling text gives us a few more clues as to the reason for collecting these discs why do these discs carry such power nobody really knows what they do exactly but the legend claims that those discs are required to be free from the chaos of the possessed one the time is almost up as the possessed one is looking for all three discs pickle chin song and the green disc find themselves in another part of this uncanny Factory seeing rows and rows of disc creatures working monotonously song says it feels corrupted and wonders aloud if the worker discs here are really happy about what they're doing but an image of a microphone suddenly flashes on screen and song wonders if they should be saying this stuff out loud through a door they find the red disc grabbing it the factory begins to shake and fall apart and the green disc just barely saves pickle chin and song with the UFO the ship crashes in a much more tranquil and inviting area a garden we also get to meet some more of songs friends more discs and a raining Cloud tending to the Garden inside a spare room a computer unusable without a keyboard sits amid drawings that appear to be trying to find a way to get the computer to work and a possible escape plan for the discs also sitting in here is a whale-like plush which I haven't mentioned up to this point but has appeared and mysteriously disappeared in the background of a couple videos so far in the Next Room we see all three discs set in place the end is near almost a year passes and in the next episode we see why back to dh's perspective DH hops in a car and finds himself in a place called the present Flats pedestals displaying seemingly random items except of course for the gun a nearby door reads you must wait 8766 hours so they did just that cutting forward a year the door opens and DH finds himself in a Dark Void signs leading him congratulations there is more to this you've got to taste the wine the game suddenly freezes and some unfinished version of maybe operation steel disc plays in the corner before the video ends completely coming back from another pretty long break these last two videos are pretty recent songagachi showcases something not found in the dumpster but apparently recovered by the group some other way a rare Tamagotchi bootleg featuring song Something Dave mentioned was working on to increase brand awareness of the awuglit steel disc slash Sheriff domestic brand we see a quick Showcase of the features run through an emulator although they don't all work it's pretty cute the end of the video suddenly Cuts back to the cage loser file from quite a few episodes ago in retract mode a door slowly opens behind it and so ends this episode the most recent episode is another April 1st entry featuring the toilet again the description tells us this is some of the recovered corrupted footage this time a new character hops out the toilet who we'll call toilet it wanders the dark plane for a while before footage bugs out glitching back to the a burger for eating screen and then back to the save screen where we hear someone fiddling with the mic and the video ends and that sheriff domestic let's talk about it first off Sheriff domestic Nails the same kind of early console game feeling as petscop though of course it isn't trying to be a hundred percent believable the puzzle sections and the crypts remind me of early PS1 games like the kingsfield series Shadow Tower Spyro and Resident Evil song is also probably a reference to Navi from Ocarina of Time and song's battle fight scenes contain attacks that rely on a mechanic similar to The Game's Ocarina playing mechanic there's some more direct references as well like the Super Mario Maker hack Spyro's Year of the Dragon anti-cheat 3d monster Maze and of course it's hard to mention the real-time combat without thinking of the final fantasy series and other influential RPGs like Chrono Trigger and there's tons more too some I mentioned directly in the breakdown and some I'm sure I've missed there's a lot of charm to the original characters in Sheriff domestic 2. song Wave and the other disc characters feel like organic elements of an old PS1 game and the dialogue while mostly silly still has genuine charm It Feels more than and just a parody and this series also isn't afraid to mix up its format swapping from Sinister 3D Landscapes to silly 3D cut scenes then next to first person puzzle solving or 2D glitched parodies of itself due to the nature of sheriff domestic Source material petscop and the general absurdity of the series it's a little difficult to glean a plot from these videos but one is definitely there being upfront though this series is still definitely an absurdist comedy so in some ways this analysis is more just for the fun of doing it than a definitive true lore explanation which is true of most of my analysis of these things but especially true of something as silly as Sheriff domestic all of that said there are definitely characters and events however silly going on here and as the series went on there are some themes I'm picking up that are dare I say it a little more serious than a simple parody of petscop so let's just hop in and try and get a sense for what's going on foreign the original Channel owner finds Sheriff domestic in a dumpster and decides to record the footage and upload it to YouTube we find out that a person named ed is likely the one uploading these videos Sheriff domestic was created by Dave mention for the PlayStation 1 and was made in 1997 according to the original Reddit post Ed investigates the dumpster game and starts finding Oddities in its programming the in-game plot follows DH who is on a mission to arrest criminals under the orders of the phone DH comes across a gun that demands sacrifices on the other end of its bullets within the game there's a character called Dave that brushes their teeth with a gun and must be arrested as a part of the game's Mission we see that there may be an element of multiplayer in the game due to other characters showing up some of which actually use a mic like lettuce Midway through investigating the game an outside group intervenes and adds progress and takes over the channel at this point pickle chin is summoned from within the game and is given the goal to stop Dave and the gun pickle chin meets up with a flying disc named song who helps him on his journey pickle chin must collect three colored discs to escape DH successfully arrests Dave and their gun it's also unclear if if DH arrested Dave that this completed pickle Chin's main mission or if there's other Dave's to still arrest we discover that the awuglit how and operation steel disc 5 are likely earlier versions of sheriff domestic for some reason one of the creators or the singular creator of the awuglit house 6 planned to never allow Sheriff domestic to be released the phone is revealed to be evil in some way and desires to steal discs for itself maybe it's the possessed one or In Cahoots with it Ed begins working against the interests of the group implying an antagonistic relationship pickle Chin's Mission shifts from taking down Dave and the gun to finding the discs and freeing the worlds from the chaos of the possessed one who is apparently looking for the three colored discs once pickle chin collects all of them we're kind of left to wonder what the next step will be at this point that's where we're at at least on a surface level but that still leaves quite a few questions I'm gonna try and answer some of these questions with two different theories I'll call one the Dave Theory and the other the corruption Theory just as a forewarning I think we're still missing a lot of pieces to come up with a decisive read on the series and like I said a bunch of this might turn out to just be nonsense but hey I'll try anyway just for the fun of it let's start with the Dave theory in the Dave Theory Dave is still the main antagonist of sheriff domestic DH acts as some type of in-game representation of Dave and Causes Chaos within the in-game world the Dave in the game may also be the leading developer of sheriff domestic but another Dev on the team develops a rivalry with Dave perhaps due to a lack of recognition despite the awuglitz reception or due to some monetary conflict over the success of the game perhaps the Dave in the game is some silly kid-friendly version of Dade created by this rival intended to Showcase Dave's instability so obviously Sheriff domestic is a parody series and the brushing teeth with a gun parts aren't likely to be in intended to be taken seriously so let's assume they're the other developers way of mocking Dave the second developer hijacks development of sheriff domestic and secretly places the pickle chin gameplay in order to turn Dave's original protagonist into a demonic entity motivated only by game disc sales maybe the references to the phone stealing game discs then refers to the other developers feeling that their game ideas were stolen and sold without being fairly compensated song referencing corruption going on in Sheriff domestic 18 then might also hint at Dave's corruption turning into a [ __ ] due to power and greed in the corruption Theory Dave is no longer the main antagonist Sheriff domestic was intended to be a fairly straightforward game about arresting criminals but as a result of the game sitting for so long in a dumpster something in the code base changes out of the corrupted memory pickle chin is spawned maybe they were already intended to be a playable character but their plot line has now changed the main antagonist in this series is now the phone and the possessed one in Sheriff domestic 18 now refers to DH who is being controlled by the phone the freedom that the disk characters pursue through picklejin's journey is freedom from being stuck in the linear plot of the game perhaps the characters in some sense realize they're a part of a dead unreleased world and seek some way to escape their railroaded fate the imagery we see of countless yellow discs tirelessly at work in the factory with song questioning if they're happy with their work maybe a commentary about the game dev's happiness or about the characters being stuck performing tasks that will never be recognized the phone's desire to make money and steal discs may be a way of the game communicating its nihilistic view on its purpose to make money the group may also be the same as whoever's behind the phone maybe they're forcing Ed to edit and record footage to highlight the game in a positive light cloaking the real meaning behind the footage and again I know this is just a parody series but I get the sense that sheriff domestic is moving to tell a more serious story in its latest episode so I'll also take a shot at looking for some deeper meaning in this series with the game commentary on making money and the character's concerns about corruption the story could seek to highlight some of the dilemmas game devs might have when it comes to sacrificing artistic Merit in the pursuit of money whether willingly making this decision or being forced to by a larger Studio the image of the mic that flashes in between songs queries and Sheriff domestic 18 May highlight the idea of being listened to that the game's desire to express itself in a more genuine way is being suppressed by a corrupt higher power the mass production of game discs reminds me of the underpaid devs who create shovelware games on mass there's little room for them to be creative they're just forced to mass produce knockoff games to appeal to a wider audience via hitching recognition from the names of larger Series in some way Sheriff domestic being a parody of pet scop May tie into that theme it started as a pet Scot parody but quickly gained its own flavor and style of Storytelling I also see more of these themes of the idea of the game becoming self-aware or at least being aware of its own corruption as it sits unplayed for over the year what happens to the characters in a story that is never read what happens to the unread bites on an old game disc pickle Chin's Inception is a reference to the 2005 art piece Super Mario movie by Cory Archangel and paper rad which also plays with this idea of a game being self-aware of its own deterioration Sheriff domestic may be a play on this idea too a world that is aware that it's a parody of another series and one that is slowly breaking down as the characters seek to flee that world so that's what I have so far for Sheriff domestic I think it's a great series incredibly funny and I love the passion effort and humor that is put into each episode it really feels like a genuine old game with its own heart and I eagerly look forward to its next uploads if you like what I covered here please go subscribe to the sheriff domestic channel so you can keep posted on when it uploads next and let me know if you have any thoughts on the series yourself I'm sure I missed some pieces and that I've made some mistakes in my analysis so I always love to hear what you have to say in the comments with that said I still have another series I want to show you that also starts off as a pet Scot parody that series is called AI builds and rather than artificial intelligence the AI actually stands for animal investigator I also want to give a bit of forewarning AI builds includes some intense themes which I'll throw up here and I don't mean this series will just be glossing over them AI builds may be one of the most intense series I've ever covered on my channel and if you aren't prepared to explore these subjects right now I recommend skipping ahead to here with that said let's talk about AI builds laughs [Music] the first reference to animal investigator was about four years ago in a Reddit post to the petscop subreddit by NP Mansfield the post States I don't remember ever buying this game should I play it let me know with the following image the image states that the game is made by fresh Zone rated E for