The internet’s weird spaces can make their way into normal ones. A friend of your brother may message a video with no context.
“Cool!” You think. “An affectionate parody of children’s entertainment, that is a love letter to those ear worms.”
Nope. It is not that. Instead, you watch a show that makes you blink, take a deep breath, and decide to nope out on the subsequent crowdfunded webseries.
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is one of those weird Internet creations that went viral due to its subversive nature. We have singing puppet teachers that enforce conformity under the cover of explaining abstract concepts. A notepad will destroy a clown painting, deeming it’s not the form of creativity that she approves, or a clock would rapidly age the characters and make their eyeballs fall out if they question the meaning of time.
You thought it was over after six episodes and you waited out the social media storm. The analysis videos made me feel safer because they would deconstruct the horror, adding meaning to them.
Then YouTube made an announcement: the BBC had released new episodes of a DHMIS spinoff, made by the same crew. Any six are already out!
Nope. Not doing that again. While there is morbid fascination in seeing how the singing will go wrong, I will not sleep at night after watching.
I have never been more grateful for regional restrictions. You can only see the show officially if you have a UK address, and YouTube is on the warpath for any bootlegs. Current analyses, however, are short. No one has the whole, so we don’t know where this is going.
In terms of creativity and production, without referring to the first bit of “Creativity,” the series is great. You can tell the creators had a clear vision, even if they don’t want to get the answers.
I can’t explain, however, why the tale is terrifying. Seeing the “Time” short definitely shocked me and my brother. It wasn’t just the shift in visuals, or the clock host being evil.
It’s going to be an interesting fall, especially since DHMIS stuff hasn’t showed up on social media yet. When it does, though, I’ll be ready. It’s called switching to Halloween Baking Championship. (Discovery as the parent company currently sucks, but the competition is great.)
