Most of the time, those fun videos you make as a kid garner about 30 seconds of attention and fade into the forgotten ether of childhood projects.
But apparently, they just might jumpstart your career.
That unlikely latter scenario is what happened for Cary and Michael Huang, two brothers who, on January 1, 2010, at 12 years old, uploaded an animated video titled “BFDI 1a: Take the Plunge.”
The video featured a variety of sentient animated objects: a pen, a bubble, a sponge, a leaf and more. Taking inspiration from shows such as Survivor and Total Drama Island, the boys thrust their characters into a gameshow wherein one contestant would be eliminated each episode, and the winner would receive the glorious “Dream Island.” The catch? The character eliminated each episode would be decided by viewers of the channel itself.
That first video eventually grew into a 25-episode season titled “Battle for Dream Island.” Fifteen years later, the Huang brothers, now 28, have amassed a dedicated three million subscribers of predominantly child viewers, all tuning in for each roughly 20- to 40-minute episode.
Today, the channel boasts far more characters than before. And viewers will find videos for multiple concurrent seasons.
But what content can parents expect from all those years of animating?
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First, the channel itself: jacknjellify’s journey showcases perseverance. It took time before the channel garnered any sort of following on YouTube. By the time the brothers reached 1,000 subscribers, they had already uploaded over three hours of animation into their first season; it would take 10 more years before they reached one million subscribers. And though they’ve gained an additional two million subscribers since then, that long process can offer families a great way to talk about the fact that success doesn’t always come quickly; it often requires time and dedication.
The Huang brothers have fostered an active community via their unique animations and the channel’s voting mechanic. While the channel determines what characters ultimately fall at risk for elimination, the brothers leave it up to viewers to vote for which of those contestants ultimately bites the bullet (sometimes literally; more on that below). The mechanic ensures that viewers not only get to watch their favorite characters play in these animated games; they can actively support them, too.
The show’s creativity likewise can encourage audience members to use their own imaginations, too. The contestants are each given distinct personalities and compete in unique challenges. Both aspects may encourage and challenge young viewers to make their own games or tell their own creative stories.
Characters can show personal growth over the course of a season, reflecting on things they’ve done wrong and apologizing for them. We occasionally see the message that maintaining a friendship is more valuable than winning.
Characters frequently “die” in the series (as much as an object can die). The vast majority of these deaths are inconsequential: a bubble character pops; an ice cube contestant melts; a leaf character catches fire, all without much to note. And when characters do die, it’s easy to bring them back via the Hand Powered Recovery Center (HPRC). Still, some deaths can seem a bit more intense: Several contestants scream in pain as they perish. Others suffer gruesome fates, such as a pencil who gets covered in poisonous bugs or a block of wood who slowly stumbles around as he burns to death.
Some characters additionally perform actions that would otherwise be horrific were they not mere objects: Someone eats the remains of a dead contestant; in another instance, a donut character’s corpse gets chopped into pieces to feed to the others. One character runs over a gelatin-based contestant and exclaims, “Yummy! I absolutely adore the taste of his rancid corpse.” Some turn into zombies. Someone carries around a bottle filled with cyanide pills.
It should be noted that, while we never saw overt LGBT content in the videos themselves, the channel has posted support for such things within its community posts. Videos do often showcase fan submissions of object characters, some of which are labeled as gay or transgender. Additionally, the channel’s fandom page indicates that the creators identify a few of the characters as “non-binary,” though we were not officially able to confirm those statements from the creators. Still, one character said something that caused fans to speculate that the object was transgender: “When I like being something, it’s because I got to decide it for myself, like my periwinkality, and my girlness.”
Additionally, we hear a few mild adult jokes that may go over the intended audience’s head, such as a pen character who states that it will rename a location “pen island, no spaces, all caps.” On a related note, we hear some misuses of God’s name. Otherwise, the worst crudities we heard were “screwed” and consistent references to “WTF” (in the show, referencing the team “We’re the fighters” or the “Weak Trembling Fortress” rather than the profane meaning of this acronym).
Characters being covered in vomit is a recurring joke. And we frequently hear the sound of passing gas.
The easiest way to describe jacknjellify, in my opinion, is Survivor for kids. But with that description, the channel comes with some elements that parents of those kids might find as non-negotiables.
The most notable thing parents may take issue with inside the videos are the frequent character deaths within the show. Yes, they’re animated objects, so there’s scarcely any blood. And most deaths are hand-waved away via a machine that simply brings the character back to life. But a few of these mortal moments might be a bit too intense for young or sensitive viewers.
Outside of the videos themselves, parents should note that the channel occasionally makes community posts supporting the LGBT community—and its fanbase frequently speculates about the inanimate objects’ affiliations.
Most videos here are relatively tame, but these content concerns may make the channel too much for some parents.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
