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7.26.2016

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared: Dark Stuff Behind Media Business


Who else loves binge-watching Youtube on friday night when you finally home after a week of torture with routines and tasks who might kill you anytime? I do all the time and by 'watching Youtube' I mean watching any normal to weird videos on Youtube. You can start with watching Taylor Swift music videos to subtle Nazi propaganda videos or even how to do a right blowjob. Like, what happened to my videos-preferences?

So one day, I came across a video under the title 'Don't Hug Me I'm Scared' after I finished watching Teddy's Operation that was so weird and cute at the same time. This video showed a typical children show that using puppet to teach children about things in life. Like Sesame Street style when the puppet play and sing together.

(source: google images)

Everything was fine and normal until at some point it became really disturbing with some macabre images, psychedelic-preferences, scary music, and everything changed. Then we realize that this thing is not a kid show. And after spending some time watching this video, I spend more times to understand the video. I do think that must be some meaning behind this video. And after some time, I also realize that Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is a Youtube series.

And recently, the creator of the series, Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling, have released the final or the ending of the series. There are 6 episodes of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. Well, as a fan of ugly and weird things, I enjoy things like this and do spend times to understand the meaning of the series.

Well, if you haven't watched any of the videos, please checkout the channel. Its level of weirdness is still acceptable. You can click here..

Confuse enough? These are some of the best theories I've watched that make more sense to me (well, all people sharing the same theories, but these videos I watched are probably the best according to my opinion). Click here from the channel Youtube Explained (Vinny), and here from the youtube account CP Games.

And meet the main characters of DHMIS

(source: google images)

The yellow puppet, the duck, and the red guy.

The fans of DHMIS actually have given the characters names, for example, the yellow guy is known as Manny. The Duck named is Robin, and the red guy, who is my favorite, is Harry. Both of the three characters represent people with three different ages. The yellow puppet, who probably become the victim of the whole 6 episodes was the youngest. Followed by the red guy who was believed represent the teenagers who is being skeptic about everything and asking questions about things that surrounds him. The Duck puppet (I was thinking that he represent more younger generation than the red guy, but then I watch some other explanation) actually represent the elderly, he's the oldest of them three.

Well, one of the theory judged it by the clothes he's wearing and how his voice resembles old man's voice. (what's great about these series is that they open for any kind of explanation you might wanna think)

Roy with the poster (credit: google images)

Any other characters than those there are the teachers (daily stuff that can talk) and a guy named Roy. Roy was believed as the yellow puppet's father. Because the yellow puppet has talked about this in so many episodes and they pretty look alike. Roy wasn't a good father though judged by his face and what he does in almost all episodes (except 1st episodes) like watching them from the dark corner, like he tried to make sure that all these 3 characters are doing things he want them to do.

That leads to theory that said, Roy was the guy behind the production of the series. (You can also find Roy's name on the credits after the series end). And he exploited his own kid to be a part of the media. Some believe that he is the 'father', not the biological father of the yellow guy, but he plays the role of adult who became the example, or the father of kids that has been brainwashed by the media.

The series consist of 6 episodes which goes around themes such as Creativity on the first episode, Time, Religion, Technology or Internet, Diet and Foods, and Dreams on the last episode. After doing some research, I understand that the series told us about Media and TV business and how misleading could the information shown by media and television. And children are told to do what the TV told them to do. That means, media and television are the tools to brainwash the children and were created for the purposes of the owner of the TV Business.

The First Episode: Creativity. (watch here)



The notepad, who was the teacher told the main characters how to be creative. It is such a mainstream topic where all kid show tell children to be creative. When I was watching this, I was thinking this was just another kid show that goes about some normal themes such creativity.

The teacher, the notepad was pretty selfish, and it won't let the children argue about things it said. For example when it told them to be creative by saying 'I use my hair to express myself', the red guy who is pretty skeptic said 'That sounds really boring'. Then the notepad didn't like it and repeat itself. It also dismiss the drawing that created by the yellow guy by pouring oil at it.

