Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

[Cosmos]

This series recently came to a close (on June 19th, specifically) so I decided to make a thread to talk about it.

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (often abbreviated to DHMIS) is a web series of short films. Each episode is made to appear like a typical children's television program, consisting of singing and talking puppets similar to those of Sesame Street, but eventually takes a dark turn, usually involving gore. The series parodies children's television shows by ironically juxtaposing puppetry and musical numbers against psychedelic content and disturbing imagery. Six episodes have been released, on the subjects of creativity, time, love, technology, healthy eating, and dreams.

Because of the trippy, vague, weird, and downright fucking insane nature of the videos, there are a lot of interpretations for them floating around. I recommend watching this playlist to get an idea of what the fuck is happening. There are also a bunch of alternate theories you can find by just searching for them.

 

[The Fair Lady]

I like these for some bizarre reason. They stopped being disturbing after the third one though, IMO.

 

[ZehnBoat]

I like these for some bizarre reason. They stopped being disturbing after the third one though, IMO.

having your organs harvested while awake isn't disturbing?

 

[The Fair Lady]

having your organs harvested while awake isn't disturbing?

Didn't say it wasn't, but compared to the earlier episodes 5 was mostly tame to me. I'm also desensitized, so there's that.

 

[Hat]

The first couple were all-right as far as the "creepy kids' show" concept goes. I didn't care for the anti-religious propaganda in the third one, and the fourth and fifth ones were pretty forgettable. As for this last one, I found it to be rather humorous.

 

[Saney]

I didn't care for the anti-religious propaganda in the third one

Was it anti-religious? I thought it was supposed to be a set up on how cults use love bombing to draw in new members?

 

[AnOminous]

Was it anti-religious? I thought it was supposed to be a set up on how cults use love bombing to draw in new members?

@Hat is deeply religious lol.

 

[Cosmos]

Was it anti-religious? I thought it was supposed to be a set up on how cults use love bombing to draw in new members?

It's pretty confusing, honestly. I got quite a few anti-religious vibes from the video (especially considering the parts on marriage). This Reddit comment explains how the video can be interpreted as anti-religion:

I also heard people speculating that the King of Love represents God, who only loves you if you worship Him, obey Him, and turn your back on everything else (which doesn't make sense from a mainstream/non-fundamentalist Christian view, which posits that God feels unconditional love towards all humans and will accept them no matter how many times they go astray). There are tons and tons of neckbeard comments on the original and theory videos which further discuss this interpretation if you feel like wading through them.

However, I also think it more accurately applies to cults. Your point about love bombing is spot on. The way the religion/cult members shower Yellow Guy with love and attention before starting to make more and more extreme demands of him is reminiscent of how cults work. I don't really feel like going back and watching it again to pick out specific examples, but the members definitely do and say things that are way more common in cults than in regular religions.

In any case, the third one is by far my least favorite because 1.) as a practicing Catholic it rubbed me the wrong way and 2.) it was way too obvious with its themes whereas the other five are much more subtle.

 

[Hat]

It's pretty confusing, honestly. I got quite a few anti-religious vibes from the video (especially considering the parts on marriage). This Reddit comment explains how the video can be interpreted as anti-religion:

View attachment 107193

I also heard people speculating that the King of Love represents God, who only loves you if you worship Him, obey Him, and turn your back on everything else (which doesn't make sense from a mainstream/non-fundamentalist Christian view, which posits that God feels unconditional love towards all humans and will accept them no matter how many times they go astray). There are tons and tons of neckbeard comments on the original and theory videos which further discuss this interpretation if you feel like wading through them.

However, I also think it more accurately applies to cults. Your point about love bombing is spot on. The way the religion/cult members shower Yellow Guy with love and attention before starting to make more and more extreme demands of him is reminiscent of how cults work. I don't really feel like going back and watching it again to pick out specific examples, but the members definitely do and say things that are way more common in cults than in regular religions.

In any case, the third one is by far my least favorite because 1.) as a practicing Catholic it rubbed me the wrong way and 2.) it was way too obvious with its themes whereas the other five are much more subtle.