everyone and some text notes kids are calling it fun fun fun they're really playing it the Reddit poster also replies to a few comments one redditor Lena leskowitz asks a few questions when was the game made it says 1999 what console is it for it's for PC I think it was made for educational purposes are you going to show footage of it if so where yes the people have spoken fresh zone I'm not sure another quotes the game's text yes they are really playing it that line is weird I'm playing and recording the game right now I'm really weirded out to be honest so a disclaimer I'm gonna count this as non-canon because there's some later information that contradicts this but it's more so that this is just the first reference to animal investigator the actual AI builds YouTube channel was created on October 26th of 2018. its description reads re-uploads of animal investigator process let's go into the first video uploaded by the channel the first video was uploaded on November 29th of 2019 a little more than a year after the Channel's creation date the description reads grass roads mountains add house next the video starts with some selection options initially asking if the player is male or female for which they select male and how old they are with only 21 or 10 being available the player selects 21. then the next few options fly by quickly as the player becomes impatient with the selection screen those options are enable access to webcam and microphone yes enable access to computer files yes enable voice recognition yes and are you satisfied with your answers yes before finally booting up to the start screen of the game this feels pretty reminiscent of blindly signing away your rights in terms of service agreements when downloading software one Infamous example being game station's Immortal Soul clause and April Fool's prank that granted the UK store rights to their customers Souls which around 7 500 people agreed to before it was revealed anyway back to the game we're greeted by a cheery looking title screen and our narrator introduces himself so this is just to prove to you that I have not given up on developing this game I've just been a little uh a little um out of inspiration lately you know but I thought I would show you the progress I made so rather than the premise of this being finding this game the player reveals that they're the one developing the game and they're recording footage as a way to hold themselves accountable despite their lack of inspiration now I do actually have a character select screen uh it's nothing that special I probably have to I see I don't really like the music yeah this is what the game looks like right now it's nothing that special um just mainly uh just kind of rocks and grass so far um it's been a very slow process but I think by next week I'll probably have something more substantial so this first video sets up the context of the series pretty well let's see what happens in the next build the next build was uploaded the same day as the previous one despite that there seems to be a time skip between when these videos were recorded and when they were uploaded the video's description reads house papers characters up next night mode this video goes straight into the gameplay without much embellishment hey guys um so I'm back uh this is my third build I know I said I was gonna have something like three weeks ago but I got a little sidetracked um but I have quite a bit more added since that last update uh for example I have this really big fence here to so I'll be pointing out little hidden details as we progress through the video for now I just want to point out what looks like a tunnel in the background behind the fence probably the one for the selection screen at the start of build O2 okay continuing on our narrator has added some small details to the world it's not very good but you know I'll probably fix it later there's a little sign here for newcomers um yeah I thought it was cute uh I'm serious [Music] yeah this happened last time um I don't know how to fix that yet and these signs one poster reads find and capture Dr ant he is fast but if you hold the sprint button you can catch him the next sign reads collect golden magnifying glasses to unlock better items the dev goes to read the last sign but some sort of texture issue renders it unreadable as it is rotated a Red Orb appears on the page you can actually read the text on this page right before it comes into view beware Mr I they roam at night I'm gonna try to get more stuff done by next week I know I failed to deliver last time but you know I'm I'm really trying you see an ant like figure presumably doctor aunt but the dev seems to just gloss over him so we have a little more to analyze in this build the dev gives a pessimistic overview of the game so far he's already behind schedule by three weeks and seems very harsh on himself focusing on his failure to deliver and ending by saying he's really trying the next video was uploaded with the description night mode plus questions and answers gonna add trees next on the same day as the other videos but again it's implied these videos are archives of a previous upload where they were separated by some time Gap we immediately cut into a q a about the game why does this game look so much or at least seem so much like animal police which is a much older game that I did not make and the reason why is because I was a huge fan of that back when I was a kid and I just wanted to take swole these borrow some of the um ideas from it to put into mind because I'm such a big fan of it um but yeah that's that's basically how I can answer that one some people actually accuse me of stealing from it and I'm just like no I'm not really stealing anything I mean I borrowed a few of the concepts and maybe a few of like the designs but other than that it's basically a completely new game aside from that the other question was Regarding why didn't I show uh the ant character to answer that question is I already said why I wasn't going to show that because it doesn't exist yet um yeah that's not a thing that exists yet I don't think I'll be able to finish that whole ant character by next week that just seems a little ridiculous but I guess that's Mr I but uh yeah that's all I really wanted to say also this is uh the nighttime uh mode which I did not show in the previous one I forgot that I had that okay two new pieces of info to digest here firstly animal investigator is being accused of stealing from an older game known as animal police and the dev claims Dr ant hasn't been added to the game yet despite us clearly seeing him in the previous build considering that the Mr I character we see also likely wasn't something this Game Dev had intended to add yet so is someone altering the game without the dev knowing and what is this animal police game well considering this series was inspired by petscop calling this game an animal police rip-off is sort of a meta acknowledgment of criticism that the series is stealing from pet scop's format and character designs but what if Animal Police actually existed well it does a user called wooden Hornets posted the channel to the petscop subreddit with the post title petscop inspired series it seems Xbox game titled Animal Police the animal police channel was created on March 17 2014. considering this predates pet scop this was likely a different channel that was then later renamed to Animal Police 8886. its first video is simply titled Animal Police this came out in July 14th of 2017. petscop started on March 12th of 2017 and this series comes out during the first sizable Gap in petscop's release schedule making it one of the earliest parodies of pet scop impressive so let's see this mysterious animal police game for ourselves thank you huh was the Xbox intro always like that [Music] hey guys um so I just found this game in my uh in my basement and I'm just gonna play through a bit so yeah let's uh get right into this game all right so uh I ended up getting the uh thing to work I'm going to start playing the game more um well this sure is a game think it broke so the game crashes let's Jump Ahead to when Nicholas our player resumes the game this is a pretty interesting so yeah see ya all right I think covering this first video gives you a good sense of the rest of animal police there's not much more to expand on it it mostly was designed as just a quick parody of pet scop when some of the tropes in it something noteworthy though is that animal police 4 introduces Mr I the same character we've seen a hint of in AI builds in animal police Mr I seems to be a parody of the tool in pet scop and how it communicates with Paul not much more in the video will be of use to us in analyzing animal investigators so let's get back on track this build comes out two days later on December 1st of 2019. though we're about to see that it's been much longer between Dev updates the video begins Midway through a sentence as we see a familiar magnifying glass loading screen but I've been gone for so long guys I've just been really um really busy sorry if I'm not all there right now I'm just very sleep deprived it seems like the dev has been working on the game without sleep since we saw him last and more odd features have been added to the game what okay here [Music] strange I didn't make you yet the dev confirms this is a gold magnifying glass he intended to add and reacts in a stunned days um it's pretty funny I didn't put it there yet the dev continues to showcase the game in their sleep deprived stupor but something else strange happens that's weird how come I can I can touch this tree [Music] oh wait can I do no no I can't do it on that one because it's only this tree that's pretty funny what happens if I I don't know do I want to click on it yeah I want to click on it let's click on it and what [Music] the game seemingly added a cut scene to itself a few things to note from this clearly unusual scene the clouds in the sky change color from a dark green to White the dev assumes what's happening is a dream or hallucination induced by his sleep-deprived State and so relaxed and shocked amusement at the fever dream-esque sequence either the dev sleep deprivation gets to them or something in the game is able to influence him as we hear him fall as Dr ant rushes toward the screen so funny in front of you so things start getting weirder let's continue two days later on December 3rd of 2019 we get build 05. the video picks up with the view of the scene we just witnessed except this time nothing unusual is happening what uh laughs uh that's funny that's funny now this might not make sense yet in how we're able to obtain the footage from previous build but this implies that the odd cut scenes from build 04 were the result of a hallucination that only the dev could see the footage here is what actually happens so let's see where this goes finally feel suddenly something takes control of the mouse and keyboard and we load into a cut scene the voice is hard to make out so here's it with subtitles bro it's time to wake up so that was Mr I for some reason this character is demanding that the dev keep working on the game and is in the house right now the dev wakes up and he seems rightfully a bit disoriented what time is it what time is it oh God eventually he notices the updated build and the video cuts off so what to make of that the previous changes were likely hallucinations but there's still something wrong with the game is it projecting subliminal messaging to the dev causing him to update the game in his sleep is Mr I some type of alter ego an external influence it's too early to start making any of these kinds of guesses so let's keep watching another day another build once again it starts off Midway through a recording we learn a few pieces of information as the character walks sorry I'm distracted I've been walking out here for like two hours um yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it was him doing this because uh if you don't know um my brother Josh kind of a kind of a dick um yeah like about last month he actually made his own um his own fake animal police game just to mock me did this whole uh impression of me and all that [ __ ] um yeah it's probably on YouTube somewhere I don't know uh I didn't find it very funny I found it kind of hurtful and he like put in stuff in it though that's like more related to me like Mr I for example which was something I'm going to include in this one but take it more seriously because um if you don't know Mr Isa I don't think I actually explained this now Mr Isa like a childhood character that I came up with basically like the sort of imaginary friend that I had so that provides context for the animal police YouTube series we saw it's a prank by his brother Josh intended to mock animal investigators development and parodies a potentially real animal police series that the dev took inspiration from interestingly he mentions that it's a parody his brother made about a month ago so that means the events we're seeing are dated to sometime in August of 2017. but why is this imaginary friend in his game if he hasn't added him yet is this really just Josh's doing the dev continues walking by the fence and notices something a house with a large butterfly perched on top a butterfly rests on the ground nice job Josh [ __ ] [ __ ] up the textures dumbass uh yeah uh no textures on this building either you dumbass um pretty good music though I'm not gonna lie what's in here what the [ __ ] it's a baby in a crib a mobile of butterflies circling above him Dark Shadows spread limber lines over the walls highlighted by a hypnotic purple nightlight for whatever reason this imagery seems to disturb the dev but he still tries to save face why would you add that you're trying to scare me is that it not really working I'm not really scared [Music] pretty lazy attempt at scaring me to be honest as he leaves barely