Don't Hug Me I'm Genius

Green Is Not A Creative Color

This last week, I was told about a dark and brilliant piece of subversive UK film via a social media message from a respected friend in the business of creative work. It was about the web series "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" (aka, DHMIS). You can see (and should!) the six episodes on YouTube in less than half an hour. Here's the link to do that.

I also highly recommend the Film Theory recap and possible explanation of all of the hidden messages in the work, which are just legion, really. The makers of the show have axes to grind on some social issues, and a tireless skill in doing just that. with Easter eggs all over the place.

But as this is a marketing and advertising column, let's keep it to the subject at hand, rather than a free ad for something cool.

For reasons best understood by people who have watched the clips and/or the explanation, DHMIS can only really exist on the Internet, AKA a popularly distributed medium with no central owner... or room or role for a direct and controlling commercial sponsor. Not only is the subject matter and treatment just not something that would ever lend itself to, say, cereal ads in between the clips, it's also something that works best as a one to one recommendation for viewing, since it's not something where you can say, "If you like X, you'll like Y..." because, honestly, there's nothing like this, at least not in my experience or memory.

It's also something that needed the Internet in its current incarnation, where crowdfunding through Kickstarter isn't just known, but accepted and encouraged. With no real owner except the fans, DHMIS can keep this as weird and uncompromising as they like, without fear of notes, standards and practices or focus groups tamping down the vision. And for something like this, keeping the vision of the makers with no compromises is the entire game, really.

So in the final analysis we have a runaway viral hit, with tens of millions of views. It's also a financial slam dunk, and something that can't really be exploited for further monetization because, well, it's already achieved everything it needed to, from a creative and distribution standpoint. The famed "Butterfly Effect" of '90s cause theories was always accurate; it just needed an online boost to truly make the phenomenon real.

And with that, I encourage you all to go watch this and see if there's anything I'm missing, and to also try not to think too hard about great content operating outside of traditional media channels, which is to say, the meat and potatoes of what we do on a daily basis.

Because if great stuff is increasingly outside of advertiser influence, doesn't that say something terrible about the impact that marketing and advertising is having on the creative process?

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