Like he meant to say, 'Be Creative, but in the way the society told you to be'

Things get weird when they are told to be creative. They move around the room, get crazy and everything was a mess. At the end the notepad say, "Now that us all agree, to never be creative again." or you'll end up pretty messed-up.

The Second Episode: Time (click here)


The clock who plays the role of the teacher, who was also pretty selfish and intimidating tell them that there's a time for everything and actually sounds boring because it shows that our life has routines that we have to obey. It also said that our life is short, that we are limited by time and we can do nothing about it.

But instead of enjoying the time we have, the clock said, 'Fun is wasted of time'

It's like it wants to tell the children about important things in life, but it misleads the idea of the important things and it made the children to think of a certain way as what they told.

What I love about this is the characters are very clever and ask things such as, "But when the time start, and will it stop?" "Is time even real?" The duck, the oldest, even give a theory that "Maybe time is just a construct of human perception and illustration created by..."

And the clock was angry and become annoying like the alarm that wakes us up to go back to our routines everyday, and we have no time to think about that questions.

The Third Episode: Religion (click here)



The culprit (because it is the teacher that gives the wrong idea) is the butterfly. The butterfly was showed up when the yellow guy was sad and feel lonely. It convince him to think that he need someone or somebody to make him feel less lonely. (Again it's the good idea, but then it is misleading)

To make children or people think that they are lonely and was offered things that makes them feel better are the way the media (or religion, or any other things) persuade them to follow them. It touches the essential thing in life to attract people, once they are attracted, it can use them as tools and brainwash them. The negative side about things like this is they give no chance for the followers to be 'creative' and have their own opinion.

The video tells about ideas like anti-gay, marriage, and god itself. Like, it might be true, but it can also be very deceiving once people believe about everything it said and it can be very dangerous.

The ending is good though. The two friends, the duck and the red guy, were trying to find him and give the last boiled-egg for the yellow puppet. That's what love is all about, it doesn't have to be what the butterflies said about the idea of loneliness, God, and marriage. It's just as simple as friends who look out for you and give you the last boiled-egg. Friends-love is unconditional (it doesn't required rings (marriage) or gravels (things that given to Malcolm the God of Love to fed him).

The Fourth Episode: The Internet (click here)


It started with the question, 'What's the biggest thing in the world?' While all the characters are looking at the globe, the computer comes to alive. And instead of focusing on the answer, the computer becomes cocky by saying how great it was.

It makes us think that on the internet, sometimes the information could be misleading. Well, it didn't tell us that the internet is bad. You can actually find the answers of everything on the internet. But the computer meant to say that there are some other things you can find on the internet that were there for business or personal purposes such as advertisement.

It also shows that we can write our own personal information and it will stay there forever, and while we're online, we are being monitored. We are forced to have an alter ego, our digital-self on the internet that might be different from our real-selves.

At the end, the characters were fall into the trick the computer offered. They all were involved in the Digital Dancing lead by the computer. And they also lose their real selves and their digital selves have replaced them. Except for the red guy who was sitting there and watching his friends on the internet. He then goes to other room and for the first time he realize that he's on the movie production where there're cameras and everything. Then his head was blown up.

Some theories said that it symbolizes the stage when every teenagers finally understand something and become a grown-up. The red guy refuse to do what the 'teacher' said, and find out that everything was staged and he's the part of bad media.

The Fifth Episode. The Food Advertisement (click here)



This is the first episode where the red guy is excluded from the stage. He is somewhere outside. The two character realize that something was missing, but they didn't quite sure what's missing.

In this episode the teachers are the canned-food and the steak who was really scary because it has forks and always point the fork on the duck. The teachers told the characters about the healthy food that they have to eat in order to get healthy. But we know something is wrong when what's considered healthy are bread and pizza, and the unhealthy foods are eggs and carrots who are bad to our organs. Again, it wants to show us that the information given by the media in advertisement form is misleading and wrong.

The red guy who was fond of his friend try to make a phone call all the time, maybe to warn them the dangerous thing about the stage they're in. The phone rang many times to interrupt the show, and everytime it rang, the steak and the canned food looked anxious. The duck answers all the phone call and it makes the realize that things are wrong and scary. He then left the stage.