That sums up a lot of what I got out of the video; the description of Malcolm as a vengeful being that they must appease lest he become angry sounds exactly like a euphoric atheist's interpretation of the Bible. I would also mention the aroused gopher creature that appears around the 2:42 mark, which I took to be a reference to either the sexual abuse scandals involving the Roman Catholics or the the general stereotype that conservative Protestants are all repressed homosexuals.

 

[AnOminous]

the general stereotype that conservative Protestants are all repressed homosexuals.

I can't imagine where you'd ever get that idea.

 

[Bokrug's Basement]

I think all of them are a fun watch. 2 & 3 are my favourite, though I don't think I could sit through the 5th one a second time.

 

[Chicken Dippers]

Heh, honestly, I never stopped enjoying this series. I actually felt the third and fourth to be the least disturbing - the beginning of the sixth one really gave me the creeps when I first saw it, just watching Yellow Guy being dragged through a surreal animation sequence, knowing full-well it's gonna end in something awful happening to him.

This series is one of the few things to do the "creepy kids show" trope well, IMO

 

[millais]

I think the red spaghetti monster character is pretty cool

 

[SpessCaptain]

There has been a lot of theories about this, but I don't think it was deliberate until the 3rd episode.

I really don't think they were going for any type of interpretation at the start, they simply followed the idea of contrasting media elements (i.e: muppets and gore) to instill shock value and to make them memorable. There are very similar breeds of cinematography that fall into this category, like Robot Chicken, and 2006's Fido which also use the element well.

What I suspect happened is that during the downtime between 2 & 3, they were reading the small and at that time harmless theories of their series and serviced their fans that way, rather than just using the contrasting themes they decided it was good exploration of the genre and boy did they do it. You can see they did this change of "whacky muppets getting fucked up" to "lets make this deep as fuck" when they started to remove the characters, the method was very similar for the first couple and then its themes radically change from misguided and aggressive learning (such as time and creativity pushing them to do things correctly or to not waste time) to more subtle concepts and ideals (such with computers being a source of inattentiveness, how foods are labeled and cults.)

Did they plan this from the start? No. Definitely not, they simply worked on something they saw an opportunity for pushing another layer into their work.

 

[ZehnBoat]

I think the only thing they planned from the start is

Spoiler

that it would end, and the ending is just another beginning. and the use of a singular date (june 19th) representing that it's one part of a cycle

 

[Xerxes IX]

However, I also think it more accurately applies to cults. Your point about love bombing is spot on. The way the religion/cult members shower Yellow Guy with love and attention before starting to make more and more extreme demands of him is reminiscent of how cults work. I don't really feel like going back and watching it again to pick out specific examples, but the members definitely do and say things that are way more common in cults than in regular religions.

Also the fact that they tell the yellow guy to forget about his friends/everything else he knew is reminiscent of cults, they (like for example Scientology and the People's temple) often discourage interaction with people who aren't one of them because a concerned family member or friend just might point out that you're in a cult and try to get you out.

Or it's one of those edgy euphoric mainstream religion=cults things.

 

[Chicken Dippers]

I know this thread hasn't been touched in a while, but this is pretty good, imo (he hasn't done the fifth one, though)

 

[The Grimace]

Even though they mostly stopped being creepy after like the second one, they have their moments (mainly the operating room scene in 5), and I really appreciate the work and overall high production value that goes into these videos.

 

[Overcast]

How was it that I only found out about this series today?

For me, it was weird and mindless fun. I'm sure there's a lot of theories and stuff floating around, but to me, it's just three friends on a really bad acid trip.

 

[Hypodermic Johnny]

Ah, DHMIS. I first ran across them as a 'related video' when I was looking at some of PESFilm's animations (you know those guys who did like the guacamole/spaghetti using clay and craft supplies?) on Tumblr. Was incredibly disturbed. So naturally I fell in love.

(...Tumblr of course, used to ship the notepad and the clock together from the first two vids, then somewhere down the line proclaimed the series "problematic" and making fun of the psychotic and thus it was no longer popular, but that's neither here nor there.)

While I can see the Christian fundie/organized religion criticism AND the cult symbolism in the third one...I'm not sure if the creators are actually pushing an agenda or if there is REALLY a deeper meaning to the vids (apart from a sort of 'it means whatever you think it means'). I think they just like making fucked up shit in a twisted parody of child's programming.

I do love how it became increasingly 'self-aware' with how fucked up everything kept becoming, though. Poor red guy.