There's a Borges' essay named "The Detective Story" in which he concludes detective fiction has created a new type of reader, which treats any fictional work as a mystery to be solved. However, this kind of reading grossly overlooks the many nuances present in a work of art. As much "deep" a "fan theory" pretends to be, it is as shallow as any layman's remark.
Literal interpretations of fictional works of art with direct references to real life situations on top of deeper meanings have been a thing for centuries, way before detective fiction, nothing wrong with it, it can actually help as a base for a deeper analysis, you have to know what the series is about before being able to analyze it deeper, to know it's about the war, madness or whatever else, with no literal analysis it's just a low quality nonsense cartoon, if you don't like literal analyses and want something deeper you're free to do one yourself
A really good video, but your tendancy towards advanced words and grammar structure can be a little inaccessible as someone with audio processing difficulties. Would you consider adding closed captions to this? It would help me, but would make the video accessible to the deaf and hoh as well.
Nightmare Masterclass my adhd ass experiences what OP is describing to some degree. David, you’re a saint for adding subtitles I appreciate the thought and effort ❤️
Nightmare Masterclass thank you so much you are a blessing I cannot tell you how many videos I’ve wanted to watch but can’t because of audio processing issues/adhd and there not being any accurate subtitles
I had a lot of difficulty with the careful wording as well and frankly, without concrete examples (that's "not your style"--and, that's okay), keeping everything in vague terms made for a somewhat tedious and oftentimes repetitive argument. I get what you're talking about--we all do--but to hear it rephrased several times in imprecise terms was fatiguing. Otherwise, yes, good points and interesting theory!
On the other hand, I like some of those theories exactly because they seem so distant from the source material that they become their own narrative, something completely different and not without its own creative merits. The incapacity to deal with abstract content may lead to an "oversimplification" if you think the purpose of those theories are to dissect the work; but, if you look at them as their own body of work, ones that are themselves a "more logical" reaction to and inspired by more abstract art, they become more interesting (thus becomig like a fan fiction of sorts). I think the storytelling aspect that these theories create are a huge part of what attracts the viewers to them (apart from the algorithm).
Personally, I think that watching interpretation videos and studing someone's interpretation process is almost as interesting as watching the original work itself. The way we interpret media says a lot about ourselves, especially when said media is something enigmatic, that doesn't provide us with a clear answer. I feel the same way about different artists and writters depicting characters from popular stories. A person's style says a lot about them and their world view.
Honestly i knew somewhere in the back of my mind that i liked your work because it talks a little more about the connection to our world and the implications of the content, yet until this video i didn’t really know that that was why i enjoyed your videos in particular. Another awesome video, so excited to see what more you have in store!
I feel like there's a cousin to this and that's interpretation of works that are not weird, surreal, or inscrutable, but merely vague or hard to discover on your own. Things like Dark Souls. Now, this is coming from a place where I wholly admit I LOVE Soulsborne/Hollow Knight/Whatever lore explorations. Especially in games, there's something nice about the pseudo-interactive nature of discovery about the world, of having to participate in uncovering any story beyond the most obvious plot, detangling character motivations, figure out the sordid history and lies and contradictory accounts relayed to us. I love the proliferation of RUclips neo-bards regaling us with the tales of fictional heroes and kingdoms. But it also heavily impedes talking about anything beyond the surface level. Of these, Bloodborne is the only one that I feel like has gotten much analysis on this front, and that's because... well... it's not exactly *subtle* that it's in many ways about fear of and concerning womens' bodies. Dark Souls has gotten a tiny bit wrt metaphors for futility, but it's comparatively sparing and shallow IME. While The Algorithm, and the relative straightforwardness of these "analyses" are cool, I don't think it's entirely their fault. It would take a lot to unravel the surface details and then analyze them. There's also the issue with the "Keep Politics Out Of It" crowd that proliferate web communities that can make it hard to talk about a lot of these things. But the rise of left-RUclips video essay and analysis channels might give us more work of this variety in time.
RUclips Neo-Bards, I love it! I 100% agree with your points as well, Folding Ideas made a video about the film Annihilation that’s all about how annoyed he is that people are trying to pick apart and apply literal interpretations to a work whose message and storytelling is entirely metaphorical, and how this line of thinking is limiting in examining a work’s text.
It's as if we have to build the community from the ground up. We need people who have compiled all of the bits of story and made them accessible to a wide audience, we need people to analyze the story that is presented by the previous, and we need people to engage with the analysis beyond just 'whoa dude.' The story of the Dark Sun Gwyndolin is a very strong story about a son who wants to be loved and accepted by his parents so creates a sister through whom he interacts with the world and lives up to the standards of the father, the king of the realm. There are a lot of ways that can be applied to social commentary but it first takes a monumental effort to make sure your audience has all the requisite knowledge about the subject. Ultimately, to make an engaging commentary, your audience is... abysmally small. We end up just having to use popular story summaries on RUclips as the starting point because we know people are aware of that interpretation. It's a strange system that amateur critics and analysts work in.
Ugh, no. DON'T get politics involved with art. It dates your works, and the only people who'll get anything out of it are the ones who *already* agree with you. At that point, you'd be preaching to the choir. It takes a skilled and graceful artist to infuse a political message in a way that gets both sides to think; but, unfortunately, most political artists have the subtly of a meat tenderizer. They just say "Racism/Sexism/Homophobia/Abuse/Social Media/War/Capitalism is bad!" and don't leave the viewer with any questions to ask themselves during or after viewing. Every now and then you'd get some thin veil trying to cover it up, maybe with a fantasy or surreal setting, but it's still forced and ultimately pretentious. If artists ask the question of 'Why?' then they'd be on the right track. Why are people racist? Why do people abuse others? If you explore the human condition behind these topics, THEN you actually have some merit to your art as something other than a flimsy propaganda piece people share on Facebook to validate themselves.
I'm not sure where y'all are getting the idea that I think Bloodborne can be read in many ways about various issues regarding womens' bodies because... Mergo's Wet Nurse spooky or whatever it is you think. That would be reaching. There's a *lot* that ties into women's bodies that's just kinda sitting there (well, people-with-wombs, but let's not split too many hairs for the sake of argument). It's heavily implied that the blood vials (or at least a couple of the special ones from Oedon NPCs you can save) are menstrual blood. Nightmare of menses is directly named after menstruation. The entire plot is literally, textually about the fact that the Old Gods want to be able to have babies but are completely infertile so they need to go to ridiculous, obscene lengths to do so (potentially, depending on how you interpret the hardest to get ending, even needing to kill themselves to ascend a hunter into a baby old one). I'm pretty sure there's also a bunch of lore that directly mentions miscarriages but don't quote me. Like, I'm not going to do an entire analysis of Bloodborne in a RUclips comment, but this isn't exactly a novel line of interpretation, it's been mentioned more than a few times elsewhere. Sure, things like Drakengard have more explicit to say about some topics like women's bodies, but that doesn't mean it's absent from Bloodborne.
At first I take everything Firth makes at face value, but a lot of his best work is weirdly fluid and connected in so many places and dealing with so many motifs.
Let's be real. Nobody really does. It's one of those bands where you like maybe three of their songs tops; and then feel really guilty for liking them even slightly due to how...... UGH the rest their body of work is. Although this does beg the question......... what music is he alright with? 🤔
chaincat33 And that's cool, too! Even though I don't like the majority of their work; I can still see why people would enjoy their music. 👍 Differences make the world go 'round and whatnot, you know??
Rodrigo Capociama My first part of the response about nobody liking it was pretty sarcastic. As if truly nobody liked them they wouldn't be as popular as they are now. So I apologize if my dry sense of humor there seemed to be rude. I was only being snarky and silly! 😅
There's a line to be drawn somewhere here, because while I definitely recognize the problematic and possibly modern trend of destroying the art in ambiguity and attempting to reduce the surreal to something banal and easy to understand, I'm also leary of gatekeeping media analysis. I suspect that, so much as this is a problem of our age and not any earlier, the reason has less to do with a sudden, inexplicable invasion of capitalist commodification invading the art world, and more to do with the greater availability and public importance of artistic works as an object of consumption in the first place. Capitalism isn't corroding our society's understanding of art. Rather, Art has become synonymous with our society, and therefore capitalism. The average Jane or Joe with a computer can log on and watch the entirety of Salad Fingers without any intent of having done so up until they saw the hyperlink, which is a manifestly different style of media consumption from attending the matinee of the latest Godard film, or even picking up the latest Agatha Christie paperback from the bookstore on your way home from work. People have grown up now with not only books and movies vying for their attention, but television of all stripes and kinds, toys that belong to media franchises, radio drama, video games, comic books, card games, board games, ARGs, theme parks, all commodified art of course, but _art_ all the same. Films no longer exist in their own sphere, instead intruding out into franchises and media empires, dividing people into carefully curated groups of fanatics that are managed like comprehensive social movements and, thereby, granting them the ability (and inevitably, the duty) to identify themselves using their media preferences as inextricable elements aligned to their character. _We have become an art society_ as we have become a _consumption_ society, where art is seen not only as an independent work, but belonging to the individuals to which it speaks as much as it did the critic or the author. Art now _belongs_ to the people, was made for the benefit of the people it speaks to, and has a _duty_ to those people. And that duty, though unspecified, forms the basis of the degradation of artistic analysis. Firstly, art in this system is expected to be accessible to the fans, to live up to their pre existing expectations ("hype") and to adhere to its expected form. Works are not evaluated by their message or cohesive merits, but rather how it affirmed the consumer's expectations and anticipations undergoing the ritual of consumption. Secondly, art in this system is expected to be _transformed_ by the fans, and undergo systematic re-contextualization by the culture of individuals surrounding it; critique, memes, fanfiction, and yes, fan theories, are all elements of this prerogative to establish ownership through transformation in modern media. As people now identify themselves with their art, they are compelled now to feel as owners of it, and to demonstrate that ownership. Knowing the "truth" behind something is a form of power, of demonstrating that you have power over it. I therefore would suggest that to many people, media analysis has become sort of a ritual to actualize one's self as holding power over the stories that now seem to dominate our lives. By breaking it into something we understand, we can have power over it. Something that is confusing and unclear makes us uneasy in a world where we're defined by our media, because it feels like we don't have power over _ourselves_ , and therefore we either reject it (A source, I believe, for the all too common rejection of postmodernist art) or change it into something we can properly contextualize with regards to ourselves. While this imperative is damaging to artistic analysis, I also think it's a difficult thing to casually seperate, because we all live in a consumerist, media-innundated world, and even with all the experience in media analysis and fondness for surreality and poststructuralism I have in me, I still recognize myself falling into these same pitfalls, time and time again. Looking at yourself through the reflection of media is a big part of any culture's media analysis, and to an extent necessary, with only our current society having positioned it in such a poisonous light. I can't blame anyone for choosing to relate to media like this, because in many ways it's the most natural approach in our current society. Often, those who choose to become more thorough in their relation to art only begin because they had this same sort of shallow relationship initially imposed upon them by our current society! I can certainly relate to people who need to put Salad Fingers into objective terminology because they lack the language and rhetorical tools so far to approach it from a more measured and nuanced angle, and if I hadn't decided to deepen my relationship with art decades ago, I'm sure I'd still be among them. I would never want to tell anyone that they're doing it wrong and scare them off from delving deeper, on the basis of me being some sort of elitist who thinks they shouldn't be allowed an opinion on how to contextualize this thing that, against their will, has become incredibly central to society and their place inside it.