Traumatized?

Some said that the duck is dead because on the other scene, it shows that the duck was in the hospital being literally eaten by the canned-food. It maybe want to symbolize that all the time the duck was eating unhealthy food, and that unhealthy food was consuming our organs. Or maybe it just want to symbolize how the duck was fell into the advertisement and eat the canned-food all the time. No one knows exactly, We can speculate and imagine what's going on, that's the best thing about DHMIS.

The ending we can see the yellow puppet was left all alone on stage and was obese. He ate all the food there and become obese and lonely. After that the scene changed into the red guy come out of the phone box which indicates he tried to save his friends but he didn't succeeded. And the red guy was wearing a suit and bring the suitcase.

And hell yeah, he was my favorite. He looks really cool in that outfit.

The Sixth and Last Episode: The Dreams (click here)


Finally everyone was left, and the yellow puppet looks really sad he cried at the beginning of the episode. When he tried to sleep, the lamp wakes him up and said, how could you be sleepy when you don't know how to have dreams. The yellow puppet who finally learn that things must have turned out crazy everytime refuse to listen the lamp. But nonetheless, the yellow puppet has to be the victim of all things that going on. And he is already traumatized with everything on set.

Through this theme, maybe the creator want to say that children's dream are stirred and hijacked by the media. Again, the children are allowed to have dreams, but the dream that the media think it's best for them.

Then the scene changed into the real world when the red guy was sleeping in his office when his boss or other employee asking him to do things with the files he gave him. The red guy think that the office life is boring and try to make jokes by saying that he imagine the files were alive and sing. On the other hand, the other employee think it's boring.

Again, when they were seem having a party, the red guy feels everything is boring, and he tried to break the norm and cheers things up, so he come on stage. He sing the Creative Song from the first episode but then everyone didn't like it. It symbolize the red guy's dream was crushed. And at this point he saw Roy, the guy behind everything.

Roy, as the producer ask him to join the media business as the guy behind the stage. He then got the whole picture of what's going on all this time when he used to be the actor and the victim of media. He saw his old friend, the yellow puppet on stage and he became the guy behind the production and saw how traumatized his friend was and try to stop everything.

He also realize that he has the power to stop everything by pulling the plug. And when the plug was pulled, the scene changed.

The date that always set on 19th of June finally changed. It symbolize the new chapter, the new generation, everything is back to normal, to the very beginning except, everything was slightly different.

The last episode

the first episode

We can see the very first set of the first episode when the three characters are sitting in the living room. But nobody knows whether these characters are the same from before because they are in different color. The color is what considered to be their favorite colors. Means, they can choose and can be what they want, unlike before. It shows the change in liberty and freedom.

Final Conclusion and some other things.

While it serves as the final episode of the series, it explains some of the confusing things happened before. The 19th of June might represent the year 1950 when the first show was aired and was monopolized by BBC. Every information was ruled by one media.

Everything that displayed by the media was considered true and everyone believed it just so. But when on the year 1960, other media was airing its first show. The ending of the show indicates the monopoly by one media is over.

The creators also adds another video under the title HELP!(here)
Through this video, the creators asking for help for funding the production of the video. They didn't want the series to be commercialized, that will changed the purpose of the video itself, which is to mock the over-commercialization of the media.



In this video, all three characters were abducted and tied. The yellow puppet said that they were in the father's house. This makes me think that the abduction must have to do with the father, Roy. The date on the video shows the 19th of June 1955. Again it refers to the dawn of the TV Business.

Well, there are so many positive things about TV and media, through this video we learned that not all things displayed on TV or any other media include the internet is right. We are not supposed to believe everything. We are human beings, and we have freedom to choose what we believe, and to tell right from wrong, we have freedom to learn and keep our mind open and not limited by one perception.

We have to be free from people telling us what to do. I mean they can tell us anything, but we have heart and brain to decide whether to follow or just to consider what they're saying as another point of view. So keep your mind wide open, kids!


Bye!

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