animator versus animation made me cry yeah really this little YouTube series about stick figures fighting made me emotional and it'll do the same to you hello internets welcome to film Theory the show that wants to say what's up gang it's your boy Lee leave a comment and smash that subscribe button sorry don't know what came over me so today we're diving into a real classic here animation versus animator if you don't know the animation versus videos are a long running series right here on youtube.com created by animator Alan Becker when it comes to online animation
this guy is one of the ogs some of his work dates back all the way to the days of new grounds in like 2006 these are Bush era memes that I remember watching in Middle School the premise is incredibly simple it started as an animator creating a stick figure and putting him through all sorts of family-friendly torture before the stick figure has had enough and fights back literally the figure breaks the fourth wall and uses parts of the computer desktop and programs to battle against the human these videos went Mega viral and eventually spun off
into other videos about the animations taking on everything from Minecraft Mario to Pokémon and even Concepts like math and geometry now that's great you'll love to see it but I never really put a ton of thought into this series well that was until a ton of you awesome loyal theorists in the comments and over on our subreddit recommended we take a look at it and honestly there's a ton of lore in this series more than I expected enough that there's more than one theory in here if you guys are interested but for today I wanted
to focus on the latest story arc in the series which saw one of its animation characters the green one simply named green become an influencer online yeah they straight up started a real YouTube channel and everything and while on the surface this sounds like a fun cutesy story arc by the end of it the animation versus series explores the darker side of social media the effects it can have on our brains and the negative impact it can have on our relationships and no joke it also made me genuinely emotional by the end of it like
I didn't have be moved by the story of a green stick man on my bingo card for this year but hey here we are so yeah today we're going to dive into the story of Green's influencer Arc and what we can learn from it as individuals and maybe more importantly what we can learn from it as a platform as YouTube as a whole yeah this one goes deep get ready to make some trick shots loyal theorists we're going in so I think the best way to tackle this is going through each individual episode and seeing
what analysis we can make along the way cool cool the first episode of Green's influencer Arc starts like a lot of YouTubers did back in the day all of the figures are filming themselves playing basketball and making cool trick shots Dude Perfect style also shout outs to Green for making sure that they're recording horizontal that's the way they then edit the video inside of Adobe Premiere that's a common video editing software before uploading it to YouTube so they can all watch it together happy with the results they then start experimenting adding special effects and getting
ambitious with their storylines they create a new video all about a Superhero fighting a monster but go overboard with the effects resulting in a glitchy pixelated mess so they go back to the drawing board dial back the effects and upload a newer version straight to YouTube now of course it wouldn't be an animation versus episode without a good old-fashioned fight sequence so cue the Glitchy video coming to life doing battle against the gang and then being defeated and thrown into the recycle bin all is well that ends well and hey green even looks at his
phone and sees a positive comment on their video okay so far so good the gang uploaded a video for Goofs had fun doing it defeated a bad guy and people liked it too but sadly things can't stay all sunshine and roses see in episode 2 while the stick figures are trying to shoot their new video green is continuously getting distracted by notifications on his phone his channel slowly but surely started getting Subs more and more people are watching and people are leaving comments this starts consuming all of Green's attention to the point where he's distracted
from even filming videos the thing he enjoyed doing in the first place this is actually a pretty accurate depiction of what social media like YouTube comments can do to your psyche and the effects it can have on someone's mental health and well-being and sadly this is what a lot of social media is based on whenever you get a like or a positive comment on a video or a post or whatever it triggers a release of dopamine in our brains to put it simply that's the feel-good hormone our body gives us to make us feel rewarded
by something this can be triggered by any number of things eating good food listening to music you like even just getting a lot of sunlight and exercise but one of the biggest triggers of dopamine is social interaction and verbal affirmation now if this was just from people you knew in real life that's totally normal and good I think all of us want to get complimented and supported by people in our life but this can get super complicated when you factor in social media studies show that getting social interaction and affirmation online is basically the same