You are so 110% right. It's funny that I've watched a lot of your content but deliberately avoided the Eric andre and Rick and Morty videos BECAUSE they're guised as fan theories. Now I'll have to watch them :). Also the hyper literal fan theories drive me so insane. It's like an anxious compulsion to compartmentalize the work before it has a chance to actually affect you.
This is the exact same for me. I never bothered with the Rick and Morty video because the title and thumbnail make it seem like some surface level theory.
Nice work as always! Though I think being able to view a work through a variety of interpretations can lead to deeper understanding both of the work and the surrounding culture, it’s not much of a reach to say fan theories are currently heavily biased towards those which view the works literally. It would be refreshing to see more theories come from emotional or personal perspectives and be granted the same status as any theory that you know. Slaps a diagnosis on Saladfingers because he ticks a couple boxes on the DSMV checklist and calls it a day. I’d rather talk about how people relate to the work’s feeling of being a strange person in a strange world, and maybe feeling at home in that strangeness. And sometimes not. And oh god the world is confusing. Who am I. Why is Imagine Dragons here. Looking forward to your next video :^)
Honestly I sometimes have trouble keeping up with your videos because of how lengthy, dense, and slower than other channels’ videos they can be, but I see that as *me* needing to slow down and let all the information soak in. I love your Petscop series to death but sometimes take for granted just how much you go into it. I haven’t seen any other channel that really digs into the series like you do and I’m more than grateful that you take the time to get into the meat of it rather than attempting to go through the whole series in 1 or 2 15-minute videos (or even worse, giving a cliffnotes version and spending the other 10-12 minutes theorizing)
I don’t want to sound like a snob, but I think many YTers and the greater audience prefer surface level analysis because they lack the academic background to delve any deeper. On top of that, the system incentived frequent upload schedule and easily consumable content leads creators down the path of least resistance instead of talking over the heads of their audience. Why spend hours reading and researching a topic when you can just slap together a quick a reaction video recycling someone else’s ideas? Creators end up chasing viewers instead of bringing something unique and insightful to the table. I personally don’t go for that, so I’m glad I found your channel and hope that it continues to grow.
Ozzie Let’s not forget that they’re mister often than not in a state where they need to keep pumping out surface level content in order to stay relevant and keep themselves alive. People like MatPat should dig deeper and work towards more concrete and believable theories, but they also have to make videos every week to make enough money
I really think RUclips needs this video. I'm all for escapism but I think it would be useful to think in terms of the current film industry. Genres/nostalgia are produced solely because they are guaranteed sales. Sometimes they're good, but they're rarely sold with something more than profit behind them. Even "art films" are sometimes made to sell to a niche market under the guise of meaning. So with the influx of no meaning movies, there's nothing to really think about and we become accustomed to not analyzing movies that way. And when blockbuster movies do make the effort, many don't see the it so there's little incentive. And oh the criticism if you try to make "more" of a movie like that. "It's just a movie". Analysis has become snobbery. I'm glad you're talking about it from a creation side but the audience side is also disappointing. Something I think is super important which almost cannot exist now in art is content that you don't know if you like. We need space for art that makes you think even if you don't come away with a smile. Everything is catered to keep you hooked but art should occasionally challenge you and it often isn't right now. Maybe I hate a thing, but I want a chance to hate if for something other than boredom. Liking something doesn't mean it's good art.
Wow, David. Not the episode I expected at all. Totally went into this thinking it would be about how “salad fingers is an amalgamation the industrial complex,” or some point like that. Guess I should read titles more slowly. Not the kind of thought or weight I was prepared for. That, said, I was completely satisfied. Your vids continue to surprise me in thought-provoking ways! I really appreciate the consideration of reality, in terms of how the media is connecting with its audience, and the “theorists” share of responsibility in shaping that. Very similar to the “art critic/make money off art” message in velvet buzzsaw. Anywho, this is an important video, with a really important message somewhere around the 16 min mark. Great job 👏!
Almost halfway through the video and i'm enjoying it so far - I appreciate this call to action for more critical analysis and nuance in fan theories. But there seems to be a weird bug where one frame every five seconds is black- and i find the flashing incredibly jarring. This may just be a fault on my receiving end! Will report back after a few reloads to see if its still there..
Yeah looks like its consistent the whole way through. I think its either an export/render glitch or a glitch in the upload and formatting. Had to just listen after a while instead of have the visuals but luckily that's where the juicy meat of the piece is.
I think you bring an underrepresented perspective to the table with this video, and we absolutely need more people advocating for subtextual analysis. You also shine a exceptionally needed light on some of the misunderstood or outright ignored factors that influence content creation. That being said, I feel this analysis allows little room for the influence of authentic interest in the kinds of fan theories being produced. Yes, there is a market demand that pushes creators to create this sort of basic fan theory, and yes it is true that subtextual readings are underrepresented in the discourse, but I do not think this invalidates the work put into simply creating a fan theory or attempts to synthesize a story out of a confusing and disparate set of videos. I'm not sure if you think this authentic interest is presumed in the argument that the market demands it, or if you are assuming that all art should serve a deeper functional purpose (per your other videos), but sometimes people just like the simple aesthetics and surface level features that come in piecing together a story. I can certainly say that I fall into that camp. You've got to have room for genuine interest driving certain creations in your discussion lest we all become reduced to unagentic view counts, simply feeding the machine because we dont know any better.
Hey Dave, I just discovered your channel a few days ago and have been bingeing it since then. I really appreciate your analytical approach to internet fiction, and your background as an English major is very apparent. It's really refreshing to see someone attempt to delve deeper into the symbolism and subtext of internet fiction, instead of try and link meaning literally. It would seem really silly if any abstract or surreal piece of art had to somehow be connected to another piece of mainstream pop culture. Imagine trying to argue that the Master and Margarita was actually taking place in the same universe as the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia. They're both about the Devil so they must take place in the same universe, right? Who cares about what Bulgakov might have been trying to say? Your video essays are sophisticated while still being accessible to people who may not feel like reading something that could be published in a periodical journal. I hope folks like you work to legitimize nascent art forms like internet fiction. It seems that, albeit slowly, scholarship is turning that way, and the idea of a hierarchy of mediums of art is finally starting to go away. Keep up the good work!
I started watching your videos a while ago and I think I watched it all by now, I really appreciate your approach and how you refuse to talk about subjects in a simplistic manner, anyways thanks for making good content on topics I have a deep interest in, it’s very much appreciated
I personally tend to find 'literal' theories more interesting since they often try to find a hidden story that is somehow disturbing, tragic, or generally mysterious. Thematic analyses do, of course, also have value, though they tend to be more abstract and therefore harder to follow. I think this is why they are less common than literal theories: they are less accessible and thus appeal to a narrower audience - and this is of course only reinforced by the capitalistic nature of youtube. But I do not think that literal theories and thematic theories are necessarily opposed to each other - and literal interpretation of a piece of work can easily be build upon with thematic considerations
Although I agree with your conclusion, i have to say that I find some of your points kind of cynical and elitist. I feel like your assertion that this is solely a result of capitalist interests discounts any chance of validity of literal interpretations as a form of theory. You're correct that they are shallow ones, but I don't think they are lacking in value, as someone who's mind wanders easily, I have found them often useful for compartmentalizing some of the details and using that to jump off into deeper speculation. Literal theories also scratch a very human itch, we don't like uncertainty, and frankly most people just don't have the tool for more symbolic analysis, but for people with inquisitive minds, these theories can be the first inkling of what critical theory is, and be what makes them more interested in learning about the deeper levels of critical study. I agree that the homogeneous nature of youtube theory is frustrating, but there's also a growing side that is interested in more nuance takes on the media we consume. I just think maybe we should treat the more blunt side of fan theory as a 101, so long as people know to not treat it as truth, but just as another theoretical framework.
Exactly, even one of the greatest literary works in human history, Dante's Comedy, has several levels of interpretation, as while he describes the human condition and other deep stuff he makes direct references to real life situations/people, stuff that happened in the XIII century, nothing to do with capitalism or the modern world, and in the same way Salad Fingers can be a reflection about wars and the human mind but have references to a specific person living in a specific place and time as well. Trying to find and explanation (even literal ones) is what drove human innovation and progress since the dawn of time Also, as you said, a literal interpretation can be the starting point of a deeper analysis, I'd even say that you need to understand what's going on to be able to analyze it. The guy in this video talks about the war or madness as potential "deeper" topics, but you have to know Salad Fingers is about those before being able to analyze those topics, with no literal interpretation it's just a low quality nonsense 15 yo video
Watching this video a little late. Love it. Really sums up what keeps me coming back to your channel and videos. I greatly appreciate how you take the approach which goes deeper than synopsis and literal interpretations. Even further, I am in awe of your ability to pursue this sort of analysis in more, shall we say, impervious works such as Petscop. Just gets me thinking, and I think you can be proud of that.
You know I have to admit. I am an anarchist, and I've been watching a lot of these larger, more corporate channels. Especially ones focused on fan theories. I haven't really been happy with any of them in a while, but I like having something to listen to and they're safe, predictable, and often cover topics I'm at least vaguely interested in. I have been on the fence about it for a while. But I think now I've decided to do a massive change in the channels I'm subscribed to and watch because I am honestly pretty sick of bland corporate approved content.
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your materialist / Marxist analysis of such a wide range of internet-related topics. I know you received some criticism of this approach which you addressed in the comment response video, so I wanted to give some positive feedback and say that I, for one, really appreciate hearing such an unexpected take on topics such as these.
God this video’s good. I think you chose the perfect series to raise this topic with as well. The amount of unfulfilling fan theories that completely ignore any depth or commentary drive me up the wall, and it’s so nice to hear someone else saying it after years of me shouting.