visible in the fog of the edge of the map he's a giant baby this seems to seriously freak the dev out as he quickly Sprints in the opposite direction before the video ends the next build begins with the dev Nicholas a name will later see confirmed but has also been used up to this point so it's a safe bet coming clean about the weird happenings of the game so far I thought I should clear something up because um this has been haunting me for a while now I I don't think Josh added that stuff that you saw I don't know how it got there when I was playing the game I didn't mention it but I saw a butterfly fly by through my window and thought it was just a coincidence but I'm starting to like going back and looking back at what you guys have been talking about I think it was a coincidence I remember that was a that was a baby my mom she got me a she got me a butterfly butterfly mobile I guess it kind of just snuck its way into that building I feel like I can't stop playing for some reason like I'm just drawn to it and I can't stop I want you guys to be here for me while I do this because I need to show people what's going on so now the series has shifted from development updates to an exploration of this game that seems to be mysteriously shifting and adding content based around the developer's subconscious we cut to footage of the dev exploring another house where he finds a computer and magnifying glass both locked behind needing a gold key without the magnifying glass none of the world's objects including the posters are interactable the dev begins searching through the mountains to find said key and stumbles across some lights in the distance oh god what the [ __ ] is that is that I won't [ __ ] it's Mr I hiding in the cracks of the mountain the dev stumbles across a face what is that oh my god oh Jesus what the [ __ ] sneaking past Mr eyes Eerie Spotlight the dev finds the gold key perched atop a building first exploring inside the house there's a sketchy note lying on the ground the text is hard to make out but I've made a guess as to what it says go away is underlined by an image of what must be Mr I and there's some bullet points below the drawing talks and Whispers brings up personal matters family can see me I can't make out the text on the top if you have any ideas as to what it means feel free to let me know in the comments Nicholas is Thoroughly unsettled by this God oh God oh God oh God but he still needs to escape with the key climbing Atop A Lamppost he makes a Deft Escape away from Mr I back in the house he's able to obtain the magnifying glass and then use the computer he's presented with some games to explore choosing animal investigation were taken to a sort of parody of the channel nightmare Master Class voiced by the actual nightmare master class so shout out for the great Cameo check out his AI builds podcast interview afterwards back to the game Nightmare seminars video seems to stress all the same points and criticism Nicholas has been receiving which understandably seems to take its toll there's no polite way to put this it's completely derivative of the critically acclaimed video game animal police in fact there seems to be a ubiquitous sentiment amongst players and critics alike that animal investigator is a cheap rip-off of animal police and that's a sentiment I share as well I mean it has all of the same elements the golden key the magnifying glass and even the fence it's all there folks and well here's the situation you know when you accidentally purchase the generic version of the cereal you like and it just doesn't taste quite as good that's basically what animal investigator is see it only makes sense that when a masterful game like animal police comes out a myriad of cheap imitators looking to make a quick Buck quickly follow [ __ ] people I swear to God why can't people let's do this again together the 07 builds are sort of a package deal so let's talk about them together a series of videos opening with the title card Mr I presents these are clearly not Nicholas is doing they're being manifested by Mr I the entity in the game the one from Nicholas's childhood wake up sleepyhead memories and dreams throughout all these videos we see this 3D representation of Nicholas's bedroom with Mr I outside Mr I continuously uses forms of emotional manipulation trying to get Nicholas to let him in switching from praise to self-pity to belittling to anger in wake up sleepyhead Mr I pleads with Nicholas to let him in in memories Mr I shows Nicholas a series of his childhood drawings that Mr I kept but I was so proud of you such a talented person I wish you would just let your creativity fly once again this one the Smokies it's like my bike so fast I couldn't make up the details so it looks like at least many of these changes made to the game are coming from Mr I we also see that the face in the mountain aptly named Mountain face is another piece from Nicholas's childhood and we get further reinforcement of the connection between butterflies and Nicholas's mother Mr I's seeming kindness is clearly just manipulation and the tone changes quickly [Music] [Music] the last one dreams is maybe one of the most compelling pieces of web series media I've ever watched Mr I in a ditch effort to get Nicholas to open the door begins manifesting Nicholas's dreams into the game in real time oh [Music] [Music] it's so strange to watch inside the game we're able to hear what Nicholas is saying from within the dream at the same time we can hear Nicholas's voice from The Real World mumbling in his sleep no no it comes up together okay the voice on the phone tells Nicholas that his mother is coming home and to open the door for her successfully tricking Nicholas into letting Mr I in while this could be interpreted as literally opening the door for some real version of Mr I I think it's more so figurative Mr I has been shut out of Nicholas's mind and by tricking him into opening his mind to the childhood thoughts of his mother he's opened the door to his past his childhood where Mr I has been relegated to only able to act in a limited fashion in his subconscious well now Mr I is out this time Nicholas speaks from a far-off landscape the only thing visible being green ground and blue tinted fog Nicholas tries to introduce the build but chokes up working on this has taken so much out of him and he's incredibly unhappy and he's deleted almost everything from the game the more he put himself into the game the more of his own Vision people wanted from him the worse he felt I'll play some clips from this but I think it's best viewed uncut in the original video it's very intense I'm so [ __ ] done with this just nonsense I don't think you guys understand how much this takes out of me how am I expected to make a [ __ ] game if I can barely just barely get out of bed each day how the [ __ ] can I can I make a game why did I think I could make a game especially with all you [ __ ] telling me over and over that I'm not adding anything to the table you want to see more of me in the game more of my vision I don't have a vision I don't have a voice I don't have anything I don't have [ __ ] anything I haven't had a vision since I was like a [ __ ] kid and all that's gone now if you're wondering where everything is now I deleted everything because the more I just added stuff the more I try to bring my vision out there just wanted myself the more I just I couldn't more depressed I got I just why am I uploading this why am I gonna [ __ ] upload this notice how the colors change as his mood does reinforcing the connection between Nicholas's mind and the game we hear him reach for a pill bottle and he presumably takes one and then we see a door appear almost completely unfazed at this point he enters a hallway almost hospital-like in nature and there's no choice to turn back once entered it also seems familiar to Nicholas why am I not surprised oh okay I'm not surprised at all to be honest he enters the door and is met with a room with two easels in the back emerging from a brick wall is Mountain face text on the bottom greets the player with welcome to face paint it tells Nicholas to study Mountain face and press enter when ready Nicholas examines him for a moment and then moves to the easel first a drawing of mountain face appears then a green and white pill but what the [ __ ] no no no no no oh oh what the [ __ ] what the [ __ ] Nicholas isn't sure if he can keep going but despite that horrific event he decides to open another door this door opens to a scene that announces Dr ants tea party use the arrow keys to guide yourself through this strange forest all you need to do is find Dr ant so you can enjoy a cup of tea good luck Nicholas Nicholas navigates the path however the scenery darkens as he progresses this is a dead end maybe try a different path this time and finally Nicholas is given the option to go back however the video ends before we can see him take it wow this was just a really intense performance in this video you can feel everything Nicholas is going through we also see some more literal imagery in this build what might be a hospital Corridor and an image of a white and green pill I'll get more into analyzing this later but for now let's finish up watching the builds we pick up again on the trail though it's changed a little from the last video it looks more polished more refined but also more Sinister as Nicholas continues the movement will stop intermittently and text will appear on screen talking to him no Nicholas seems to have been playing this game without sleep since we last saw him you can find ways to feel much better he reaches a fork in the road follow the path that helps you remember in the distance is a tunnel that looks like a pill bottle with the white and green pills we saw earlier what is that what is that what happened [Music] zoomed up to the tunnel we see more text you've helped paint the bigger picture I'm starting to see everything you do have a vision you do have a voice you just need to feel good feeling good makes you work feeling bad makes you hurt I wish you'd let me in more often I think we'd have a lot of fun away from the bad away from the hurt let me in Nicholas I can't let you face this tunnel head on but you can try to reverse it just learn not to overdo it don't end up like he did get help please you are strong we are strong the text blinks out of existence and is replaced by new text which states press enter to have a tea party after a period of muffled sobs he relents to the enter key a skull hangs ominously by the tree next to the pill bottle as Nicholas moves through the pill bottle the Reversed way and the world distorts into a facsimile of a cheery day the skull is still present on the other side of the tunnel only it's less obvious from the other direction Mr I appears for a few frames interrupting the pleasant scene the video skips ahead to Nicholas on the road during the day he sounds better I don't know I just suddenly feel very inspired I feel very uh open right now um oh guys I think we're getting close I think we're getting close there he is there's our guy hey talk to me go ahead [Music] [Laughter] [Music] okay yeah I don't think Nicholas is doing okay it's a little hard to make out exactly what Dr ant is saying but from what I can hear Dr ant is encouraging Nicholas to drink the tea after that incredibly strange and concerning scene Nicholas returns to the corridor and the video ends what the [ __ ] what the the next build description reads hard work pays off up next he will be alone Nicholas enters the next room in the hallway revealing a poorly lit living room the TV casting static tinted illumination onto a dark couch there are two items on a desk the first of which is a note with a sad face the text is blurry but I've made an attempt to decipher it my cheeks burn red from silly lies red like the color of my bloodshot eyes I long for more yet longest time no life is earned by wasting time I search and search but to no success despite ticking every box and passing each test yet here I lie in bed with bloodshot eyes lonely scared despite my many tries Nicholas says that he wrote this recently and now like so much of his life it's mysteriously ended up in the game the next object is a sort of talking figurine Nicholas presses ex prompting a few catchphrases mocking some of the lines he said throughout the series that's funny what hey guys so this is just to prove to you no it wasn't why do I keep opening doors why can't you people just freaking leave me alone what the [ __ ] Nicholas next settles down onto the couch to watch the namesake of this build PCP perfect child programming it takes the form of an animated children's show with the most banging theme song ever [Music] okay but for real go watch this because the whole song bangs after this musical section the show proper begins Drew creates a drawing and shows it to Tim but Tim accuses him of failing to be original but doesn't it look a little similar to the one that I made that's not a problem right why didn't you just make your own thing Drew there's a lot of stuff you can make you don't have to make it look like my stuff talk to me Drew why can't you just make your own stuff Drew Drew look I'm sorry I'm sorry buddy I just you know it's hard to come up with your own stuff when you're as sad as me all the time Drew claims it's because it's hard to be original while constantly being sad but fortunately Tim claims there's an easy solution [Music] you want to go see Mountain face I hear he's really good at helping us feel more creative let's go see Mountain face that might be fun okay let's go see Mountain face uh right now I mean it's so early in the morning hey look it's night time let's go see Mountain face this whole show is unstable like a nightmare Nicholas is on the brink of waking up from in any case they decide to go see Mountain face to improve Drew's inspiration now