to your brain as getting that in person so every time that Green's getting a new like or a nice comment or a subscriber he's getting a hit of that Feelgood dopamine and his brain is going to want more now normally I guess that would be fine but the big problem comes in when the reality of the internet hits green yeah I don't think I need to tell that sometimes the comments aren't so nice and green really takes all of that feedback to heart for example one of the comments goes all Edam mode and says no
so green stops their new video mid- filming and rips the cape off of orange and this isn't an isolated incident before long green is following every whim of his comment section he's told that he should do a vlog so he starts vlogging some comments call his friends useless or not good so he cuts them from videos or removes them from the channel his friends want to make more superhero videos but green outright refuses because one comment says no more superheroes for all of the dopamine hits that green gets from the positive comments this is the
unfortunate flip side and sadly the human brain just prioritizes negativity see our brains are hardwired to remember more negative comments than positive ones this is something called negativity bias which means that we see and react to negative information far quicker this is one of those things left behind by Evolution if our ancestors didn't react to and remember something bad happening to them them quickly well that could literally kill them nowadays the stakes are usually much lower so we've had to figure out how to apply this in the modern world because of this Studies have found
that in professional settings the ideal praise to criticism ratio should be about five compliments to one criticism in order to keep your team productive meanwhile in personal relationships you should try to keep it to three positive comments for every negative one but the problem comes in with social media and content creation which can throw off this delicate balance of positive and negative feedback back I can tell you from firsthand experience you can get tons of awesome positive constructive feedback but one mean or unnecessary comment can stay with you for weeks and ultimately this can lead
to risk aversion in your decision-making you might choose not to do something you want to just because you don't want to risk that negative feedback you don't want the negative YouTube comments calling you out making you feel awful and depriving you from that sweet sweet dopamine exactly like what we see happen with green when folks in the comments start critiquing the videos sometimes offhandedly or without a ton of thought he makes those major changes to the channel and sometimes straight up deletes older videos green is totally controlled by the need for that feel-good moment but
of course this isn't the only way to go this Behavior can cause or make worse mental health issues like anxiety or depression as you become trapped in a cycle of overthinking every move what will the comments say what if they don't like it should I even post this what's even the point ironically these negative feelings can lead your body to Crave even more dopamine which we actually see with green as he checks the comments the moment he uploads a video looking for that validation all of which leads him to make some pretty disastrous Decisions by
the end of the episode green has completely changed his channel and content he makes way more Vlogs and reaction videos than the content that the group started making in the first place distancing himself from his friends but the final straw comes when he pulls a cruel prank on them tricking them and dropping them into Minecraft lava no amount of chill it's just a prank bro is going to diffuse that situation thankfully the stick friends survive more or less unscathed but they blow up at Green and try to take his phone away green refuses and the
friends part ways now alone green just sits in his room creating more content that's clearly Hollow and constantly refreshing the comments hoping that new ones will be posted believe me for anyone who's ever made a YouTube video this hits really close to home the content Creation in comments have now had a direct and sign ific negative impact on Green's life and relationships that pursuit of dopamine the satisfaction of receiving views and likes and comments has led him to focus more on the content than the people behind it the people in his life that were the
whole reason that he started making YouTube videos in the first place this extends into episode 3 with green constantly checking his comments and analytics but he's totally unaware of what's going on outside see remember that rejected video from earlier the Glitchy one with all of the special effects that got pixelated well it survived in the recycling bin and joined forces with all of the other rejected videos to form a giant monster it escapes with the other stick figures trying to fight it but they are quickly overwhelmed as the monster tries to hack into Green's YouTube
to escape all as green is just uploading videos of his bedroom or video tours of their house unaware of the Carnage outside but it's just not hitting the same anymore green is clearly feeling down and struggling lying in bed as the quality of his content has nose dived What's Happening Here I mean other than the giant video Kaiju well what's happening with green here is the result of something called dopamine tolerance when your brain receives the same level of dopamine from stimulation like say continued likes and comments and seeing your subscription numbers go up your