I really appreciate this video! I'm fascinated by how so much of the rhetoric involved with these sorts of fan theory videos involve "solving" the work, as if it's a puzzle or something of the sort, rather than "interpretation" of the work, which is probably closer to the action being taken by video creators. I do wonder, if there were more of a curation effort or community from RUclips augmenting the algorithmic recommendation of related videos, if that would lead to a more robust sort of video getting promoted rather than the relatively surface-level sort of thing you tend to see surrounding enigmatic works like Salad Fingers. Also consider how little education is focused on artistic interpretation in general education (at least in the US), which tends to push people away from getting a fuller, subjective interpretation in search of a futile objective "solving" of the work. I'm glad that you put this video out here, it's really pushed me to think about how the RUclips content creation cycle forces the "fan theory" sort of work (something I don't generally appreciate from many video producers) to the forefront.
I'm so glad to see this video. When I watched the first few Salad Fingers episodes when I was younger, I was obsessed with "what it all means." But when I saw David Firth "denying" all theories, and when I saw saw that he aims to disprove popular theories with each new episode, I started realizing Iwas taking things too literally. Salad Fingers feels like a "growing organism," if you will, that is ever changing and growing to tell lots of different stories or to ask us to think about many different concepts. Thank you for this!
I really like what you did with this video. Your videos always provide me with new and fresh perspectives. Since subscribing to you around a year and a half ago, my appreciation of art as well as my understanding of art has increased dramatically. I have always had interest in art, be it online or not online. However, with no background in art (chem student) this interest mainly manifested itself as appreciation rather than as critical thinking. Since I started watching your videos I have found great joy in exploring the critical thinking art can instigate. There are many analysis youtubers that I follow on here, but out of all the ones I know, you go the extra mile in your videos and it really shows. Thank you for enriching my life and for doing the kind of analysis videos you do. Keep being true to yourself and keep up the great work.
This is so insightful and tactful. I love how well you can articulate a critique. I really think RUclips and social media inherently challenges critical thought with their ad models and incentives of sharing and aggregates. I hope you keep putting in more analyses dude.
i love the music in the background, im so glad you have it up on your soundcloud! before i checked what it was from, i would sometimes rewatch videos just to listen to the music in the background
Sometimes, I like to come back to this video after watching video essays on media I really enjoy. It makes me appreciate the open-minded and broader concepts that even simple stories can explore. There's something very gratifying when you experience anything in a way that connects to ideas in a more nebulous and conceptual manner. It's like stretching your legs from sitting inside a box all day. Also, finding your channel years ago has made my expectations for video essays so damn high lol
I agree with the point you make about the superficiality of fan theories. It's far more important to think about what Salad Fingers means thematically than about what the physical circumstances of Salad Fingers's world is, especially since it's so surreal by design.
The music in the series always scared me, yet years later the musicians who made it would coincidentally and unknowingly become some of my favorite of all time. Boards of Canada for the win🍊💙
Just got past the 4 minute mark, this is awesome already. It's a problem I've seen presented with OFF, my favorite game, except it's mostly a few theories that dominate the conversation about this game rather than thousands of theories based on surface level observations. I discussed a lot about this game with my older sibling in our own time, and trust me, there's a lot to unpack! Lots of examples I'd definitely like to avoid spoiling, but there's plenty of substance the more you examine it! Example being, I got to the third boss and found myself discussing his subversion both of the celebration of human traits and the built image of his role to this point, the way he fits in an unregulated capitalist system, the effects office work may have on the human psyche, and how he further supports the misotheist lens this game may be looked through! There was much to discuss in name and the title of his boss theme as well! It's amazing to engage in conversation, and though I'd have trouble coherently putting a lot of these thoughts to paper, it's interesting and fun to engage this game intellectually! Also, I'm glad Mortis Ghost has gone on record saying that pretty much nothing is canon.
Really enjoyed this. I really enjoy surrealism and absurdism and have recently started reading academic criticism and have noticed that many of the theories are disappointing, often they explore interesting ideas but don't explore topics very deeply. Honestly, the most important part of a theory to me isn't how accurate to the creators intent it was, but how well they explore and rationalize concepts.
God every time I watch one of your videos I’m amazed! Your commentary is always intelligent and intense and I love it- You’ve encouraged me to work toward making my own videos and essays
God, I love your channel, and this video hits every single reason why. theory channels have all become matpat clones which nothing wrong with matpat's videos, but they are the popcorn flick of theories which focus more on "hey wouldn't it be cool if" rather than "but what does it mean" and its the second I crave. worse yet if you look into David firth's other work he very clearly has a lot to say even if it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what. Salad Fingers is one of those things that has eluded me as to what he is trying to say. I have a few theories but nothing really solid, not helped by the fact that if I try and discuss this suddenly Warhammer is in the mix, or slender man, or different eras and it becomes difficult to keep straight what is Salad Fingers and what is speculation. So let's try discussing this here. The theory I have that I like the best (so far) is Salad Fingers is supposed to be commentary on how people with mental issues are treated and viewed. Salad Fingers himself being a distorted human that the audience gawks at and is both afraid of and keeps coming back to like a freak show. If you watch from beginning to end and remember that it started a long time ago for so few episodes, there really wasn't anything hinting at a plot for some time, even all the theories tend to pull from later episodes. I believe this is because it kept us coming back. There is no plot to be deciphered and any hints at one where put in to poke fun at/keep the people who were looking for one coming back. This theory has lots of issues like how if it's sympathetic to Salad Fingers then why does Salad Fingers kill so many by accident, that would make him a credible threat but its the best I got so far.
Hey, cool you have/had a West Highland White Terrier! I have two myself. Great dog breed, glad to see you/your parents have such excellent choice in companions!
there is a lot happening here. I like the questions you are asking. I have been interested in the same inquiry field but instead of 'surreal viral', the 'horror' genre as a whole. I recently posted, "me thinks, America is looking for salvation one page(video, show, etc) at a time. I'm not sure if it is working, which is part of the terror trend". this might be afar from your interest, but i think they are related, and I'm going to continue to 'check out your videos' and ideas.
looking back at this. i am thinking about how i hated this video when i first watched it. it came across as very elitist and i did not realize - in hindsight - that i was just watching it tired and also did not know many of these words on that level. i still dont. Now that i am older and. well. not wiser. this video resonates with me in a way that these literal theories dont - fills up the gasps that they dont. this video is now, i think one of first steps to me finally getting the whole point of analysis and that sometimes we dont need to. and sometimes trying to literally present a world and not thinking about how the work feels. relates to us. reaches out to other work. salad finger presents to me the depth of self-loathing, the loneliness and detachment, something that we are quite unable to grasp
Good stuff, going to subscribe. I wonder if we can see this type of thinking in the realm of even non-surreal work, where fans of general pop culture productions become angry when their own posited "theories" are not depicted by the creators they follow, almost a market-based "I've invested x amount of time/treasure/energy into following this show/these books/these films/etc., I deserve y outcome!" Then, rather than criticizing a work on its own merits and how it connects or fails to connect with its audience, the loudest voices seem zeroed in instead on, essentially, not getting what they wanted.
I really like this analysis, I feel like it is true people( especially children) are solely interested in what the story is, instead of what it *means* and explores in a wide variety of contexts. These new ARGS ARNS and Webseries are wonderful in how enigmatic they can be, these types of entertainment are puzzles to be solved. However, people go to such extreme lengths to solve them they end up forgetting why it was a puzzle in the first place and the art is limited to shock value and individual gain instead of art which could have possibly interesting meanings and motives.
The way I saw it was 1) my peer group got Salad Fingers when we were young and stupid 2) some people have a hard time getting to the meaning when they can’t have any coherent idea of what they just looked at 3) trying to get the lore in order can really open the world up and make it fun
Never heard of Salad Fingers before, but the message of this video is great! Let's all try and make the discussions go a little deeper when talking about our favorite media.
Maybe I'm too optimistic for my own good, but I highly doubt this form of critique and interpretation of surreal online media will continue in like this. Even though the Internet has been around for quite some time for those born into it around it just starting up to now; it is still relatively new itself. And seeing as its general userbase are most likely younger demographics who know how to navigate online and stumble upon these works; the interpretation base is going to be a "what you see is what you get" sort of thing. This stuff spreads amongst whippersnappers in comparison to older folk who would have the creative and analytical know-how to dissect shows and stories in the way you think is severely lacking. It's how the ""dreaded"" Game Theory, The Theorizer, and other such channels take in that dough and create this "literal theory revenue pit" you seem to be describing. RUclips may only allow for users 13+. But I guarantee you there are quite a few kiddos in our midst soaking up this content in the same vein as their Caprisun juice baggies. However, this does not mean we're marooned on a deserted island dooming the next generation to be 100% literal interpretation loving drone people. For a silly example, you can't ask a young child about spacial recognition, and you also can't really ask amateurs to do a five star interpretation about this show's surrealism for the audience of preteens to young adults online. Does that make sense? If not let me give you a weird analogy to sort of explain myself here a bit better. Let's say you have two pizzas that are exactly the same. But you cut one into four pieces and the other into eight. You then bring in a kid around the ages of 4-8 and ask them which pizza is bigger. That kid without hesitation will pick the pizza with eight slices; as at this time their brain development can't yet process that the pies are both equal despite one pizza being cut more than the other. So to bring this metaphor back around with your criticisms; it's not that these people are being genuinely simple and wanting a clear cut answer 100% of the time. But they have not been around long in this field of idea exchanges to know to look beyond the front cover of this particular discourse. Kids will eventually grow up and develop their brains and realize that those two pizzas were equal; and these Internet folks will eventually gather the experience and understanding of reviews as they take in more ideas and elements of this or other stories. As these people grow, the places they poke around for stimulating material will evolve with the times as well; or will stagnate into obscurity as they no longer can retain their old audience's views any longer. And I will genuinely be surprised if none of these older theories will fall into obscurity with their creators. As long as the base that was as passionate about it then as they will be in the future, I'd say the future is bright for these reviews. Or maybe it would be rusty when taking into account that this is about Salad Fingers. As for killing art, creativity to me is like a Phoenix. EVERY era has a time where everyone thought art and creativity was dying for all sorts of reasons. Whether it be a lack of people contributing due to disease killing everyone creative off literally, heebie-jeebies by uptight religious folk condemning things, algorithms created by overly capitalist website conglomerates...... and so on and so forth. Yeah, there's a lot of terrible stuff going on because of these sort of issues. But due to the rise of the patreons, ko-fis, indiegogos, and kickstarters... there is DEFINITELY still time and evidence to the mass market contrary. DHMIS and other medias that are out and about still carry the important message that this commodity obsession can mess with creativity. And your video here does the same. So what you fear is definitely not going to be this doom-and-gloom take things for what they are digital landscape. This discourse is just something that's growing up along with us as it advanced and becomes "part of us" artistically if that makes any sort of sense. You, I, and the many people who absorb this type of video are sort of the "proof of purchase" that is the contrary to your case to a certain degree. Another tidbit that should also be taken into account is the way the outside world sees online exclusive content and creators of it is still a bit fuzzy and delegitimized in the public eye. We may be used to things attracting a ton of attention via our everyday memes and whatnot. But to most folks who are in deep with this style of interpreting art are riding in the train of thought of thought that it's amateurish or impossible for them to grasp that people enjoy what's being put out. Remember when everyone on RUclips had a conniption fit over night talk show hosts joking around as to why people would enjoy let's plays or similar "boring wastes of time"? It isn't too much of a stretch to have them give a similar reaction towards Salad Fingers and other kinds of animation. And remember that there are also people out and about that think "animation is only for children and therefore has no depth." Sure there are people out there who love their Pixar, Disney, and their Dreamworks flicks; but this is still a fairly common opinion that lurks around still. So why would those who see themselves as "above" dribbling Internet entertainment give something like this creepy little cartoon of ours a chance? And since you brought up wacky ol' capitalism; I should probably add that money is probably a huge factor that plays into the stuffy critic idea I'm playing around with to a degree as well. The Internet and its availability to those seeking entertainment and creativity probably scares the heck out of most of the arty industry bigwigs. Can't have indie folks make money when their big studios need that good ol' capitalist dollar! But that's a tinfoil covered head style theory for another wall of text, am I right??? However my two cents here just comes from personal observations on my part from all sorts of articles I pondered about and interpretations afterwords. So take my ideas and wall of text for what you will. But I really loved this video nonetheless, Mr. Masterclass. Although I hoped this would be your ideas about the episodes; you gave me some cool thoughts to dwell on here anyways. I hope I haven't inadvertently spammed you with my huge wall of text here; but thank you for this editorial and getting me to stick my good ol' thinking cap on my noggin again! 🎩👍👍👍
the one small complaint i have about this video (small enough that you could say this is a nitpick) is that the term multiple personality disorder is outdated. MPD is now referred to as dissociative identity disorder (DID). otherwise its a great video as usual and a joy to listen to (i really love to play your stuff in the background while i draw).
