Absurdly is probably not the right word for it, in under a week the second episode of The Amazing Digital Circus reached not ten million, not twenty million, but fifty million views on YouTube, currently at ninety-three million, and as of June 13th, 2024, the pilot is at three-hundred and twenty-seven million views. Now, I loved the pilot and the second episode as much as the next person, but there is a question that is sticking in the back of my mind, something I've wanted to ask with the pilot but never really got the chance to. All in all, it really isn't a big question, frankly it's inconsequential, but I got to know, does Caine ever accidentally bite down on his eyeballs? Okay, in all seriousness, the question I really wanted to ask is, why this show? Specifically, what is it about this show that makes it so popular?
Somethings, it makes sense why they're so popular, SpongeBob, Superman, Minecraft, Star Wars, I get why these properties are so popular, but a lot of that is hindsight and years worth of fans taking about every aspect of these things to death. The most recent example in that selection was Minecraft, which was officially released in 2011, thirteen years ago, and it was available to the public since 2009. The Amazing Digital Circus pilot was released in 2023, just barely a year ago. Yet it already has more views than the Nostalgia Critic's review of The Room. Hell, the Angry Video Game Nerd episode on NES Accessories as of writing this has only eighteen million views. Is It a Good Idea to Microwave an Airbag, one of the most well-known episodes of the webseries that got me into web-content, is at two and a half Million views. Actually no, I think the only way I can really illustrate how crazy insane popular The Amazing Digital Circus is, is by stating this fact; The Amazing Digital Circus pilot has amassed more views in less than a year, than Don't Hug Me I'm Scared did in twelve years. So, why is this show so popular?
Well, let's start with the very basic; the show is accessible. The Pilot is available in eighteen different languages and has closed captions for sixteen. Granted that is not anywhere close to the amount of languages there are in the world, but that is still an amazing amount. It goes to show the obvious, accessibility is a good thing. However, I don't think this is the full story. I'm sure the accessibility helps, and I'm sure it helps quite a lot, but all that accessibility wouldn't matter if nobody was watching it, and clearly people are, so I ask again, what is it about this show that appeals to people, to the point that it does actually matter that it's available in other languages?
Well, let's move from the very basic, to the very obvious; The Internet loves horror. "Oh, but I'm on the internet and I don't like horror", hey, I was like that too, but I still read Creepypasta, I wasn't too good for Jeff the Killer and Candle Cove, Hell I got my start in reviewing by talking about creepypasta on DeviantArt, don't go looking for those journals, I have honed my craft so much since those days. It goes way beyond Creepypasta though, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared was a sensation to the point that it was referenced in children's cartoons, Five Nights at Freddy's was such a viral sensation that it spawned a whole generation of horror games entirely made to be played by talent-less clickbait Let's Play channels, Hell it's not even just true-horror that gets popular, the most popular Homestar Runner toons are almost always the Halloween toons, to the point where those are pretty much the only thing we get out of Homestar Runner anymore. So horror and Halloween vibes are practically worshipped on the internet in the same way that Led Zeppelin is worshipped in rock and roll communities.
Once again, I don't think this is the full story. The internet loves horror, but that doesn't mean every horror thing is beloved. A lot of those old creepypasta stories are, rightfully, dunked on and mocked online, and bad horror games are practically a dime a dozen and often ignored, and terrible horror movies are almost never talked about, in fact I took part in one of those Twitter Retweet Response Thread things which asked for terrible horror movies, so while the internet loves horror, it also clearly only loves good horror, and bad horror is mocked, criticized and forgotten about. Besides, I don't think I'd call The Amazing Digital Circus a full on horror series, not like The Gregory Horror Show, honestly not even in the same vein as Courage the Cowardly Dog. It definitely has horror elements, but the kind of horror it reminds me of is more like The Stanley Parable, which... I don't know if you would call a horror game, but it certainly has a bleak, almost psychological horror vibe at points. So if it isn't the accessibility, or the horror, what makes it so popular?
Is it just that the show is THAT good? Well... of course, people wouldn't watch it if it wasn't. However, that's not the full story either. "Good" content doesn't always explode in popularity, especially not instantaneously. Many creators will talk about having that one video that opened the floodgates so to speak, some creators will even have a video that completely revitalizes their channel. So the excellent quality is definitely a factor, but it doesn't fully explain the immense amount of views.
There is also the possibility that the show is genuinely so eye-catchingly unique and different that it had to stand out and become popular. Which is a fair argument... except for the fact you could say the same about most internet content. Again, I must bring up Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared. It has significantly less views than The Amazing Digital Circus does, and I'd argue it's just as, if not maybe more unique. Really, the entire reason that internet content is more popular than traditional television or cinema is entirely because it is different, new and arguably groundbreaking. Any old fans of Game Theory or James Stephanie Sterling will recognize this comparison, it's like pasta sauce, there is always a market for a chunky sauce. Well, the internet is filled with that "chunky sauce", and all manner of pasta sauces that you can't watch on a television station or in the movie theatres. So, if The Amazing Digital Circus is not popular solely because of accessibility, the fact the internet loves horror, the show being of excellent quality, or the fact that the show is unique, what is the reason?
Well, isn't it obvious? It's all of that and more. It's kind of the perfect storm really, the description of the pilot describes it as a "Psychological dark comedy", so people who are into horror and horror adjacent content, i.e. the internet, would check it out, they would be impressed by the quality of the video and the fact that they haven't really seen anything entirely like this before and share it around, and because the show is available in multiple languages, anyone who is interested in it can check it out no matter what language they speak, it was the perfect storm of right idea in the right place at the right time, because... 2023 was not a very good year for animation. I say that like I am an expert on everything that was happening at the time, but no, 2023 was pretty bad, in fact the 2020s has not been a good decade for mainstream animation. However, independent animation, now the 2020s has been a fantastic decade for that. It blows my mind that The Amazing Digital Circus came out in 2023, because it feels like the kind of thing that would have been released in the absolute golden year that I did not give enough credit to, 2022.
Honestly, I can see The Amazing Digital Circus being one of those shows that inspires the next generation of artists, like a lot of animations, comics, video games and short stories are gonna come out in the next few years that have such obvious traces of the Digital Circus in them, that it stops being funny. The popularity of The Amazing Digital Circus is an interesting phenomenon because, on the surface it is very obvious why the show is so popular, it's a really good show, but when you really look at how popular it is, that is where it becomes fascinating. If it was just a good show, it wouldn't be this popular, and I don't think it is just one thing that makes it such. If there is one thing I can say however, is that we want justice for Gummigoo!
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