body will become more tolerant to that level of dopamine or your brain will release less of it meaning that what it does get has little to no effect and this kind of dopamine numbness can have larger KnockOn effects too reducing the sensitivity of your dopamine receptors in general that way mean that anything that used to give you those good feelings like eating food or hanging out with friends or whatever none of it is going to satisfy you anymore and without those hits of dopamine coming in as much as we'd like if at all you can
become increasingly more depressed which can then make the things that once gave you Joy make you feel nothing at all an effect of depression called anadon that is what's happening with green here no matter what he does no matter how high his numbers go his body literally cannot make him feel as good as when they were successful early on this becomes a real problem because like we talked about earlier our brains love dopamine they crave it and want more and if you're not getting the same hit as before it can alter your behavior leading you
to make poor and impulsive decisions so green who was once obsessed with quality videos because of all of the positive feedback is now pushing out slop just to try to get more and more dopamine fortunately not All Is Lost for our stick buddy green here he starts to feel sad and regrets how he treated his friends remembers how and why they started the channel to make fun things together and acknowledges that he cared more about the online attention than his friends apologizing and deciding that he needs to take a break from YouTube this is incredible
self-reflection on Green's part recognizing that he has changed and not for the better and that he wants to try to rebuild the relationships with his friends he goes outside to find them and of course stumbles across the Havoc created by the video Kaiju to another awesome fight scene in The Gang defeating the monster through the power of friendship right well not quite see during the battle green realizes that the only way to really stop this monster to stop this fighting it isn't by beating it down or deleting it no it's by embracing its imperfections green
uploads many of the deleted or rejected videos to his YouTube channel the stuff that was janky or weird or cut because of the comments told him to and with each upload the video Kaiju gets weaker and weaker by the end green uploads that very first superhero video that the friends all made the one that looked like it was filmed on a potato with broken effects and pixels everywhere and that defeats the monster once and for all the friends all make up hugging it out and going to play basketball and though Green's phone buzzes with the
new comment he chooses to leave it behind for now and spend time with the real people in his life so that's the story of the influencer arc and a bit of an analysis but that's only part of the message of this series and why it affected me so much like yeah a lot of the story is about spending time with the people in your life who affirm you and help you be a better person whether they're in person or on Discord or whatever real relationships are always going to be healthier than the ones you have
with an anonymous comment section hence science backs that up Studies have shown that interacting with people in person results in significant shifts in mood mental well-being and positive personal Outlook fewer but higher quality relationships will also always be better and increase your emotional richness but for me what impacted me emotionally there was a real Bittersweet nostalgia in this series I've I've been working on YouTube making videos about little things that I love for over 10 years now like my first video was a love letter to the dude that made the Game Boy of all things
and oh oof College Lee sure was a look videos back then when YouTube was still very much a wild west whether it was from dudes in their college dorms like me or creators like Matt everything had a Jank to it that just made it feel real made it feel genuine nowadays a lot of YouTube and social media feels artificial creators show you a very carefully curated version of themselves in their lives and I get why for a lot of us this is a business videos are so polished because they have employees to take care of
bills and taxes but these personas that a lot of creators build they're not real and that can be harmful yes in all of the ways we've talked about today with the creators but also for the viewers who feel like they aren't good enough because their lives look nothing like these overly polished ones they see online so the fact that the thing that defeated the video Kaiju here in this series that brought these friends back together after all of the Vlogs and the pranks and the mean comments tore them apart that it was embracing an old
janky video with mistakes and weird choices something they made for the fun of it just because they had a genuine passion man that hits close to home it's a nice reminder of why we all started this in the first place and honestly I think all of YouTube could use that right now I think just like the animations here we'd all be a little better off just letting go and appreciating the Jank of it for a bit but hey that's just a theory a film film Theory and cut up next on film Theory there's nothing sadder
than a lone chicken nugget and that's exactly what we're seeing happen to our beloved doggo but thankfully there's a way to cheer up this lonely pup and today we're going to bring this demig God of chaos back down to earth