Holy shit, your channel is fantastic. It ticks just about every box for me. Video essays? Media analysis? ARG/Internet Horror-centric content? Leftist theory? I could cry. Please keep making the content you do!
Adult Swim popularized viewer interactivity, what we refer to as "prosumers" - the meshing, merging of "content creators" with "audiences" in a cross-pollinating system. Ideologically, this was done for two reasons - to expand the power of capitalism, by deepening the involvement of audiences in "recreational" capital processes, and, ironically enough, to cater to democracy itself - the prosumer model, much like RUclips and Twitch TV, is an anarchic democratic libertarian entertainment marketplace. So RUclips Peasants, farmers for the metrics of RUclips Lords, aka "content creators", can now feel "engaged", as their involvement is ever deepened with the friendly, personable Lord that listens to their words and responds to them. Johnny Carson pioneered the friendly, personable, media persona, in the wake of the new existential terror of climate destruction. Walter Kronkite was too stiff, too cold - traumatized terrorized humanity both one breath away from possible nuclear annihilation and a dozen decades away from more certain human extinction could be easily exploited by a friendly demeanor. The flip side of this demeanor is the "edgy rebel", whether Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, or Ricky Gervais - unlike the "friend" existing to comfort and console you before human extinction, these comics capitalize on the cowering retreating humanity by "shaking them up" or "shocking" them. This friendly demeanor has now been carried over to RUclips, where RUclips Lords foster a community of Peasants by, just like the modern corporate friendly Boss, acting like he's "just one of them". Blaming capitalism for everything is a common error of the left. Capitalism itself was supported and fueled by Modernity, which has a complex system of creation and support behind it. In our modern times, we are largely waiting for human extinction. so while capitalism has had no positive purpose since 1968, we believe that we are doomed so there's no reason to get rid of it. While some have labeled the modern period "Frozen" or "Zombie" Capitalism it's perhaps better understood as "Whatever" Capitalism.
I agree with your opinion about how content like salad fingers are pulled apart in order to find a "solutiuon" to a theory, instead of interpreting the content and possibly try and discover the message of the content. I've and learned a lot about how artistic integrity has been broken down by the capitalistic mass production of content in several industries like the music industry, youtube, movies and even the fine art industry itself. My hypothesis is that this capitalist invasion in the artistic communities have created a "collective artistic depression" where people won't let their guard down to appreciate the feelings of the artistic content, and art will be interpreted on a logical level instead, thus the theories.
Or, ya know, human's are patter makers. When the see a semi- pattern we jump at the opportunity to fill it. When we see someone make a pattern obvious we love it because we now feel like we understand, we know how to categorize.
Dude, you've got to understand that not everyone shares the same reference points as you, and sometimes it's helpful to provide some context. The world doesn't revolve around you and your sensibilities.
9:14 - Tony is more polite but pretty much, ha! I wish the literal take Petscop fans would step back a little. It makes me sad that they see it as a total bust or failure, but they may not see it as a failure forever.
Granted, ah poo this is an older video. There is, when employing a close reading (of which you are fond), a very real danger of reading meaning into a text as opposed to drawing meaning from the text. Looking at some current philosophical works that examine the work of classic or modern authors you can find myriad examples of spinning a de-contextualized set of lines into a book drawing conclusions that are opposed to an author’s body of work. Always something to be careful of. Love your vids by the way, I want to see what you make of the latest Petscop vids, as the creator is drawing a fast curtain on the series.
Man, I find this confusing. The analyses I typically watch normally look for metaphorical or symbolic intent within the media, not a literal one. But even then, any interpretation can be made of a work, regardless of author intent, and still provide meaningful insight to society and other subjects. The majority of the theories you listed sound more like fan fiction. Guess I have a different interpretation of what analysing media means
I think a large part of why there's a view of the weirdness of Salad Fingers just being there for shock value is the fact that it came from Newgrounds. It's hard to expect anything deep coming from the same context as Foamy the Squirrel.
I like this video, it's critical of the critics. I watch lots of "creepy internet thing EXPLAINED" videos, and there is a feeling that, even if they say "this is just speculation," there's a feeling that this is it, this is the answer. A lot of comments are like hero worship, blind loyalty. I'm not smart so I tend to be influenced by these, and I believe what I'm told and stop thinking about it. I know it's a flaw but I'm only human.
I once found out about a cool, obscure channel that made creepy, surreal animation through another RUclipsr shouting them out. This was years ago, so my memory is pretty hazy... They had several animations, including this one a video about a house or a Skelton or something, and a phrase was repeated throughout the video. Scrolling to the comments, most of them were just people repeating the phrase as it was fairly memetic. I came back to the video about a week later, and comments had been disabled on that video. I'm guessing the reason why is because they didn't want people's stupid jokes to take away from the meaning of their art or something. Heck, I haven't seen their channel in so long, I'm not even sure it's still up.
Times are hard now, but I swear to Christ as soon as I get on my feet once more I will support your channel... Your the most impressive YTuber thus far I've ever come across. Well done m8...
This video makes me wonder what your thoughts on some of Don Hertzfeldt's work might be. It's not horror but his style is abstract, and thought provoking but with a quirky sense of humour that reminds me of a lot of these old webseries. Particularily It's Such a Beautiful Day and The World of Tomorrow (both episodes). His work is very much meant to be looked at through multiple angles without a difinitive answer.
@@NightmareMasterclass That was my introduction to his work! I'd recommend World of Tomorrow as well, it's got more of a sci-fi twist and reminds me of old Twilight Zone episodes or a Kurt Vonnegut novel
Dude, what about salad fingers relates to commodity fetishism? I don’t understand where you see that in the text. Capitalism is suffering in general, but what about a weirdo in a wasteland exemplifies that?
One thing that always bothers me about various fan theories and interpretations is the assumption that every molecule in a work was arranged just so with explicit intentions by the creator. As someone who has made content that has become the focus of fan theories it's a bit maddening seeing someone look so deeply into something that was put there only as a matter of convenience or filler. Sometimes it's as simple as a "we had this lying around and it happened to go in front of the camera" or seeing something as a theme because it just happened to be a prop we had to reuse a few times since time was limited.
If you look at the way a large group of people view any piece of media, you definitely see a pattern of people paying more attention to the literal story rather than what the story is trying to say. I guess when you put that lens of interpretation on surreal work, that’s main point generally finding your own interpretation based on the emotions that work instills, the whole literal story way people interpret gets way more in your face. :/
![Megan Thee Stallion - Mamushi (Remix) [feat. TWICE] [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5c0_u9PsrsQ/mqdefault.jpg)
There's a Borges' essay named "The Detective Story" in which he concludes detective fiction has created a new type of reader, which treats any fictional work as a mystery to be solved. However, this kind of reading grossly overlooks the many nuances present in a work of art. As much "deep" a "fan theory" pretends to be, it is as shallow as any layman's remark.
I love Borges. That is all.
Literal interpretations of fictional works of art with direct references to real life situations on top of deeper meanings have been a thing for centuries, way before detective fiction, nothing wrong with it, it can actually help as a base for a deeper analysis, you have to know what the series is about before being able to analyze it deeper, to know it's about the war, madness or whatever else, with no literal analysis it's just a low quality nonsense cartoon, if you don't like literal analyses and want something deeper you're free to do one yourself
"In economic terms i would say this is something akin to rent-seeking behavior." *ad break*
my favorite theory is that he’s related to murdoc. i choose to believe that this is canon due to how fucking funny it is
That would mean that Salad fingers is in the Cartoon Network expanded universe because of the powderpuff girls crossover
Aldozzy i choose to believe this also
A really good video, but your tendancy towards advanced words and grammar structure can be a little inaccessible as someone with audio processing difficulties. Would you consider adding closed captions to this? It would help me, but would make the video accessible to the deaf and hoh as well.
That is on my to-do list!
Edit: Captions are now available. Sorry for the delay!
Nightmare Masterclass my adhd ass experiences what OP is describing to some degree. David, you’re a saint for adding subtitles I appreciate the thought and effort ❤️
Nightmare Masterclass thank you so much you are a blessing
I cannot tell you how many videos I’ve wanted to watch but can’t because of audio processing issues/adhd and there not being any accurate subtitles
he's got a very writery vocabulary for this, its weird. its something that definitely reads better than it's heard. but it is nice
I had a lot of difficulty with the careful wording as well and frankly, without concrete examples (that's "not your style"--and, that's okay), keeping everything in vague terms made for a somewhat tedious and oftentimes repetitive argument. I get what you're talking about--we all do--but to hear it rephrased several times in imprecise terms was fatiguing. Otherwise, yes, good points and interesting theory!
Salad Fingers is actually Sans from Undertale
👀
Are you referencing the video I think you're referencing????
Honestly sounds like a real GT video.
oh god don't bring that video up, yes it was a good joke but that video brings back memories.