inexplicably at night Tim Drew and Jimmy hey Jimmy [Music] what look for Mountain face but have a difficult time the show almost seems like it's losing track of itself at times during this search and Drew is sort of breaking down because of it [Music] Tim my Kim why are you yelling we need to find Mountain face right now I'm sorry I just didn't know where you guys were wow look at this Drew it's a magnifying glass in a fence I think they might be connected that's my bill if only we could find a key to this situation we could find Mountain face he's making stuff up now we're just looking at stuff and you're trying to connect it together when it doesn't make any [ __ ] sense follow me drew the [ __ ] follow me I know just where to go suddenly we switch scenes again Drew is confused why their near amount of dirt with a shovel but we get a sense of what we're looking at before he does a grave Do You Remember Nicholas what no the too many pills We buried him here didn't give him a great Zone though he didn't deserve it because he was a coward I don't want you to end up like he did Drew so stay away from pills stay away from anything that can hurt you stay away from anything that can hurt you stay away from anything that could hurt you stay away from anything that can hurt you please what the [ __ ] wow so there's a lot to break down there allegedly this is Nicholas's grave but let's assume this is more of a projection of Nicholas's worst fears the green and white pill makes an appearance again allegedly the source of his death Tim's voice shifts at the very end begging Drew not to end up like he did then Tim becomes replaced with a looming purple Mr eye and on the last shouted don't we see a frame of mountain face with his mouth a gape then we cut to credits and it becomes completely clear this show is yet again mysterized doing thanks for watching it's so fun to share my work especially with someone like you you are special we are special I'm here for you always I am in the house I love to pick your brain you should draw more those were good times I love you so much I got my eye on you too obvious you would have made dad proud just remember to stay safe and so Nicholas is finally able to get up now that the TV is off distraught he finally leaves the room this is an incredible episode and a lot more blatant in spelling out some of the details of the plot to us especially in relation to hinting at who Mountain face is now we still have two more build episodes left but I want to take a little detour to a hidden video next a hidden video labeled thanks uploaded on January 21st of 2020 with the description 1000 I feel good was hidden under the playlist tab of the AI builds channel it's a video of Mr I saying thanks to the viewers for helping the channel reach 1 000 subscribers and thanking the various characters in the series it's a fun little way to hint at the future build and make sense in universe as Mr I is revealed to be the one behind these uploads contrary to Nicholas's intentions for whatever reason Mr I wants this to be viewed and so the viewers of the AI builds channel are helping Mr ice succeed in tormenting Nicholas for his own purposes this build comes out about a month later on Valentine's Day of 2020. a fancy title screen introduces the segment as introvert Island sure enough to the title Nicholas spawns in on a bridge leading to an island he hopes that maybe this time he can breathe a little as he turns around the bridge disappears and he's stranded on the island a countdown appears on the screen and when it reaches zero was it counting down to um [Music] [Music] the game has taken Nicholas's voice for now Nicholas wanders the island dejectedly for only a moment before we cut ahead in time a butterfly Shadow stretches across the sand and Nicholas looks up to see its soar above him he chases after it but it flies out of reach leaving him by the side of the beach next to an overturned crib chasing after a childhood happiness that he's unable to reach the footage skips ahead again Nicholas catches sight of a beach chair in the distance and moves to investigate the stripes of the chair match the color of the pills that he now dreads he sits down and is now locked in as a boat slowly approaches crashing into him before disappearing as Nicholas is ejected from the chair another time skip this time Nicholas hears a voice in the distance and sees a hand sticking out of the water it's hard to hear exactly what it's saying but it's begging for Nicholas to help unable to breathe Nicholas spams the mouse clicks but nothing happens you'll be down here you'll be down here too but you can stop it Nicholas backs away in horror disturbed by the figure's last words he once again skips ahead in time now Nicholas notices a building on the island it depicts multiple Showcases of his drawings with buttons before each picture going to interact with the drawing of what appears to be Dr ant first the button plays back audio of himself though it's not him talking it's it's like he's talking to himself maybe this is Dr ant talking using Nicholas's voice maybe it's manifesting through Mr I who stolen Nicholas's voice hey sure The more I've spent time with you the more I get it you can stop blaming yourself you can stop hating yourself you can stop all of this and understand that time is limited and you can be better and this isn't all there is I do love you I really do love you so come back please it's reassuring similar to the text in Dr ants tea party in the commentary over the next drawing Mountain face Nicholas's voice has gotten deeper it was scary when you found out what happened the idea that there was no life in him anymore you were scared you were devastated horrified that you'll never speak to him again you can't let that be all there is you can't become that face you can be better you can keep working find new things to appreciate in life don't let the nightmares you get Define you this section really seems to confirm what mountain face represents the body of someone Nicholas Loved Someone who passed away and the image of their lifeless being traumatized Nicholas when he was young most likely this is Nicholas's father but Nicholas over the drawing tells himself to keep going don't let yourself become that face don't give up in the next drawing his voice is deeper again it's really hard to make wish I had something to say about anything but I don't it takes me [ __ ] hurts I wish I had something to say I wish I had a voice as his voice deepens as he continues through these messages his Outlook his depression is worsening and that line near the end I wish I had a voice makes this whole introvert Island segment come together Mr I is taking away Nicholas's voice assuming that Nicholas doesn't have one anyway one last picture [Music] put them when I'm ready let's take my life I remember do you care about me but I never understand why they do I have nothing so why do people care about can you just let me die I love you all I really do the last Lifesaver this part of Nicholas is hanging on to is his childhood happiness and the good parts of his family life presumably his mother this progression gives me the impression that as Nicholas's Outlook becomes worse his voice is deepening because he's becoming the very voice of Mr I that we're seeing Mr I as sort of this manifestation of Nicholas's worst thoughts and feelings but the video doesn't end here we still have a bit more to see we have one more very abrupt cut in the video Mr I suddenly confronts Nicholas head-on the landscape distorted by his sickly purple gaze Nicholas seems to be gasping for air here too Mr I launches into a barrage of beratement claiming the only thing Nicholas has to offer is his suffering and that Nicholas is nothing without him but then come on oh my God it is [Music] [ __ ] you [ __ ] you you've done nothing but take from me [ __ ] are you I hate you [ __ ] thank you Nicholas finds his voice again the game's screen glitches out and frees him from the introvert hellscape we see the build screen appear and we can look through the previous versions is this from Mr I's perspective now did he exit the game when he lost control of Nicholas hmm well there's one more video to look at on this channel so we've reached the final video on the AI builds Channel which comes out a month after introvert Island on March 30th of 2020. its description as of now reads how long has it been arriving soon perhaps hinting at a finale to come it's not clear whether there will be more AI builds yet if you're interested in the story or just want to re-watch it and full on your own which I'd highly recommend please subscribe to the AI builds channel to keep up to date with that out of the way let's get started we're back at the PC and in the corner we see text registering what we're seeing as a part of build 06. the computer screen comes alive with text Nicholas is asleep we've been doing this for you feel free to enjoy some of the various activities we've included on his computer then we see familiar your looking selection menu skipping through the menu shows different short scenes representing the different games Nicholas has played the first of which is introvert Island where Mr eyes dialogue once again evokes the feeling of an abusive relationship Mr I claims he needs Nicholas and his mind and yet tries to isolate him and claim that the island is all Nicholas will ever need the next scene is of perfect child programming which is loud and distressing then Dr ants tea party the dialogue is a bit hard to make out here but seems to be more of the welcome to my tea party type stuff then face paint the voice is once again hard to make out but it sounds something like how could he do that you're only 10. this provides some more context on the 10th or 21 selection screen we saw in build 2. this traumatic event that Nicholas encountered with someone close to him happened when he was only 10 years old finally Follow the Leader is chosen and were once again with Nicholas sick of letting him have control you know like I just need to do stuff on my own Nicholas seems to have freed himself from Mr I at least temporarily he comes across a sign in this light of the Street Lamp it reads Follow the Leader a glitched whining Roar begins to sound from the darkness and the guttural voice of Mr I yells Nicholas's name forced to flee he stumbles across a blue house with Mr I close behind he slams the door in his face or eye now inside Nicholas has a moment of reprieve but of course that isn't meant to last Mr I angrily screams to be let in a Time Skip and Mr I continues to plead at the door apologizing and claiming he doesn't want to hurt Nicholas and then Mr I passes a note under the door we've seen this song and dance before this time though the pages are a comic about Nicholas's dad page one depicts a young Nicholas with the dialogue mom why is Dad acting weird his butterfly-headed mother replies he is just trying to feel good young Nicholas says he keeps yelling to which his mom responds I know the next page shows a tearful eye and the words I'm sorry stay in room with an image of a person crouching in the corner and lastly the word stop with an image of an Open Door Nicholas laughs in disbelief at the comic repeating you can't use this against me foreign [Music] this is nothing the last page of the comic shows a slamming door a crying eye and the text open the door the r ending in a dragged scroll that stretches to the bottom of the page we can see that Mr I's angry knocking at the door seems to be paralleling Nicholas's memories of his father and then this means nothing [Music] oh [Music] [Laughter] Nicholas burns the comic one last cut in the video and Nicholas cautiously peers out the window assuming that Mr I has now left he approaches the door and escapes laughs so that's the end right well I have one last side tangent before we jump into the analysis section it'll be short I promise so a channel called film student thoughts was posted to the community tab of AI builds for now let's talk about the videos each one takes the form of a video essay about a different film but it quickly becomes clear that these are parodies of the format John Merrick a man who in real life was stomped on by elephants is portrayed incredibly profoundly well by the actor John Hurt whose name is probably a reference to how John constantly gets hurt throughout this film due to his ugliness well here's the difference between you and me I'm a film student and you're not so I'm just more in tune with how a movie is made and what metaphors it makes the first thing I'd like to talk about with the Elephant Man is the way this film plays with shadows this film is so beautifully lit throughout and you can really see the menacing use of lighting to really bring out the feeling of fear when the monster appears let me show you an example here the voice is clearly the same as Nicholas but at first it's not entirely clear if this is just a separate parody series from Alex the Creator behind AI builds or if it's actually related to AI builds in the second video an essay about her we can see the SAS projecting his own feelings of loneliness onto the film digging into his feeling of isolation Okay so this part has copyrighted music so I have to talk over it essentially this is just the video essay is going on about how he uh has never been able to date anybody and that he just stays in on his computer and nobody at his college campus notices him and other confident people are you know getting dates and he just needs can't improve on himself and he's having a hard time improving on himself and he relates to this because uh to this movie because he's sort of trying hard to connect with people but he's feels distant and alone um and that he makes short films about his like college peers because they don't notice him and so he's trying to show them that he's noticing them it's very weird