For any of you youtube enthusiasts that ended up on the weird side of youtube, you may know what I’m about to dive into. Today I’m going to uncover the youtube series “Don’t Hug Me. I’m Scared”. If you think the title is weird, that’s not even half of it. This series was created by Becky Sloan & Joseph Pelling. It follows the experiences of a group of three friends (Yellow guy, duck, and red guy) who while hanging out encounter singing inanamate objects that teach them a lesson through song.

The first episode starts by showing a bunch of random objects then panning to “get creative” written on a post-it. Then we see the group of three friends sitting around a table and staring blankly. A pad of paper with a face opens up and starts loudly singing “What’s your favorite idea? Mine is being creative” with bouncy and fun electro music in the back. It starts out positive. The three friends start singing along wondering what it means to be creative. The pad of paper points out things that appear normal but really have creativity. For example, a face on an orange. When the friends don’t understand creativity, the paper says “Cuz you’re not thinking creatively!” Finally the friends start to think creatively when they start seeing shapes in the clouds.

Things go south after Yellow guy sings, “I might paint a picture of a clown!”. The pad of paper responds, “Woah there friend you might need to slow down…” The music stops and the only sound is black goo squelching down the front of the painting. After it covers the whole painting, the happy music starts back up again and the pad of paper continues giving tips on creativity. This is where a deeper and darker meaning comes into play. The pad of paper continuously shuts down yellow guys attempts at creativity. The pad of paper joyfully yells to start getting creative and as the three friends start arranging weird looking, uncomfortable arts and crafts. The music increases in intensity and turns into creepy high pitches beeps as the imagery changes.

The video shows a camera crew videoing the friends. To sum up, this episode exposes the way creativity is limited. It is argued that School systems and society in general has a tendency to tell kids to be creative but restrict them at the same time. The camera crew shows how things that seem creative are often limited by higher powers. The music turns completely creepy and the arts and craft activities become horrifying. For example, someone splats a real heart onto the table and starts covering it with glitter. No longer is this fun little video, it becomes quite off putting (though interesting none the less). There are images relating to death which could represent the way in which creativity is killed. After this horrifying scene, everything goes back to normal and the pad of paper sings “now let’s all agree, to never be creative again and then closes itself”. Though it may give you nightmares, it’s really interesting to dive into the deeper meaning behind this off-putting little series and I look forward to debunking more of these episodes.