LOL
On the other hand, I like some of those theories exactly because they seem so distant from the source material that they become their own narrative, something completely different and not without its own creative merits. The incapacity to deal with abstract content may lead to an "oversimplification" if you think the purpose of those theories are to dissect the work; but, if you look at them as their own body of work, ones that are themselves a "more logical" reaction to and inspired by more abstract art, they become more interesting (thus becomig like a fan fiction of sorts). I think the storytelling aspect that these theories create are a huge part of what attracts the viewers to them (apart from the algorithm).
Fanfic is awesome, from salad fingers being related to the bassist of Gorillaz to Dante Alliguieri talking to greek heroes in hell.
Personally, I think that watching interpretation videos and studing someone's interpretation process is almost as interesting as watching the original work itself. The way we interpret media says a lot about ourselves, especially when said media is something enigmatic, that doesn't provide us with a clear answer. I feel the same way about different artists and writters depicting characters from popular stories. A person's style says a lot about them and their world view.
Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. But there is fun in seeking symbolism and meaning in media. All things in moderation.
Honestly i knew somewhere in the back of my mind that i liked your work because it talks a little more about the connection to our world and the implications of the content, yet until this video i didn’t really know that that was why i enjoyed your videos in particular. Another awesome video, so excited to see what more you have in store!
I feel like there's a cousin to this and that's interpretation of works that are not weird, surreal, or inscrutable, but merely vague or hard to discover on your own. Things like Dark Souls. Now, this is coming from a place where I wholly admit I LOVE Soulsborne/Hollow Knight/Whatever lore explorations. Especially in games, there's something nice about the pseudo-interactive nature of discovery about the world, of having to participate in uncovering any story beyond the most obvious plot, detangling character motivations, figure out the sordid history and lies and contradictory accounts relayed to us. I love the proliferation of RUclips neo-bards regaling us with the tales of fictional heroes and kingdoms. But it also heavily impedes talking about anything beyond the surface level. Of these, Bloodborne is the only one that I feel like has gotten much analysis on this front, and that's because... well... it's not exactly *subtle* that it's in many ways about fear of and concerning womens' bodies. Dark Souls has gotten a tiny bit wrt metaphors for futility, but it's comparatively sparing and shallow IME.
While The Algorithm, and the relative straightforwardness of these "analyses" are cool, I don't think it's entirely their fault. It would take a lot to unravel the surface details and then analyze them. There's also the issue with the "Keep Politics Out Of It" crowd that proliferate web communities that can make it hard to talk about a lot of these things. But the rise of left-RUclips video essay and analysis channels might give us more work of this variety in time.
RUclips Neo-Bards, I love it! I 100% agree with your points as well, Folding Ideas made a video about the film Annihilation that’s all about how annoyed he is that people are trying to pick apart and apply literal interpretations to a work whose message and storytelling is entirely metaphorical, and how this line of thinking is limiting in examining a work’s text.
It's as if we have to build the community from the ground up.
We need people who have compiled all of the bits of story and made them accessible to a wide audience, we need people to analyze the story that is presented by the previous, and we need people to engage with the analysis beyond just 'whoa dude.'
The story of the Dark Sun Gwyndolin is a very strong story about a son who wants to be loved and accepted by his parents so creates a sister through whom he interacts with the world and lives up to the standards of the father, the king of the realm. There are a lot of ways that can be applied to social commentary but it first takes a monumental effort to make sure your audience has all the requisite knowledge about the subject. Ultimately, to make an engaging commentary, your audience is... abysmally small.
We end up just having to use popular story summaries on RUclips as the starting point because we know people are aware of that interpretation. It's a strange system that amateur critics and analysts work in.
Ugh, no. DON'T get politics involved with art. It dates your works, and the only people who'll get anything out of it are the ones who *already* agree with you. At that point, you'd be preaching to the choir. It takes a skilled and graceful artist to infuse a political message in a way that gets both sides to think; but, unfortunately, most political artists have the subtly of a meat tenderizer. They just say "Racism/Sexism/Homophobia/Abuse/Social Media/War/Capitalism is bad!" and don't leave the viewer with any questions to ask themselves during or after viewing. Every now and then you'd get some thin veil trying to cover it up, maybe with a fantasy or surreal setting, but it's still forced and ultimately pretentious. If artists ask the question of 'Why?' then they'd be on the right track. Why are people racist? Why do people abuse others? If you explore the human condition behind these topics, THEN you actually have some merit to your art as something other than a flimsy propaganda piece people share on Facebook to validate themselves.
I'm not sure where y'all are getting the idea that I think Bloodborne can be read in many ways about various issues regarding womens' bodies because... Mergo's Wet Nurse spooky or whatever it is you think. That would be reaching. There's a *lot* that ties into women's bodies that's just kinda sitting there (well, people-with-wombs, but let's not split too many hairs for the sake of argument). It's heavily implied that the blood vials (or at least a couple of the special ones from Oedon NPCs you can save) are menstrual blood. Nightmare of menses is directly named after menstruation. The entire plot is literally, textually about the fact that the Old Gods want to be able to have babies but are completely infertile so they need to go to ridiculous, obscene lengths to do so (potentially, depending on how you interpret the hardest to get ending, even needing to kill themselves to ascend a hunter into a baby old one). I'm pretty sure there's also a bunch of lore that directly mentions miscarriages but don't quote me. Like, I'm not going to do an entire analysis of Bloodborne in a RUclips comment, but this isn't exactly a novel line of interpretation, it's been mentioned more than a few times elsewhere. Sure, things like Drakengard have more explicit to say about some topics like women's bodies, but that doesn't mean it's absent from Bloodborne.
At first I take everything Firth makes at face value, but a lot of his best work is weirdly fluid and connected in so many places and dealing with so many motifs.
I wonder if you don't like Imagine Dragons?
Let's be real. Nobody really does. It's one of those bands where you like maybe three of their songs tops; and then feel really guilty for liking them even slightly due to how...... UGH the rest their body of work is.
Although this does beg the question......... what music is he alright with? 🤔
@@spritelady4669 I haven't listened to their whole discogrophy but I like every song of theirs I've listened to :V
chaincat33
And that's cool, too! Even though I don't like the majority of their work; I can still see why people would enjoy their music. 👍
Differences make the world go 'round and whatnot, you know??
@@spritelady4669 You're wrong. I like ID. I know other people who also do.
Rodrigo Capociama
My first part of the response about nobody liking it was pretty sarcastic. As if truly nobody liked them they wouldn't be as popular as they are now. So I apologize if my dry sense of humor there seemed to be rude. I was only being snarky and silly! 😅
Lmao the most believable of the list of theories was salad fingers being related to Murdoc
There's a line to be drawn somewhere here, because while I definitely recognize the problematic and possibly modern trend of destroying the art in ambiguity and attempting to reduce the surreal to something banal and easy to understand, I'm also leary of gatekeeping media analysis. I suspect that, so much as this is a problem of our age and not any earlier, the reason has less to do with a sudden, inexplicable invasion of capitalist commodification invading the art world, and more to do with the greater availability and public importance of artistic works as an object of consumption in the first place. Capitalism isn't corroding our society's understanding of art. Rather, Art has become synonymous with our society, and therefore capitalism.
The average Jane or Joe with a computer can log on and watch the entirety of Salad Fingers without any intent of having done so up until they saw the hyperlink, which is a manifestly different style of media consumption from attending the matinee of the latest Godard film, or even picking up the latest Agatha Christie paperback from the bookstore on your way home from work. People have grown up now with not only books and movies vying for their attention, but television of all stripes and kinds, toys that belong to media franchises, radio drama, video games, comic books, card games, board games, ARGs, theme parks, all commodified art of course, but _art_ all the same. Films no longer exist in their own sphere, instead intruding out into franchises and media empires, dividing people into carefully curated groups of fanatics that are managed like comprehensive social movements and, thereby, granting them the ability (and inevitably, the duty) to identify themselves using their media preferences as inextricable elements aligned to their character. _We have become an art society_ as we have become a _consumption_ society, where art is seen not only as an independent work, but belonging to the individuals to which it speaks as much as it did the critic or the author. Art now _belongs_ to the people, was made for the benefit of the people it speaks to, and has a _duty_ to those people. And that duty, though unspecified, forms the basis of the degradation of artistic analysis.
Firstly, art in this system is expected to be accessible to the fans, to live up to their pre existing expectations ("hype") and to adhere to its expected form. Works are not evaluated by their message or cohesive merits, but rather how it affirmed the consumer's expectations and anticipations undergoing the ritual of consumption. Secondly, art in this system is expected to be _transformed_ by the fans, and undergo systematic re-contextualization by the culture of individuals surrounding it; critique, memes, fanfiction, and yes, fan theories, are all elements of this prerogative to establish ownership through transformation in modern media.
As people now identify themselves with their art, they are compelled now to feel as owners of it, and to demonstrate that ownership. Knowing the "truth" behind something is a form of power, of demonstrating that you have power over it. I therefore would suggest that to many people, media analysis has become sort of a ritual to actualize one's self as holding power over the stories that now seem to dominate our lives. By breaking it into something we understand, we can have power over it. Something that is confusing and unclear makes us uneasy in a world where we're defined by our media, because it feels like we don't have power over _ourselves_ , and therefore we either reject it (A source, I believe, for the all too common rejection of postmodernist art) or change it into something we can properly contextualize with regards to ourselves.
While this imperative is damaging to artistic analysis, I also think it's a difficult thing to casually seperate, because we all live in a consumerist, media-innundated world, and even with all the experience in media analysis and fondness for surreality and poststructuralism I have in me, I still recognize myself falling into these same pitfalls, time and time again. Looking at yourself through the reflection of media is a big part of any culture's media analysis, and to an extent necessary, with only our current society having positioned it in such a poisonous light. I can't blame anyone for choosing to relate to media like this, because in many ways it's the most natural approach in our current society. Often, those who choose to become more thorough in their relation to art only begin because they had this same sort of shallow relationship initially imposed upon them by our current society! I can certainly relate to people who need to put Salad Fingers into objective terminology because they lack the language and rhetorical tools so far to approach it from a more measured and nuanced angle, and if I hadn't decided to deepen my relationship with art decades ago, I'm sure I'd still be among them. I would never want to tell anyone that they're doing it wrong and scare them off from delving deeper, on the basis of me being some sort of elitist who thinks they shouldn't be allowed an opinion on how to contextualize this thing that, against their will, has become incredibly central to society and their place inside it.
I just realized how long this youtube comment is what am I doing with my life.
Make RUclips videos, Raymond. You have a way with words.
tl:dr
You are so 110% right. It's funny that I've watched a lot of your content but deliberately avoided the Eric andre and Rick and Morty videos BECAUSE they're guised as fan theories. Now I'll have to watch them :). Also the hyper literal fan theories drive me so insane. It's like an anxious compulsion to compartmentalize the work before it has a chance to actually affect you.