it's also worth noting this is an April Fool's thing so it's not a hundred percent Canon uh this is clearly like this is joking but but then something strange happens you don't mind I'd like to take a quick break from the film analysis to show you some drawings that I made when I was a child this one I called Mr I I drew him after feeling like people were watching me judgingly while I was walking to class one day this one I called Mountain face which I didn't put my name on for some reason I wish I could remember why this one is Dr and I named him after my doctor who prescribed him a medication and this one is a beautiful butterfly which reminds me of my childhood happiness interpreting these films feels like looking back on my old drawings I feel like I'm close to cracking what the purpose was but my mind won't let me reach the conclusions and that's what her is all about her continues to take everything away from me thanks for watching the final video was released in 2021 around a year after our last AI builds upload and well it's not even really an essay hello everybody today I would like to talk about my favorite horror film of all time Cloverfield the reason I love Cloverfield so much is the big monster big monsters are really scary and I found the monster really really scary and um uh so there's Mr I it's hard to make out exactly what he's saying but it amounts to calling out to Nicholas begging him to open up again as the image of a baby emerges from the void and that's all for AI builds for now all right so there's a good bit to talk about here I just want to quickly acknowledge the incredible performance of Nicholas and Mr I first though just all of it is amazing this series is a genuinely tense at times scary and disturbing beautiful and meaningful piece of art now when it comes to plot AI builds also isn't the most straightforward though it's pretty linear it isn't exactly clear how Nicholas finds himself in this surreal nightmarish scenario so I've come up with a few alternate theories all originating on the nature of the green and white pill we see throughout the series these three theories will be called the coma Theory psychosis Theory and dream theory there's some details that will likely stay the same throughout these theories so let's revise some basic plot points in the series Nicholas starts off creating a game and sharing it with an audience Nicholas has trouble with the game development process being overly critical of himself and his perceived criticism and berating himself over his lack of inspiration part of this criticism comes from heavily taking inspiration from a series called Animal Police an in-universe representation of petscop as Nicholas goes about planning out the game his ID ideas take a life of their own and becomes hijacked by an entity we will know as Mr I the game adds content to itself often directly reflecting the mental state of Nicholas or regurgitating his childhood memories Nicholas has a brother named Josh Josh hurtfully parodies Nicholas's work with the animal police YouTube series while Nicholas first assumes the game's modifications are due to Josh he quickly learns of Mr eye's presence in the game we learn of Dr ant a representation for Nicholas's childhood and maybe present-day psychiatrist whenever Dr ant is present in a scene Nicholas acts strangely we then discover the butterfly a representation for Nicholas's mother and childhood happiness this implies that Nicholas likely had a good relationship with his mother it's unclear if his mother is still in the picture though but she's likely a source of comfort for him throughout the series the nature of Mr I isn't always clear since my interpretation of him varies throughout the three theories all safe talking about him for later Mountain face is likely the face of Nicholas's father witnessing him following an overdose it is implied by build 008 Follow the Leader that his father passed away when Nicholas was only 10 years old and the event traumatizes him the green and white pills that appear throughout the series are implied to have something to do with his father's death either being the cause of his overdose or Nicholas fears that the pills will change his fate to be the same as his father's most of the series depicts Mr I essentially tormenting Nicholas and Mr I repeatedly makes efforts to break into areas where Nicholas is attempting to hide this could be both a literal attempt to gain entry through barriers put in place by Nicholas or a metaphor to gaining access to Nicholas's mind Mr I also frequently exhibits behaviors that mirror those in an abusive familial relationship by the end of the series we learn that Nicholas's father seems to express some of the same behaviors as we see a comic of Nicholas hiding in his room to the sound of his father shouting to open the door okay so before we get into the three different theories that I outlined earlier um I want to do a bit of a disclaimer um because of the nature of AI builds and the territory it covers a proper discussion necessitates talking about mental health and some experiences and conditions that I personally don't experience uh I don't feel like I'm necessarily a person of authority on some of these subjects the friend who wrote some of these does have a little bit more experience than me and some of these but most of these are based around uh interpretations that others have had in relating them to their own experiences and I just wanted to say I'm trying to be as respectful as possible and if you have more personal experiences with these sorts of things I would really love to hear your thoughts in the comments with that said uh let's talk so I think the three theories I outlined previously diverge depending on what type of medication this pill is starting with the one I think is most likely the coma Theory the coma Theory assumes that the green pill is an SSRI called fluoxetine which is prescribed to treat Nicholas's depression in this reading of the story overwhelmed by the present Nicholas unfortunately ends up using his pills as an escape echoing the actions of his father however this attempt fails and he enters into a limbo between life and death in the form of a coma this series would then take place in Nicholas's mind as he recovers in a hospital this interpretation is also enforced by the hospital-like corridors we see in the later half of the series hence the nightmare scenes present throughout AI builds reflects Nicholas's regret and horror at the immutability of his decision and his will to change his fate Mr I would then be a personification of the trauma from Nicholas's past which explains why Mr I mimics abusive Behavior reminiscent of his father despite Nicholas's desire to be free of him Mr I constantly demands entry to that part of his mind Mr I also represents the parts of Nicholas that are directly harmful to him Mr I is unfairly critical of Nicholas and admonishes his loss of creativity and his limited work output he appears to want to help necklace but all of Mr I's attempts at this actively harm Nicholas further additionally Mr I frequently weaponizes Nicholas's fear of ending up like Mountain face in order to inspire Nicholas to continue work however this constant reminder of that horrific event May only make it harder for Nicholas to find peace my hope is that in the last build of the series by escaping Mr I and seemingly burning the comic in build 08 Follow the Leader Nicholas is able to in a way defeat Mr I and these thoughts that influence his potentially fatal choice in an optimistic reading of the series this would overcome the overly critical and unrelenting thoughts that prevent Nicholas from rejoining the outside world ultimately since the series isn't over yet we won't know if Nicholas has really won there's also the possibility that the pill is methylphenidate a stimulant used to treat ADHD this would also explain the reason Nicholas was prescribed medication at such a young age as stimulants are one of the most common classes of drugs prescribed to Children the focus on inspiration and motivation throughout the series May then tie into the symptoms of ADHD though lacking these things also overlaps with depression people with ADHD May develop depression due to the inability to appropriately address their ADHD symptoms the name perfect child programming and the insistence that Drew should be able to produce work distinct enough from Tim's drawing may also reflect the idea that one's value is only represented through their work output additionally perfect child programming reminds me of the concept of gifted children gifted education seeks to accelerate the learning process for children deemed ahead of the curve when it comes to educational prowess but often grossly underprepares students when they're perceived innate giftedness is no longer able to carry them through the pitfalls of procrastination and the non-academic World perhaps Nicholas had some type of pressure on him as a child to maintain this gifted status and was tempted to take more and more of his stimulants possibly to the point of abusing them while the dangers of abusing stimulants are not as much immediately dangerous as ssris and other anti depressants there is a risk of developing stimulant psychosis a condition that can have symptoms similar to schizophrenia thus shortening of perfect child programming to PCP May hint at this type of psychosis and that Nicholas's world is the result of either a genetic condition that causes him to experience psychosis symptoms or of stimulant-induced psychosis while it's possible that Nicholas may have a different condition that causes him to experience psychosis I couldn't identify an antipsychotic that matched the green and white coloring of the pill so I'm more inclined to believe that the pill is a stimulant for this Theory to work the abuse of stimulants solely for the purpose of increasing work output isn't new Philip K dick is a famous suspected example of an artist who abused stimulants in order to crank out an incredible number of sci-fi books in a very short turnaround time unfortunately after more than 10 years of abusing stimulants he began to experience hallucinations and saw signs of religious symbols in odd places this led him to producing books reflecting some of the concepts of his hallucinations and delusions most famously writing Val list during this time back on topic if we assume that Nicholas is suffering from psychosis then the world of AI builds reflects the very real hallucinations he experiences Mr I then makes more sense the feeling of being watched and judged can be a common experience for those who experience psychosis and the repeated motif of something knocking at a door is another common auditory hallucination Mr I would then still reflect a lot of the internal critical thoughts of Nicholas as in the coma Theory but he would additionally reflect a personification of Nicholas's fear of being judged by others and a reminder of the motivating factor that led him to abuse his prescription a lot of the traumatic memories represented in AI builds through characters like Mountain face reflect Nicholas's worst fears as his psychosis Alters his perception of reality this also means that the ending of AI builds would be left a little more unclear lastly the dream theory it all starts with a grandfather it assumes that the green and white pill is Temazepam used to treat insomnia in this Theory Nicholas is plagued by insomnia after the trauma of his child childhood and experiences frequent nightmares Mr I torments him during these nightmares and AI builds occurs Within These Dreams I mean we already know Mr I can project dreams onto the screen but let's get a step stranger with this Theory what if Mr I represents some outside force and is using Nicholas's sleeping pill and Rich dreams as a means to take over his mind Mr I frequently demands Nicholas to open the door to him suggesting he somehow barred entry by Nicholas if Mr I is in command of the nightmarish world of AI builds surely he'd be able to gain whatever he wants from Nicholas another possibility is that Mr I is a rogue tulpa the modern definition refers to a willfully conjured imaginary friend that operates autonomously whether Mr I is an alien a supernatural entity or atulpa seeking full control of him isn't clear but Mr I conjures the worst nightmares conceivable for Nicholas in order to reduce him to a state of non-functioning in that case AI builds would be a series of Nicholas facing his worst fears in order to save himself from an otherworldly entity and by learning to cope with his traumatic past he may be able to free himself from the torment Mr I puts him through but whether Mr I is an alien or a manifestation of Nicholas's worst fears and thoughts it's clear that the plot isn't the only important part of this series I presented three alternate readings of the plot of AI builds but next I want to get into the symbolism in the series there's a lot to AI builds Beyond just that plot and it's executed extremely impactfully let's start with AI build's focus on childhood throughout the series we see references to Nicholas's childhood through the motif of the butterfly mobile imagery of babies and reminders of the event that happened when Nicholas was 10 years old the very start of the game presents a screen with only a choice of Ages 21 or 10 showcasing the Swap and mentality Nicholas suffers due to being haunted by the events of his childhood there's also scenes where we see Nicholas seemingly regress mentally like in build 07 dreams where Mr I weaponizes Nicholas's fond memories of his mother against him when we see the symbol of the butterfly its texture is glitched and a potential representation of Nicholas's childhood that is corrupted by his traumatic experiences or maybe just that the memories are more indistinct than Nicholas desires further symbolism in introvert Island showcases