In this age of viral videos, works of art both beautiful and grotesque have continued to entrance and disgust their respective internet viewers. Over the course of this series, so far we’ve covered the intricate, the simple, the grotesque, and the coke fueled rants of a recovering alcoholic, but there is one topic we have yet to cover: The disgusting. You may notice that I didn’t link the video at the top for the first time today. That’s for good reason. Human Cake is objectively disgusting. Seriously, do not watch this video if you ate anything recently, it will upset your stomach. I promise. Well, you’ve been warned. Without further ado, ‘Human Cake’!

Coming in with a whopping 10 million views, Human Cake is the third of YouTuber Filthy Frank’s Cake Trilogy, of which the first installments were Vomit Cake and Hair Cake. The concept itself is very simple: Filthy Frank, a character conceived by the channel’s creator to be the embodiment of everything bad about the internet, travels to different regions of the world to gather ingredients from other notable YouTube stars for a cake. The catch is, the ingredients are all variations of someone elses’ body parts. In a montage nothing short of nauseating, Frank and friends collect everything from Toe-nails, to half-chewed bananas, to pubic hair and even urine. Now for the main attraction. Filthy Frank then puts all of the ingredients into a cake, bakes it, and eats it with his friends.

Now, if you didn’t know who this was, you might think that the video can’t possibly be real. Who would be crazy enough, insane enough, unhinged enough to do something so disgusting just for internet clicks? Filthy Frank was the Internet’s controversy king for 5 years from 2013 to his retirement in 2018, and in that time, disgusting, jackass-esque stunts have become his signature. He’s done it all, from playing twister with rat traps, to having firecrackers fired up his butt, to reeling in a fishing line with an actual human hooked to the end, by the time Human Cake rolled around, Frank’s audience had become desensitized to what would nauseate any reasonable human.

So, why have 10 million people watched it, and why have 368,000 liked it, compared to a mere 9,000 dislikes. To put it simply, this video is a collaboration, done the Filthy Frank way. YouTube stars from every corner of the internet, from KSI (16+ million subscribers) to JoeySalads(6+ million subscribers), to even Pewdiepie(60+ million subscribers) openly giving Frank their praise for undertaking this joint venture. Also, even though it is VERY disgusting, the entire video is treated like a joke. Its made to make viewers laugh, and appeal to that sense of desensitized disgust most viewers attain from the channel. YouTube itself has never liked Filthy Frank, often doing their best to make sure his videos are never put in trending or on the home page, despite his popularity. In the words of Pewdiepie himself “Shoutout to Filthy Frank. I would recommend going to watch him, but honestly I’m not sure that’s a good idea”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Vuw-burI0