Go do it! 'Is Eric Andre in Hell' is the first video I watched on this channel and the one I rewatch the most!
This is the exact same for me. I never bothered with the Rick and Morty video because the title and thumbnail make it seem like some surface level theory.
Nice work as always! Though I think being able to view a work through a variety of interpretations can lead to deeper understanding both of the work and the surrounding culture, it’s not much of a reach to say fan theories are currently heavily biased towards those which view the works literally. It would be refreshing to see more theories come from emotional or personal perspectives and be granted the same status as any theory that you know. Slaps a diagnosis on Saladfingers because he ticks a couple boxes on the DSMV checklist and calls it a day. I’d rather talk about how people relate to the work’s feeling of being a strange person in a strange world, and maybe feeling at home in that strangeness. And sometimes not. And oh god the world is confusing. Who am I. Why is Imagine Dragons here.
Looking forward to your next video :^)
Honestly I sometimes have trouble keeping up with your videos because of how lengthy, dense, and slower than other channels’ videos they can be, but I see that as *me* needing to slow down and let all the information soak in. I love your Petscop series to death but sometimes take for granted just how much you go into it. I haven’t seen any other channel that really digs into the series like you do and I’m more than grateful that you take the time to get into the meat of it rather than attempting to go through the whole series in 1 or 2 15-minute videos (or even worse, giving a cliffnotes version and spending the other 10-12 minutes theorizing)
I don’t want to sound like a snob, but I think many YTers and the greater audience prefer surface level analysis because they lack the academic background to delve any deeper. On top of that, the system incentived frequent upload schedule and easily consumable content leads creators down the path of least resistance instead of talking over the heads of their audience. Why spend hours reading and researching a topic when you can just slap together a quick a reaction video recycling someone else’s ideas? Creators end up chasing viewers instead of bringing something unique and insightful to the table. I personally don’t go for that, so I’m glad I found your channel and hope that it continues to grow.
Ozzie Let’s not forget that they’re mister often than not in a state where they need to keep pumping out surface level content in order to stay relevant and keep themselves alive. People like MatPat should dig deeper and work towards more concrete and believable theories, but they also have to make videos every week to make enough money
You're not wrong though!
I really think RUclips needs this video. I'm all for escapism but I think it would be useful to think in terms of the current film industry. Genres/nostalgia are produced solely because they are guaranteed sales. Sometimes they're good, but they're rarely sold with something more than profit behind them. Even "art films" are sometimes made to sell to a niche market under the guise of meaning. So with the influx of no meaning movies, there's nothing to really think about and we become accustomed to not analyzing movies that way. And when blockbuster movies do make the effort, many don't see the it so there's little incentive. And oh the criticism if you try to make "more" of a movie like that. "It's just a movie". Analysis has become snobbery. I'm glad you're talking about it from a creation side but the audience side is also disappointing.
Something I think is super important which almost cannot exist now in art is content that you don't know if you like. We need space for art that makes you think even if you don't come away with a smile. Everything is catered to keep you hooked but art should occasionally challenge you and it often isn't right now. Maybe I hate a thing, but I want a chance to hate if for something other than boredom. Liking something doesn't mean it's good art.
Wow, David. Not the episode I expected at all. Totally went into this thinking it would be about how “salad fingers is an amalgamation the industrial complex,” or some point like that. Guess I should read titles more slowly.
Not the kind of thought or weight I was prepared for. That, said, I was completely satisfied. Your vids continue to surprise me in thought-provoking ways!
I really appreciate the consideration of reality, in terms of how the media is connecting with its audience, and the “theorists” share of responsibility in shaping that. Very similar to the “art critic/make money off art” message in velvet buzzsaw. Anywho, this is an important video, with a really important message somewhere around the 16 min mark. Great job 👏!
Almost halfway through the video and i'm enjoying it so far - I appreciate this call to action for more critical analysis and nuance in fan theories. But there seems to be a weird bug where one frame every five seconds is black- and i find the flashing incredibly jarring. This may just be a fault on my receiving end! Will report back after a few reloads to see if its still there..
Yeah looks like its consistent the whole way through. I think its either an export/render glitch or a glitch in the upload and formatting. Had to just listen after a while instead of have the visuals but luckily that's where the juicy meat of the piece is.
@@SomeHoiPolloi it's something with the upload because that is not happening with the local file. hmmmmm
RUclips is glitchy with new uploads atm
I think you bring an underrepresented perspective to the table with this video, and we absolutely need more people advocating for subtextual analysis. You also shine a exceptionally needed light on some of the misunderstood or outright ignored factors that influence content creation.
That being said, I feel this analysis allows little room for the influence of authentic interest in the kinds of fan theories being produced. Yes, there is a market demand that pushes creators to create this sort of basic fan theory, and yes it is true that subtextual readings are underrepresented in the discourse, but I do not think this invalidates the work put into simply creating a fan theory or attempts to synthesize a story out of a confusing and disparate set of videos.
I'm not sure if you think this authentic interest is presumed in the argument that the market demands it, or if you are assuming that all art should serve a deeper functional purpose (per your other videos), but sometimes people just like the simple aesthetics and surface level features that come in piecing together a story. I can certainly say that I fall into that camp. You've got to have room for genuine interest driving certain creations in your discussion lest we all become reduced to unagentic view counts, simply feeding the machine because we dont know any better.
Hey Dave, I just discovered your channel a few days ago and have been bingeing it since then. I really appreciate your analytical approach to internet fiction, and your background as an English major is very apparent. It's really refreshing to see someone attempt to delve deeper into the symbolism and subtext of internet fiction, instead of try and link meaning literally. It would seem really silly if any abstract or surreal piece of art had to somehow be connected to another piece of mainstream pop culture. Imagine trying to argue that the Master and Margarita was actually taking place in the same universe as the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia. They're both about the Devil so they must take place in the same universe, right? Who cares about what Bulgakov might have been trying to say? Your video essays are sophisticated while still being accessible to people who may not feel like reading something that could be published in a periodical journal. I hope folks like you work to legitimize nascent art forms like internet fiction. It seems that, albeit slowly, scholarship is turning that way, and the idea of a hierarchy of mediums of art is finally starting to go away. Keep up the good work!
I started watching your videos a while ago and I think I watched it all by now, I really appreciate your approach and how you refuse to talk about subjects in a simplistic manner, anyways thanks for making good content on topics I have a deep interest in, it’s very much appreciated
I personally tend to find 'literal' theories more interesting since they often try to find a hidden story that is somehow disturbing, tragic, or generally mysterious. Thematic analyses do, of course, also have value, though they tend to be more abstract and therefore harder to follow. I think this is why they are less common than literal theories: they are less accessible and thus appeal to a narrower audience - and this is of course only reinforced by the capitalistic nature of youtube. But I do not think that literal theories and thematic theories are necessarily opposed to each other - and literal interpretation of a piece of work can easily be build upon with thematic considerations
You’re an amazing speaker, man. You kept my attention the whole way through with your vocabulary haha
Although I agree with your conclusion, i have to say that I find some of your points kind of cynical and elitist. I feel like your assertion that this is solely a result of capitalist interests discounts any chance of validity of literal interpretations as a form of theory. You're correct that they are shallow ones, but I don't think they are lacking in value, as someone who's mind wanders easily, I have found them often useful for compartmentalizing some of the details and using that to jump off into deeper speculation. Literal theories also scratch a very human itch, we don't like uncertainty, and frankly most people just don't have the tool for more symbolic analysis, but for people with inquisitive minds, these theories can be the first inkling of what critical theory is, and be what makes them more interested in learning about the deeper levels of critical study. I agree that the homogeneous nature of youtube theory is frustrating, but there's also a growing side that is interested in more nuance takes on the media we consume. I just think maybe we should treat the more blunt side of fan theory as a 101, so long as people know to not treat it as truth, but just as another theoretical framework.
Exactly, even one of the greatest literary works in human history, Dante's Comedy, has several levels of interpretation, as while he describes the human condition and other deep stuff he makes direct references to real life situations/people, stuff that happened in the XIII century, nothing to do with capitalism or the modern world, and in the same way Salad Fingers can be a reflection about wars and the human mind but have references to a specific person living in a specific place and time as well. Trying to find and explanation (even literal ones) is what drove human innovation and progress since the dawn of time
Also, as you said, a literal interpretation can be the starting point of a deeper analysis, I'd even say that you need to understand what's going on to be able to analyze it. The guy in this video talks about the war or madness as potential "deeper" topics, but you have to know Salad Fingers is about those before being able to analyze those topics, with no literal interpretation it's just a low quality nonsense 15 yo video
I really love the fan theories!
Watching this video a little late. Love it. Really sums up what keeps me coming back to your channel and videos. I greatly appreciate how you take the approach which goes deeper than synopsis and literal interpretations. Even further, I am in awe of your ability to pursue this sort of analysis in more, shall we say, impervious works such as Petscop. Just gets me thinking, and I think you can be proud of that.
You know I have to admit. I am an anarchist, and I've been watching a lot of these larger, more corporate channels. Especially ones focused on fan theories. I haven't really been happy with any of them in a while, but I like having something to listen to and they're safe, predictable, and often cover topics I'm at least vaguely interested in.
I have been on the fence about it for a while.
But I think now I've decided to do a massive change in the channels I'm subscribed to and watch because I am honestly pretty sick of bland corporate approved content.
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your materialist / Marxist analysis of such a wide range of internet-related topics. I know you received some criticism of this approach which you addressed in the comment response video, so I wanted to give some positive feedback and say that I, for one, really appreciate hearing such an unexpected take on topics such as these.
God this video’s good. I think you chose the perfect series to raise this topic with as well. The amount of unfulfilling fan theories that completely ignore any depth or commentary drive me up the wall, and it’s so nice to hear someone else saying it after years of me shouting.
I really appreciate this video! I'm fascinated by how so much of the rhetoric involved with these sorts of fan theory videos involve "solving" the work, as if it's a puzzle or something of the sort, rather than "interpretation" of the work, which is probably closer to the action being taken by video creators. I do wonder, if there were more of a curation effort or community from RUclips augmenting the algorithmic recommendation of related videos, if that would lead to a more robust sort of video getting promoted rather than the relatively surface-level sort of thing you tend to see surrounding enigmatic works like Salad Fingers. Also consider how little education is focused on artistic interpretation in general education (at least in the US), which tends to push people away from getting a fuller, subjective interpretation in search of a futile objective "solving" of the work.
I'm glad that you put this video out here, it's really pushed me to think about how the RUclips content creation cycle forces the "fan theory" sort of work (something I don't generally appreciate from many video producers) to the forefront.