that Nicholas's childhood is Out Of Reach as Nicholas chases after the shadow of this childhood only to be left by the beach with an overturned crib we also see signs that Nicholas fears his childhood as in five story time a glimpse of a giant baby poking from the Shadows triggers some deep fear in Nicholas the very last scene of the series in why Cloverfield is my favorite film of all time also shows a baby floating in darkness once again calling back to this theme of childhood and possibly rebirth if Nicholas successfully frees himself from the grip of these memories the green and white pills also play an important symbolic role and the green and white are often used to inspire dread and Nicholas even from the start we see the clouds above Nicholas look like these green and white pills through the series these clouds Loom above him a constant source of dread that hangs over his work a fork in the road also marks Nicholas's decision does he choose to go through the tunnel or take a different path traversing the tunnel the world also changes turning from immensely depressive to oddly colorful though the looming imagery of the skull still hangs from a nearby branch in PCP the pills are also explicitly explained perhaps too explicitly to the audience hence the too obvious message at the end of the show my favorite example of the pill Motif is the chair scene in introvert Island Nicholas makes the decision to sit on the pill colored Trail and once he's aware of the danger of his choice he's powerless to undo it the dopplering echo of the ship's horn indicates a clear threat and despite his rapidly more Panic slamming of the space key he can't move out of the way I've never seen anything capture the Dreadful regret of this situation so masterfully this ties into the next theme I want to cover in the series The Dread of not being able to undo one's actions Nicholas's fear of mimicking his father's decision is palpable throughout every mention of mountain face in the series and through the incredible performance of horror in Nicholas's character Mr I is also a terrific source of horror a component of Nicholas that takes a life of its own Mr I also May reflect some horror at repeating the past maybe even the fear of retaining some of the traits of Nicholas's own father as Mr I is an internal representation of that part of Nicholas thus escaping Mr I may also represent escaping a cycle of abuse Mr Aya also literally being an eye symbolizes judgment and criticism Mr eyes implied to be the internal representation of Nicholas's fear of judgment and the cruel motivating source of his work ethic mirroring the behavior of his father and his worst critics all at once contrary to what one may believe this type of cruel critic is often counterproductive to inspiring oneself hence why Mr eyes attempts to motivate Nicholas fail considering the series itself starts off as a type of parody of petscop it is very aware that some may perceive it as just a pet scop alike and that makes sense as a topic to cover in this series keep in mind find criticism comparing other found footage gaming web series to petscop occurred fairly frequently and even the original Reddit post of the earlier conception of animal investigator had some somewhat harsh responses or at least looking down on it don't make this another obscure pet scop series and another critiquing the image for having a non-realistic ESRB rating the pressure on creation Mr I and Nicholas stress may also reflect an unhealthy Trend in our culture that one's value is the work or output they create and one might constantly need to create to be deemed worthwhile this causes Nicholas to spiral deeper into darker thoughts and AI builds may be an attempt to highlight that creation and originality isn't the end all when it comes to making art if Nicholas stressed less about creating something entirely original quickly from the start he may have been able to enjoy the creative process it makes me think of the tortured artist Trope in PCP Mountain face an emblem of something incredibly traumatic in Nicholas's life is supposed to help them be more creative earlier in the series Nick list talks about the pressure to put his own Vision into the work and the more he did that the worse he felt it's like he felt pressure to put his trauma into his art to make it original instead of just copying a game he liked turning a creative Pursuit that he may have enjoyed into a rehashing of trauma that he may not be ready to deal with Nicholas's self-critique and constant output also is satirized by Nicholas's continual apologies for taking too long between builds despite most of the videos having between a day and a month gap between each other a pretty impressive track record piggybacking off the idea of this trauma and self-critique there's an interesting Duality playing out in the form of Mr I and Dr ant if Mr I is a manifestation of Nicholas's bad thoughts manipulating him echoing fears of his criticism and originality it says something interesting that Mr is also afraid of the pills mourning him not to end up like his dad and to stay away from pills so even though that being afraid of pills is an understandable fear to have with that sort of trauma Mr I is also very purposefully keeping away from any other forms of help isolating him on introvert Island and really anything that would make him feel better so Mr I is like a manifestation of his trauma and the worst self-critique thoughts that Nicholas has at times comforting and familiar but mostly harmful and Dr ant is sort of the antithesis to that antithesis giving positive feedback and really trying to help Nicholas at first glance it feels like Dr ant would be the good to Mr eyes evil but it's also really clear that the series is not taking that at face value as Nicholas becomes very loopy and not himself when he's around Dr ant Dr ant complicates things because he's not the clear-cut good guy in the situation but I think that's sort of the point Dr ant seems to mean well but it's sort of showing that neither option is really going to fix things that neither way really is solving his problems which is why he's having such a difficult time Mr I makes him miserable and hate himself and give in to his worst fears but at least he's still Lucid in himself and it's familiar year Dr ant makes him feel good but he's completely out of it and also the line feeling good makes you work does elicit some of the points we discussed earlier about making your value being work and productivity and then there's Mountain face this concept is one of the most impactful parts for me it's so exactly what it is if you know what I mean it functions in so many ways the use of a mountain highlighting how Monumental this event was for Nicholas and how largely and unmovingly it stays in his head on the other side Mountain face functions as a really powerful way to get across the feeling of seeing someone you love recently after they've passed it's them it's their face but they're just not alive anymore an inanimate object just as alive as a rock that dichotomy is so strange to process especially as a child and this mountain face design really captures it in such a striking way he's not a spooky demon face it's just a man's face a relatively banal expression staring ceaselessly at nothing emerging from a mountain something else unique to AI builds is is the impressive extent to which it captures the feeling of nightmares the sound design encompasses the suffocating feeling of trying to wake up from a nightmare and its use of Split Second or lingering frames of disturbing imagery mirrors the exact kinds of scenes I'd see in my own nightmares dreams and nightmarish themes are also present in the structure of the episodes where Nicholas thoughts readily influence AI build's World in much the same way as dreams AI builds additionally captures some of the feelings of dread and Horror in an incredible way allowing the audience to also feel these powerful feelings in a medium that is better able to express them if there's a point to Art which is debatable for sure I think AI builds gets really close to realizing it being able to project a feeling or an idea from one person's mind to another as closely as possible we can never actually know what it's like in another person's head but AI builds comes as close as I think you can to letting us know what someone with similar struggles is Nicholas might feel that concludes the collection of thoughts I have about AI builds but there's still a question I have to answer are series like Sheriff domestic and AI builds pet scop rip-offs well hopefully I'd think the answer to that question is a strong no but they still do start off as parodies of pet scop so what makes them original and another series A rip-off to answer this I want to explore this concept of originality when it comes to art [Music] all right so there's a good amount of this script left and uh I was trying to figure out the best way to go through it and I figured the best way is to have the script on my phone and I'll just sit here and and wax to you guys so so what is art does it need to have a purpose what if just for fun someone decided to make art void of meaning well in the early 1910s a group decided to do just that the Dada movement faced with the Indescribable horror of World War One people started to ask themselves about what the point of it all even was in a world where something is globally traumatic as World War could even happen what was the point of creating did there need to be a point could anything be art the term anti-art a precursor to dadaism was a term that categorized the attitudes of the time to reject the bounded definitions of art by making art but not in the way that the world had seen before one of the most famous examples of this anti-art sort of sentiment and one of the founding minds of dadaism was Marcel Duchamp a French artist most famous for fountain or as you may know it the piece of artwork that's literally just a urinal Fountain was a part of duchamp's ready-made series there were various objects that Duchamp would then exhibit as art in an interview with Francis Roberts from 1968 Duchamp defined his ready-mades as a work of art without any artist to make it when I created the ready-mades it was not at all intended to have an explanation the iconoclastic part of it was much more important Roberts then asks an interesting question do you feel that the act of creating a ready-made is an act of art to which Duchamp replies I wouldn't say so no the fact that they are regarded with the same reverence as an object of art probably means I failed to solve the problem of trying to do entirely away with art so interestingly do Chomps sought out to create something that wasn't art and yet by even having that purpose he ended up making art so if the making process doesn't Define the art then does the intent Define it but then if we were to examine someone's art without knowing the author's intent does that then make it not art anymore what about art that no one sees I don't think I'm qualified to settle on a concrete definition and I don't think anybody is but art exists as this kind of paradox if you set about trying to create something without an artistic message you end up accidentally making a piece of art about not making art the conceptual challenge of mapping out the boundaries of what is and isn't art ends up bending those boundaries trying to make a piece of media without an artistic message is like trying to run off the surface of a Mobius strip do parodies or minimal effort reproductions of existing pieces of art count another one of do chomp's attempts at an art-defying ready-made was called lhoq which was a taped together postcard that featured the Mona Lisa with a mustache and then added inscription which when read aloud sounded similar to the phrase that roughly translates to she has a hot ass you could argue that this is a unique idea but he wasn't the first to parody the Mona Lisa so if being the first to an idea isn't necessary to making art we can't exactly claim that the reason fountain is notable is because it was the first to do it in fact in an exhibit presented in the MoMA from November 9th of 2014 to February 25th of 2015. I took this a step further by directly reproducing the artwork of a variety of different artists and presenting them personally I love this one of the main ways artists have historically improved their skill is by meticulously trying to recreate and study classic pieces of art repetitively copying classical pieces of work to improve their skill okay but getting back on the track of web horror is it any surprise then that when a big series like pet scop comes out a bunch of people create stuff inspired by that work they may sometimes miss their intended execution or be a bit a rough around the edges initially but I believe that through continuously practicing and seeing what works and fails when referencing another piece of media it'll only help the Creator improve so I've talked about how even creating a replica or trying to make something that has no meaning can still come out to be an interesting piece of art but surely there are some examples of stuff that it was poorly Done Right are we able to tell the difference between good and bad art or is there even such a thing let me introduce you to a documentary called exit through the pet scop through the exit through the gift shop so first I'm gonna recommend that you watch exit through the gift shop yourself if you care about spoilers it is an incredible ride okay here's your chance you still here okay let's get into this exit through the gift shop was a documentary released in 2010 originally intended to document the early history of some of the most famous street artists in the world however the point of the documentary quickly falls off the rails we think initially that this is just going to be documenting banksy's early career but the cameraman Terry Guetta quickly steals the show Terry Guetta amasses a huge amount of footage of people creating some of the most well-known pieces of street art and just the day-to-day lives of these incredibly famous street artists but when it comes time to actually edit it all together Terry is unable to make anything coherent not only because of the mass amount of useless footage but also because he lacks any real editing and filmmaking skills Banksy and crew end up needing to put this whole thing together themselves and re-edit it to sort of more be about Terry but in order to get access to Terry's footage Banksy tells Terry to essentially go out and make his own art and put on his own art show Banksy has no idea the insane ramifications of that request this kickstarts Terry's art career Terry mortgages his business in order to fund his incredibly ambitious first show that's not to say that Terry would have been you know completely on loose ground if this had failed him and his family have huge amounts of real estate Investments all over La Terry adopts the name Mr brainwash and he Dives deep into renting out a huge former CBS studio in La for Life is Beautiful his first show in 2008. this show included almost 200 paintings a 20-foot robot made out of TVs a giant spray paint can sculpture and many more impressive pieces but there were a few things not quite right about this attraction one Mr brainwash had no idea how to run a exhibit of this size and Banksy and crew ended up having to step in to save him secondly Mr brainwash didn't really create this art at least depending on how you Define it Mr brainwash relied on a team of artists and sculptors to create his impressive collection of pieces he'd flip through books of existing famous pieces of artwork write down notes on how to alter them and then assign the tasks to his Workshop of elves to quote Banksy in the documentary but wait I already talked about how do Chomp did essentially the same thing taking a ready-made piece of art and then slightly modifying it and showcasing it as a unique piece of art why is it different with Mr brainwash well YouTuber opinion alert in my view Mr brainwash's art feels altered by its intent exclusively to make money and gain Fame Duchamp intended to poke fun at the art World scene directly Mr brainwash maybe he's doing the same thing in a clever way in a way that makes him a lot of money but I'm conflicted about the mass production of art the way that he does it that he workshops from these unnamed and less handsomely paid other artists his works are fairly inoffensive aside from poking fun at pop culture and just feel empty that's not to say that they aren't art and you can't derive a larger meaning from them but just knowing that they were made to sit in a collection and appreciate value means that they just as easily could have been stock or real estate for all that they were intended now feel free to share your thoughts about this whole thing in the comments I honestly think that the character of Mr brainwash and Terry Guetta is more interesting than any piece of art that he's ever created in some ways it reminds me a lot of what the discussion around AI art and nft art has been he feels kind of like a trendsetter in that way people argue whether they are or aren't art and personally I draw back from any definition that tries to limit what art can be but you can definitely appreciate art less when it seems to have been made exclusively for appreciating value and fame with little interesting intent or artistic process behind it okay but what does any of this have to do with pet stop let's go back to the start there will never be another Pet Stop I under stand that the phrase is essentially just trying to get across the impact that it had and the community around it but I think the statement is true in another way even if someone created an exact replica of petscop it wouldn't be the same oh here's my cat this is Gus patreon Psalm first just saying even if it was a one-to-one recreation of pet scop it wouldn't be the same thing even if it would be slightly derivative and uninteresting my claim is that the term there will never be another pet scop is simultaneously true and false more of the same ends up being boring and another pet scop would be too imitative to be engaging stealing ideas from wildly different sources twisting them around in some way and repacking them in a new form is what makes creating media interesting even starting with the same concept as another series can result in huge divergences in where they go if combined with other themes and execution as was the case for both share of domestic and AI builds if we tweak the phrase to be more specific about aspects of petscop there will never be another series as weird as petscop Sheriff domestic captures a lot of that Spirit there will never be another series that portrays dread like petscop I think AI build succeeds there there will never be another series with the Slow Burn storytelling like petscop in my my personal opinion teeny toy is a series I've also covered previously does a pretty good job at that too the execution of a new heavily inspired series may not always be the best but the more someone works at creating something the more opportunities they have to improve it took a bit for some of these series inspired by petscop to appear and for a time there may have been some series that were not executed that well but originality in my view just comes from knowing the right ways to repurpose and execute ideas in novel combinations and that takes time to master if you feel like the genre is getting stale read some new books or watch new films or a completely unrelated form of media from what you're creating take note of the ideas you enjoy and maybe you can find a new way to iterate off of them now I think we're finally ready to talk about analog horror and the Mandela catalog the Mandela catalog takes a lot of inspiration from previous analog horror series like local 58 and the Walton files it uses images that have circulated around the internet for years and the normal thing normal things spooky things setup had been done done in FNAF VHS for quite a while but it also introduces some ideas that hadn't been explored in quite the same way and a lot of the audience that were initially introduced to the Mandela catalog vol 1 hadn't seen those viral spooky images they were just in different corners of the internet so their effect was novel and at times terrifying to that new audience some critics of the series complained that this trend of using spooky faces as a source of horror was overdone and lamented the state of analog horror at the time but given room to grow and improve the Mandela catalog has changed in these really interesting ways it now Blends elements of digital horror mixes CGI with real film and has this very unique high contrast style if the community had just written it off right from the start like some people had wanted we might not have given it a chance to see what it could become and demonstrate what is fully capable of and I want to make myself clear I'm not saying you can't criticize pieces of media constructive criticism can be a really important part of a Creator's journey to Improvement but I want to stress the importance of encouraging new web series creators even if the work they first put out might be a bit rough around the edges I've seen promising series end Midway through because criticism was coming in in a much harsher way than it needed to be people immediately comparing random amateur pieces to the Giants of the sub-genre as if every single one of these right out the gate needs to be of the same quality in order to be worth something so let's build each other up poking fun in really rude and hurtful ways only makes us miss out on what could be really promising new series speaking of that theme of improvement let's look at Analog Horror in the wake of the Mandela catalog one major complaint at the time was that the Mandela catalog was the final nail in the coffin for analog Horror by refining a characteristic slideshow like easy to replicate style many new creators were able to create their own series with minimal effort there were a lot of series that seemed similar to the Mandela catalog but with an altered plot and altered spooky faces so is analog horror dead good no I don't think so I think a lot of new creators were just experimenting with the medium getting better at writing filming and creating a series of their own while it may have initially seemed to spawn a lot of series that may not have held up to the spotlight as strongly as other analog horror works I think it's created a Resurgence of some cool web series The Best of which I think take inspiration from new sources and mix it with the analog horror format vintage H whole Channel especially the children under the house which I talked about before angel hair which is this really well animated thing that I also talked about in the children under the house video Vida Karnes a series that utilizes puppetry and practical effects to make its living meat creatures come to life and there's a lot more that I still haven't cut around to watching yet I also wanted to highlight that people who start off making parodies or derivative Works in quotes don't always stay doing the same thing Alex the creator of AI builds uh didn't just make AI builds I've talked about summon house in my last digital horror video and there's a series that Alex has done and that I gotta talk about at some point called The Journey uh all of this stuff will I'll have some link to somewhere in the description or comments or something like that and you should definitely check out the journey it's insane so I've talked a lot about my thoughts on originality when it comes to analog horror and found footage but how do you realistically achieve it well I have dabbled in this before but I think the better thing to do is take some people who have a bit more experience with this and ask them everybody I'm Syria my name is Alex kister hi I'm Parson hex hi I'm Adam butcher hey yo it's Alex the creator of AI builds summon house the journey and other weird cool stuff that I hope you enjoy I'm an acrobat a multimedia artist and the person behind the web series diminish diminishes what brings me here as a guest I made the series The Mandela catalog as well as my mini series mystifying Orville I'm a writer and director uh mostly of short films uh sort of web series type things I'm best known for internet Story the game That Time Forgot and what happened to Crow 64. I'm a musician and I'm the creator of Illusion lock I was inspired by online web series and projects such as petscop and I wanted to make something that used similar medium of Storytelling but I wanted to emphasize different themes so I tried combining elements from other media I enjoy to create something that didn't rely on just one source of inspiration I took inspiration for AI builds from a lot of things uh tonally I took a lot of inspiration from Alan Resnick things like this house has people in it unedited footage of a bear Alan tutorial things like that definitely uh aesthetically is what I grabbed a lot of inspiration from most of my inspiration for the Mandela catalog kind of came from other analog Horrors that were popular around mid-2021 mostly the Walton files Gemini home entertainment and local 58 which The Inspirations were pretty obvious um by look just looking at my earlier episodes but as I kind of went along I started to develop my own style by kind of building on those tropes in a way in terms of content I was kind of inspired in general kind of by internet horror as a whole um usually by implementing more like creepiness rather than scariness in a way um things like Shadows lurking in a dark corner rather than jump scares I was always a really big fan of that um and I caught and that's kind of remained a staple throughout the entire series I don't think I've ever included like an actual jump scare in a way really quick I'll just mention some of the core tangible works that inspired diminish pretty directly probably the biggest one as most people like to point out is indeed pet scop though you could say catastrophe Crow was a more direct inspiration because I first started brainstorming the concept of diminish immediately after watching the amazing what happened to Crow 64 meta video essay on Adam butcher's Channel internet story he was mostly inspired by just me spending a lot of time on the internet and kind of thinking that there wasn't enough stories being told about this thing we were on all the time you know this was sort of 2009 2010 there weren't that many stories about the internet being sort of told in this way aside from that I would say my other big inspiration was this short film called guy 101 which I'd seen at a film festival back when I used to go to film festivals and I guess it just shows that uh if you actually go to film festivals rather than relying on the YouTube algorithm you might actually see some stuff that's genuinely inspiring and interesting and a bit different from my other series mystifying Oracle I kind of took a more of a nostalgic approach to it in a personal way um by kind of utilizing the early 2000s YouTube Ghost citing format in a way like that was pretty dated but using that intentionally to kind of using using that kind of like natural creepiness to it which I feel like other series I aren't really doing as much but are kind of starting to sprout now which I really like which is more effective for people my age who grew up on YouTube around that time compared to people who are maybe a little bit older who are more affected by the Nostalgia of VHS tapes with analog horror there were a lot of works that gradually inspired me to give it a try the NES Godzilla Creepypasta various other Haunted Game pastas from the early 2010s