I'm so glad to see this video. When I watched the first few Salad Fingers episodes when I was younger, I was obsessed with "what it all means." But when I saw David Firth "denying" all theories, and when I saw saw that he aims to disprove popular theories with each new episode, I started realizing Iwas taking things too literally. Salad Fingers feels like a "growing organism," if you will, that is ever changing and growing to tell lots of different stories or to ask us to think about many different concepts.
Thank you for this!
I really like what you did with this video. Your videos always provide me with new and fresh perspectives.
Since subscribing to you around a year and a half ago, my appreciation of art as well as my understanding of art has increased dramatically. I have always had interest in art, be it online or not online. However, with no background in art (chem student) this interest mainly manifested itself as appreciation rather than as critical thinking. Since I started watching your videos I have found great joy in exploring the critical thinking art can instigate. There are many analysis youtubers that I follow on here, but out of all the ones I know, you go the extra mile in your videos and it really shows.
Thank you for enriching my life and for doing the kind of analysis videos you do. Keep being true to yourself and keep up the great work.
This is so insightful and tactful. I love how well you can articulate a critique. I really think RUclips and social media inherently challenges critical thought with their ad models and incentives of sharing and aggregates. I hope you keep putting in more analyses dude.
Knowing your style of storytelling,
*I just knew it was gonna be lit!*
i love the music in the background, im so glad you have it up on your soundcloud! before i checked what it was from, i would sometimes rewatch videos just to listen to the music in the background
Sometimes, I like to come back to this video after watching video essays on media I really enjoy. It makes me appreciate the open-minded and broader concepts that even simple stories can explore. There's something very gratifying when you experience anything in a way that connects to ideas in a more nebulous and conceptual manner. It's like stretching your legs from sitting inside a box all day.
Also, finding your channel years ago has made my expectations for video essays so damn high lol
I agree with the point you make about the superficiality of fan theories. It's far more important to think about what Salad Fingers means thematically than about what the physical circumstances of Salad Fingers's world is, especially since it's so surreal by design.
The music in the series always scared me, yet years later the musicians who made it would coincidentally and unknowingly become some of my favorite of all time. Boards of Canada for the win🍊💙
Just got past the 4 minute mark, this is awesome already. It's a problem I've seen presented with OFF, my favorite game, except it's mostly a few theories that dominate the conversation about this game rather than thousands of theories based on surface level observations. I discussed a lot about this game with my older sibling in our own time, and trust me, there's a lot to unpack! Lots of examples I'd definitely like to avoid spoiling, but there's plenty of substance the more you examine it! Example being, I got to the third boss and found myself discussing his subversion both of the celebration of human traits and the built image of his role to this point, the way he fits in an unregulated capitalist system, the effects office work may have on the human psyche, and how he further supports the misotheist lens this game may be looked through! There was much to discuss in name and the title of his boss theme as well! It's amazing to engage in conversation, and though I'd have trouble coherently putting a lot of these thoughts to paper, it's interesting and fun to engage this game intellectually!
Also, I'm glad Mortis Ghost has gone on record saying that pretty much nothing is canon.
Oh my god if glass brother is how we see salad fingers then he's in glass cause it's a SCREEEEEEEN
Really enjoyed this. I really enjoy surrealism and absurdism and have recently started reading academic criticism and have noticed that many of the theories are disappointing, often they explore interesting ideas but don't explore topics very deeply. Honestly, the most important part of a theory to me isn't how accurate to the creators intent it was, but how well they explore and rationalize concepts.
This reminds me of Folding Ideas’s video on Annihilation. You both make similar points!
God every time I watch one of your videos I’m amazed! Your commentary is always intelligent and intense and I love it- You’ve encouraged me to work toward making my own videos and essays
There seems to be an issue with the upload. The video keeps flickering
ugh, not sure why that's happening
I’m seeing the flickering too (watching on my iPhone using the RUclips app).
I’m stoned as hell and just assumed it was there to unsettle the viewer. It’s working on me!
same here on chrome browser (desktop)
omg i’m coming off my medication and thought my brain was short-circuiting fhdgcg
Thanks for having CC on your videos!
God, I love your channel, and this video hits every single reason why. theory channels have all become matpat clones which nothing wrong with matpat's videos, but they are the popcorn flick of theories which focus more on "hey wouldn't it be cool if" rather than "but what does it mean" and its the second I crave. worse yet if you look into David firth's other work he very clearly has a lot to say even if it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what. Salad Fingers is one of those things that has eluded me as to what he is trying to say. I have a few theories but nothing really solid, not helped by the fact that if I try and discuss this suddenly Warhammer is in the mix, or slender man, or different eras and it becomes difficult to keep straight what is Salad Fingers and what is speculation.
So let's try discussing this here. The theory I have that I like the best (so far) is Salad Fingers is supposed to be commentary on how people with mental issues are treated and viewed. Salad Fingers himself being a distorted human that the audience gawks at and is both afraid of and keeps coming back to like a freak show. If you watch from beginning to end and remember that it started a long time ago for so few episodes, there really wasn't anything hinting at a plot for some time, even all the theories tend to pull from later episodes. I believe this is because it kept us coming back. There is no plot to be deciphered and any hints at one where put in to poke fun at/keep the people who were looking for one coming back.
This theory has lots of issues like how if it's sympathetic to Salad Fingers then why does Salad Fingers kill so many by accident, that would make him a credible threat but its the best I got so far.
why does the screen keep flickering black? hurting my eyes :(
This was a lot deeper than expected, thank you
But hey, that's just a theory... *A FAN THEORY!*
Your lil' experiment worked, I've watched your video and subscribed ;) keep up the great work! next stop 100k subs
Hey, cool you have/had a West Highland White Terrier! I have two myself. Great dog breed, glad to see you/your parents have such excellent choice in companions!
She was a good puppers. RIP pearl
there is a lot happening here. I like the questions you are asking. I have been interested in the same inquiry field but instead of 'surreal viral', the 'horror' genre as a whole. I recently posted, "me thinks, America is looking for salvation one page(video, show, etc) at a time. I'm not sure if it is working, which is part of the terror trend". this might be afar from your interest, but i think they are related, and I'm going to continue to 'check out your videos' and ideas.
looking back at this. i am thinking about how i hated this video when i first watched it. it came across as very elitist and i did not realize - in hindsight - that i was just watching it tired and also did not know many of these words on that level. i still dont.
Now that i am older and. well. not wiser. this video resonates with me in a way that these literal theories dont - fills up the gasps that they dont.
this video is now, i think one of first steps to me finally getting the whole point of analysis and that sometimes we dont need to. and sometimes trying to literally present a world and not thinking about how the work feels. relates to us. reaches out to other work.
salad finger presents to me the depth of self-loathing, the loneliness and detachment, something that we are quite unable to grasp
Good stuff, going to subscribe. I wonder if we can see this type of thinking in the realm of even non-surreal work, where fans of general pop culture productions become angry when their own posited "theories" are not depicted by the creators they follow, almost a market-based "I've invested x amount of time/treasure/energy into following this show/these books/these films/etc., I deserve y outcome!" Then, rather than criticizing a work on its own merits and how it connects or fails to connect with its audience, the loudest voices seem zeroed in instead on, essentially, not getting what they wanted.
hey is anyone else getting a black flash every few seconds?
Yeah like I only noticed mine 15 minutes into it because I'm constantly looking away from the screen.
Its happening across youtube apparently, probs a byproduct of the gradual quality bump videos seem to do
Ohhh man so stoked for this! And check out that premiere length! Woooop woo red water!
The funny thing is that David doesn't really think too much on making Salad Fingers
hey nice vid man. you're speaking voice is very relaxing and you seem to choose words very wisely. keep it up and you'll be big
I really like this analysis, I feel like it is true people( especially children) are solely interested in what the story is, instead of what it *means* and explores in a wide variety of contexts.
These new ARGS ARNS and Webseries are wonderful in how enigmatic they can be, these types of entertainment are puzzles to be solved. However, people go to such extreme lengths to solve them they end up forgetting why it was a puzzle in the first place and the art is limited to shock value and individual gain instead of art which could have possibly interesting meanings and motives.
Dope Marshall McLuhan ref
The way I saw it was 1) my peer group got Salad Fingers when we were young and stupid 2) some people have a hard time getting to the meaning when they can’t have any coherent idea of what they just looked at 3) trying to get the lore in order can really open the world up and make it fun
Never heard of Salad Fingers before, but the message of this video is great! Let's all try and make the discussions go a little deeper when talking about our favorite media.
I wasn't even born when the first salad fingers came out it's been fun to watch them come out and I love David's and your work
YES YES YES!! YOU TOOK THE WORDS RIGHT OUT OF MY MOUTH!! Thank you!!
This applies even to shows like Adventure TIme. Good find.
Am I really about to watch a 20 minute video analyzing theories about a decade old weird cartoon from the internet?
Yes
Thank you for not just serving up easy answers and always reminding me to ask "why?" :)
Got recommended this video outta nowhere, but I think it brings up a good point about how people think critically.
Maybe I'm too optimistic for my own good, but I highly doubt this form of critique and interpretation of surreal online media will continue in like this. Even though the Internet has been around for quite some time for those born into it around it just starting up to now; it is still relatively new itself.
And seeing as its general userbase are most likely younger demographics who know how to navigate online and stumble upon these works; the interpretation base is going to be a "what you see is what you get" sort of thing. This stuff spreads amongst whippersnappers in comparison to older folk who would have the creative and analytical know-how to dissect shows and stories in the way you think is severely lacking. It's how the ""dreaded"" Game Theory, The Theorizer, and other such channels take in that dough and create this "literal theory revenue pit" you seem to be describing. RUclips may only allow for users 13+. But I guarantee you there are quite a few kiddos in our midst soaking up this content in the same vein as their Caprisun juice baggies. However, this does not mean we're marooned on a deserted island dooming the next generation to be 100% literal interpretation loving drone people.
For a silly example, you can't ask a young child about spacial recognition, and you also can't really ask amateurs to do a five star interpretation about this show's surrealism for the audience of preteens to young adults online. Does that make sense? If not let me give you a weird analogy to sort of explain myself here a bit better.
Let's say you have two pizzas that are exactly the same. But you cut one into four pieces and the other into eight. You then bring in a kid around the ages of 4-8 and ask them which pizza is bigger. That kid without hesitation will pick the pizza with eight slices; as at this time their brain development can't yet process that the pies are both equal despite one pizza being cut more than the other. So to bring this metaphor back around with your criticisms; it's not that these people are being genuinely simple and wanting a clear cut answer 100% of the time. But they have not been around long in this field of idea exchanges to know to look beyond the front cover of this particular discourse.