more recent ones like AI builds illusion lock was a big one as well as a series whose Creator wants distance from so I won't mention the series but I'll shout out their current art later all in all petscop was the series that years ago played a major role in shifting what I thought was possible in storytelling and broadened my horizons regarding how a story can be told it was such a ridiculously unique and effective way to intimately Reach people and in a sense that genre groundwork really felt so accessible to poor myself and Teddy into so we could share that intimacy with the world too PCP was definitely uh directly inspired by don't hug me I'm scared and was intentionally meant to seem kind of almost derivative of that style oh and pet scup how do you make an original web series tough I think the definition of original varies from person to person but for me in order for something to be original regardless of outside inspiration it needs to be grounded in something personal some kind of lived experience that resonates deeply with you either in an emotional or spiritual or relatable type of way what I would interpret as original is something that I haven't seen before like felt before or maybe like an idea or topic that hasn't been built upon as much as it could have for a while now my advice to new creators would be understand the difference between inspiration and derivation some of my favorite films as of recent have inescapable parallels to what they take inspiration from like everything everywhere all at once the killing of a sacred deer midsummar and other amazing films in my opinion amazing films like that the idea that the only way of being original is making sure every single aspect of your work is fully an original thought to me is absurd since practically everything comes from something else and with that logic almost all stories throughout history wouldn't be able to exist since they probably most likely borrowed from other works as well even petscop itself is inspired heavily from works like David Lynch pre-existing web series and probably a whole lot of other stuff that we might not even know inspiration doesn't exist in a vacuum and generally new ideas are passed down from old ideas that people have already had before I would say that if there's anyone out there who wants to maybe pursue like a web series or something especially in the I know the horror landscape today it doesn't even have to be hard um and that kind of plays into originality you don't things do you don't have to do what other people are doing you can use ideas that you like like I've taken so many ideas from other analog horror series that I liked and I kind of I didn't steal them but I built upon them in my own way and and utilized it in my story so you can use ideas from other series but Implement your own ideas into it put put a Twist on something that people are familiar with and throw them off course a little bit don't be afraid to do that if you're not actively biting off one specific thing don't worry too much about your project being like something else just stay true to the story you need to tell and if you need to tell it in a way that's kind of rough or imperfect at first that's fine we all have to start somewhere my advice for creators is to remember that you're doing it for you it's going to be a personal Journey and that isn't to say like ignore all criticism and don't take feedback but it is to say don't lose yourself in other people's expectations don't be afraid to kind of do what you want you don't things don't have to make sense you don't have to conform to any ideas or formulas or anything like that just do what you want to and what you think is powerful to you and other people I can almost guarantee will feel the same way but I would say the main way of making something truly original is by not being afraid to just throw things at the wall and see what sticks just be full-on creative be full-on uh crazy with your art you know like AI builds is fully from the ground up completely based around improvising you know like every line of dialogue is improvised uh most of the visuals I just sort of had a dream about and I woke up and I put it into Cinema 40 and rendered out some idea from it and told a story around it you know I think the best way to just make anything original is just don't be afraid to just go insane with it and yeah that's basically what I would say I think making web series is tough in general because it doesn't have a very clear audience at the moment you're kind of relying on the algorithm to get audiences to your web series and you're I guess hoping that they come in at episode one and then you keep them on the journey to episode two three and four or however your web series is structured in order to break into the algorithm you usually need some kind of hook you know a lot of people use the kind of Creepypasta kind of vibe which which I think can be incredibly effective like you think you're watching one thing and it actually turns out to be something else it's that kind of thing that can get you on Reddit and just get people clicking on a thumbnail and stuff like that in a way your web series is slightly dictated by just like how can you even get people to click onto your thing and I think that can cause problems with originality I think originality is hard I think probably it's trying to come up with other ways to stand out and other ways to get people to your thing and excited about your thing and that often does involve thinking again about like the audience being on the internet and like where are they before they've seen your video have they been on Reddit have they been checking the weather have they been looking up the pronunciation of a word that's how the pronunciation book uh web series was created which I'm a big fan of probably one of the few big fans of it so yeah I think originality is hard in and of itself but the thing you have to be wary of is you could do something incredibly original uh incredibly cool but people just might not see it all I can give to as advice to new creators is you know try and come up with things that people haven't done before try and do them well and don't try and copy just try and be yourself as cheesy as that sounds Sagan asked me to discuss what I think in my opinion makes a web series original and for my advice regarding how to make an original web series and immediately as I thought about addressing that I I think I ran into an impasse regarding how Society defines originality I think the concept of originality isn't something that has a reliable shape as a tool and an argument Creations can be more based on existing Works more inspired by existing works and even more imitative of existing Works than other creations are however I do think that it's incredibly easy to talk about this concept and Concepts like it in a misguided way try thinking of it like this that art that you want to make that thing that you're really passionate about the heartbeat of your creation imagine it's the color blue but imagine that lately it's become increasingly popular rhetoric that the color blue is so overused so overrated and it's killing originality and art no one knows how to make anything anymore without filling it at both blue blue what's so special about blue it's so boring it's it's above us every day come up with something original it's perpetuating this era of lazy visionless media and suddenly it feels like no one takes the art that you want to make seriously anymore it just feels like the audience that you might have had is evaporating and all that's left is rageful and disgusted people waiting to pounce on you for what you love they will if they're angry about people liking the color blue they'll let you know but if what you desperately want to make is full of the color blue you have to keep loving blue you have to make it anyway and God I know that's easier said than done believe me I know I know when you feel the desolation of sharing your heart with a world that doesn't want it it's so hard not to say what's the point but you asked that already when you decided that you want to make something and the answer was another question what if I made that thing that I just have to make it's that nagging feeling burning inside you that made you want to pour your love and effort into making something in the first place you want to make something that's it that's the bottom line if your dream project is all about the color blue that's what you should make and people who despise that they can scream they can flail they can throw rocks they can try to stop you but what can they really do you're the one holding the pen it's your world if you want to make it blue you can make it blue as for the people who hate it all the grand majority of them can do is kiss your ass if a work of art is clearly and conspicuously inspired by another or it closely adheres to extremely common archetypal formulas then yeah I guess you could say it's unoriginal but you can't measure originality with with some barometer and you especially can't directly measure how that affects every other aspect of the work most of all you can never fathom how it affects every person who has ever interacted with it it just makes each person feel how they feel and as the Creator all that matters in the end is how it makes you feel when impactful things like pet scop spark a huge wave of works that use it as a conceptual basis people will always be mad and sound the unoriginality alarm despite the fact that that work was cripping off of something that was made 10 years ago which was creeping off of something that was made 12 years ago which was cripping off of something that was made 40 years ago it's just there's just no use there's so little point in trying to avoid these things we're a human and so are all the other humans who interact with us the things we say the things we do and the things that we create and now billions of people constantly have access to you and they can say anything they want about anything they see anytime they want in the end when it comes to how originality is defined you cannot truly be original you will not be allowed so asked me what I think makes a web series original and my advice for making an original web series I don't approach it that way in truth the thing that stands out to me most when I interact with art is how much I can see the heart of the person making it how genuine it is dead ass I think when something is dripping with the honesty of the creator that is about as original as you can possibly get I think the only time you should ever try to make something original for originality's sake is if the thought of that makes you get up in the morning because if making something original for originality's sake is what you really really want to do in your heart and soul then that means you will make something that is you and it will be really cool but if you're trying to make something original for originality's sake and it's not for you it probably won't work because what you're trying to achieve does not exist there's no concrete definition no one will agree about it and it may not get around to convincing any of them because when you make something the most important person to convince is yourself make it for you don't try too hard to be original don't be a thief be you and it will be original it's like someone I love likes to say being cool is overrated be warm instead okay well Sagan said I could do shout outs so I might as well start with said loved one and Friends kyoteo k j o r t e o the woodlings a collection of people who embody being warm and being yourself about as emphatically and extensively as you could possibly be they inspire me every day feel free to benefit from those vibes on their twitch Channel if you'd like Also earlier on I mentioned a previous unfiction Creator who inspires me they go by crush's bones and they also exemplify originality through doing the exact art they want to do and being themselves to the utmost they make a lot of music it's gnarly it's Unique it's expressive it's entrancing it's crush's bones and it may be for you also if you're around on fiction spheres like this one you may already know about illusion lock and its creator Parson hex illusion lock is another vibrant example of everything I've been talking about being able to see somebody's mind and spirit through making exactly what they want to make and there's a lot of it so if it's your thing you've got a feast of really Lush and colorful unfiction videos waiting for you and yeah when Sagan mentioned shout outs he probably might have actually meant me shouting out my own spaces and in case that's true sure diminish is a thing and it's not done yet despite what channel activity would suggest I promise I also stream games and speed runs and art stuff constantly on Twitch and I have a few YouTubes of various types of content I've got a Twitter so on Sirius song and serious song accessories I tried to keep it as short as possible but I'm me I know I'm really intense and a lot this time I won't apologize deal with it thanks so much for having me Sagan you're doing great stuff keep killing it best wishes everyone dream on everybody peace hey thanks for watching uh hopefully you've found some of what I've said or more accurately my friend slash guest writer has said uh interesting and uh you should really check out all this series that I've mentioned honestly I am so tired right now um I have so much editing still to do but thank you to everyone who agreed to uh get interviewed for the that end segment definitely check all the stuff that they shouted out out and everything that they've worked on um good bye

Channel: Sagan Hawkes

Views: 675,371

Keywords: analysis, sagan hawkes, AI Builds, Sheriff Domestic, Petscop, Explained

Id: tKVZc2LqgI0

Length: 157min 35sec (9455 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 22 2023