Kids will eventually grow up and develop their brains and realize that those two pizzas were equal; and these Internet folks will eventually gather the experience and understanding of reviews as they take in more ideas and elements of this or other stories. As these people grow, the places they poke around for stimulating material will evolve with the times as well; or will stagnate into obscurity as they no longer can retain their old audience's views any longer. And I will genuinely be surprised if none of these older theories will fall into obscurity with their creators. As long as the base that was as passionate about it then as they will be in the future, I'd say the future is bright for these reviews. Or maybe it would be rusty when taking into account that this is about Salad Fingers.
As for killing art, creativity to me is like a Phoenix. EVERY era has a time where everyone thought art and creativity was dying for all sorts of reasons. Whether it be a lack of people contributing due to disease killing everyone creative off literally, heebie-jeebies by uptight religious folk condemning things, algorithms created by overly capitalist website conglomerates...... and so on and so forth.
Yeah, there's a lot of terrible stuff going on because of these sort of issues. But due to the rise of the patreons, ko-fis, indiegogos, and kickstarters... there is DEFINITELY still time and evidence to the mass market contrary. DHMIS and other medias that are out and about still carry the important message that this commodity obsession can mess with creativity. And your video here does the same. So what you fear is definitely not going to be this doom-and-gloom take things for what they are digital landscape. This discourse is just something that's growing up along with us as it advanced and becomes "part of us" artistically if that makes any sort of sense. You, I, and the many people who absorb this type of video are sort of the "proof of purchase" that is the contrary to your case to a certain degree.
Another tidbit that should also be taken into account is the way the outside world sees online exclusive content and creators of it is still a bit fuzzy and delegitimized in the public eye. We may be used to things attracting a ton of attention via our everyday memes and whatnot. But to most folks who are in deep with this style of interpreting art are riding in the train of thought of thought that it's amateurish or impossible for them to grasp that people enjoy what's being put out.
Remember when everyone on RUclips had a conniption fit over night talk show hosts joking around as to why people would enjoy let's plays or similar "boring wastes of time"? It isn't too much of a stretch to have them give a similar reaction towards Salad Fingers and other kinds of animation. And remember that there are also people out and about that think "animation is only for children and therefore has no depth." Sure there are people out there who love their Pixar, Disney, and their Dreamworks flicks; but this is still a fairly common opinion that lurks around still. So why would those who see themselves as "above" dribbling Internet entertainment give something like this creepy little cartoon of ours a chance?
And since you brought up wacky ol' capitalism; I should probably add that money is probably a huge factor that plays into the stuffy critic idea I'm playing around with to a degree as well. The Internet and its availability to those seeking entertainment and creativity probably scares the heck out of most of the arty industry bigwigs. Can't have indie folks make money when their big studios need that good ol' capitalist dollar! But that's a tinfoil covered head style theory for another wall of text, am I right???
However my two cents here just comes from personal observations on my part from all sorts of articles I pondered about and interpretations afterwords. So take my ideas and wall of text for what you will. But I really loved this video nonetheless, Mr. Masterclass. Although I hoped this would be your ideas about the episodes; you gave me some cool thoughts to dwell on here anyways. I hope I haven't inadvertently spammed you with my huge wall of text here; but thank you for this editorial and getting me to stick my good ol' thinking cap on my noggin again! 🎩👍👍👍
the one small complaint i have about this video (small enough that you could say this is a nitpick) is that the term multiple personality disorder is outdated. MPD is now referred to as dissociative identity disorder (DID).
otherwise its a great video as usual and a joy to listen to (i really love to play your stuff in the background while i draw).
Holy shit, your channel is fantastic. It ticks just about every box for me. Video essays? Media analysis? ARG/Internet Horror-centric content? Leftist theory? I could cry. Please keep making the content you do!
Adult Swim popularized viewer interactivity, what we refer to as "prosumers" - the meshing, merging of "content creators" with "audiences" in a cross-pollinating system. Ideologically, this was done for two reasons - to expand the power of capitalism, by deepening the involvement of audiences in "recreational" capital processes, and, ironically enough, to cater to democracy itself - the prosumer model, much like RUclips and Twitch TV, is an anarchic democratic libertarian entertainment marketplace.
So RUclips Peasants, farmers for the metrics of RUclips Lords, aka "content creators", can now feel "engaged", as their involvement is ever deepened with the friendly, personable Lord that listens to their words and responds to them.
Johnny Carson pioneered the friendly, personable, media persona, in the wake of the new existential terror of climate destruction. Walter Kronkite was too stiff, too cold - traumatized terrorized humanity both one breath away from possible nuclear annihilation and a dozen decades away from more certain human extinction could be easily exploited by a friendly demeanor. The flip side of this demeanor is the "edgy rebel", whether Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, or Ricky Gervais - unlike the "friend" existing to comfort and console you before human extinction, these comics capitalize on the cowering retreating humanity by "shaking them up" or "shocking" them.
This friendly demeanor has now been carried over to RUclips, where RUclips Lords foster a community of Peasants by, just like the modern corporate friendly Boss, acting like he's "just one of them".
Blaming capitalism for everything is a common error of the left. Capitalism itself was supported and fueled by Modernity, which has a complex system of creation and support behind it. In our modern times, we are largely waiting for human extinction. so while capitalism has had no positive purpose since 1968, we believe that we are doomed so there's no reason to get rid of it. While some have labeled the modern period "Frozen" or "Zombie" Capitalism it's perhaps better understood as "Whatever" Capitalism.
I agree with your opinion about how content like salad fingers are pulled apart in order to find a "solutiuon" to a theory, instead of interpreting the content and possibly try and discover the message of the content. I've and learned a lot about how artistic integrity has been broken down by the capitalistic mass production of content in several industries like the music industry, youtube, movies and even the fine art industry itself. My hypothesis is that this capitalist invasion in the artistic communities have created a "collective artistic depression" where people won't let their guard down to appreciate the feelings of the artistic content, and art will be interpreted on a logical level instead, thus the theories.
Or, ya know, human's are patter makers. When the see a semi- pattern we jump at the opportunity to fill it. When we see someone make a pattern obvious we love it because we now feel like we understand, we know how to categorize.
Well done. Best video ive seen today
I’m glad you explained that “Fan Theory Industrial Complex” is a play on the “military industrial complex”. Humor is way better after it’s explained
lmao. kinda sums up this channel in a nutshell
Dude, you've got to understand that not everyone shares the same reference points as you, and sometimes it's helpful to provide some context. The world doesn't revolve around you and your sensibilities.
I’m just kidding around. You’re absolutely right, I just thought you’d get a kick out of the comment
9:14 - Tony is more polite but pretty much, ha!
I wish the literal take Petscop fans would step back a little. It makes me sad that they see it as a total bust or failure, but they may not see it as a failure forever.
Granted, ah poo this is an older video. There is, when employing a close reading (of which you are fond), a very real danger of reading meaning into a text as opposed to drawing meaning from the text. Looking at some current philosophical works that examine the work of classic or modern authors you can find myriad examples of spinning a de-contextualized set of lines into a book drawing conclusions that are opposed to an author’s body of work. Always something to be careful of. Love your vids by the way, I want to see what you make of the latest Petscop vids, as the creator is drawing a fast curtain on the series.
Excellent video!
Man, I find this confusing. The analyses I typically watch normally look for metaphorical or symbolic intent within the media, not a literal one. But even then, any interpretation can be made of a work, regardless of author intent, and still provide meaningful insight to society and other subjects. The majority of the theories you listed sound more like fan fiction. Guess I have a different interpretation of what analysing media means
Great vid as always!!
I think a large part of why there's a view of the weirdness of Salad Fingers just being there for shock value is the fact that it came from Newgrounds. It's hard to expect anything deep coming from the same context as Foamy the Squirrel.
I like this video, it's critical of the critics. I watch lots of "creepy internet thing EXPLAINED" videos, and there is a feeling that, even if they say "this is just speculation," there's a feeling that this is it, this is the answer. A lot of comments are like hero worship, blind loyalty. I'm not smart so I tend to be influenced by these, and I believe what I'm told and stop thinking about it. I know it's a flaw but I'm only human.
Stop telling yourself you're not smart.
I once found out about a cool, obscure channel that made creepy, surreal animation through another RUclipsr shouting them out. This was years ago, so my memory is pretty hazy... They had several animations, including this one a video about a house or a Skelton or something, and a phrase was repeated throughout the video. Scrolling to the comments, most of them were just people repeating the phrase as it was fairly memetic. I came back to the video about a week later, and comments had been disabled on that video. I'm guessing the reason why is because they didn't want people's stupid jokes to take away from the meaning of their art or something. Heck, I haven't seen their channel in so long, I'm not even sure it's still up.
I've always thought the theory of Salad Fingers having Multiple Personalities and having severe PTSD from WW1 was a pretty solid one.
This is a really good video
I shouldn't have eaten soup while watching this great analysis video because of 6:52.
No seriously, my chicken noodle soup is EVERYWHERE.
Times are hard now, but I swear to Christ as soon as I get on my feet once more I will support your channel... Your the most impressive YTuber thus far I've ever come across. Well done m8...
This video makes me wonder what your thoughts on some of Don Hertzfeldt's work might be. It's not horror but his style is abstract, and thought provoking but with a quirky sense of humour that reminds me of a lot of these old webseries. Particularily It's Such a Beautiful Day and The World of Tomorrow (both episodes). His work is very much meant to be looked at through multiple angles without a difinitive answer.
I've seen It's Such a Beautiful Day and I really enjoyed it.
@@NightmareMasterclass That was my introduction to his work! I'd recommend World of Tomorrow as well, it's got more of a sci-fi twist and reminds me of old Twilight Zone episodes or a Kurt Vonnegut novel
Dude, what about salad fingers relates to commodity fetishism? I don’t understand where you see that in the text. Capitalism is suffering in general, but what about a weirdo in a wasteland exemplifies that?
Fantastic video.
Is a Study in Theories...
I like this~💚
"Salad Finger is related to Murdoc from Gorillaz."
YOU WHAT?
Good stuff as always. Thank you.
One thing that always bothers me about various fan theories and interpretations is the assumption that every molecule in a work was arranged just so with explicit intentions by the creator. As someone who has made content that has become the focus of fan theories it's a bit maddening seeing someone look so deeply into something that was put there only as a matter of convenience or filler. Sometimes it's as simple as a "we had this lying around and it happened to go in front of the camera" or seeing something as a theme because it just happened to be a prop we had to reuse a few times since time was limited.
If you look at the way a large group of people view any piece of media, you definitely see a pattern of people paying more attention to the literal story rather than what the story is trying to say. I guess when you put that lens of interpretation on surreal work, that’s main point generally finding your own interpretation based on the emotions that work instills, the whole literal story way people interpret gets way more in your face. :/
Eisenhower must be rolling in his grave since 9/11.