If there’s anything that Alan’s Universe indicates, it’s that there’s a market on YouTube for short-form video.
As of this writing, Alan Chow’s YouTube channel, Alan’s Universe, has added more 1,300 uploads to the site—but only 40 of them are long-form videos. The rest of them, you’ll find under the “Shorts” tab on his channel, which is filled to the brim with vertical videos each less than one minute in length.
It’s through those short videos that the TikTok-turned-YouTube star originally grew into the most-viewed YouTube Shorts creator (and the 18th largest channel on the platform overall). Through his content, Chow has earned nearly 90 million subscribers—a feat made more impressive by the fact that he only joined YouTube in early 2020.
Nowadays, the channel focuses primarily on a small cast of characters attending high school together. And the live-action videos themselves look like something that would have been on the Disney Channel back in the day. The subject matter of the channel’s longer videos varies widely, from school crushes and bullies to witches and vampires. And the shorts are largely random too, from simple gags and games, to skits that involve kidnappings and evil clowns.
But despite the channel’s obvious attempt to appeal to younger viewers, there’s quite a bit here that’s strictly aimed at an adult audience.
Note: Alan’s Universe was requested by a user of Plugged In. Do you have a YouTube channel you’d like us to review? Submit your request by sending it to [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram so we can check it out!
In many of the channel’s fictional stories, we see reconciliation or eventual justice against bullies. The “good guys” win in the end. People forgive others.
In one video, after learning that he got a classmate pregnant, a boy steps up into his responsibility as a new father.
Some videos center on characters who are members of the mafia or vampires. One boy snaps a kidnapper’s neck, and some characters are dressed up in bloody scar wounds. We’re shown the dead body of a 15-year-old girl, drained of her blood by a vampire. Men surround a woman, apparently thinking about sexually assaulting her. Someone is forced to ingest poison. Two people get attacked by bullies and become blind as a result. A short video jokes that if a man won’t do what you want, attack him to force him to do it.
A surprising number of videos include strange subplots of teen pregnancy: One video showcases a boy and girl together in a bathroom as the man rebuttons his shirt, and then the girl later takes a pregnancy test to find that it comes back positive. When a woman changes shirts, we briefly see her bra. A man slaps a girl on the rear and catcalls her. A girl wears a bikini. We see a shirtless man. A video jokes about how a man should treat his girlfriend when she’s menstruating. We see two women kiss in a game of spin the bottle. A video focuses on a boy falling in love with his teacher before finding his female teacher moments from kissing another woman. A man and woman kiss.
The female school outfits often display midriff and use short skirts. The lyrics of a background song state: “Don’t you want to have fun? Fool around with someone!” In a reaction video, Chow comments on a woman’s breasts. A short video depicts a Pokémon trainer finding out his Pikachu is apparently having an affair with another trainer. In another video, a boy strips naked (covered by a pixelated blur) to provide his friend with some pants. A man and woman pretend to moan in bed together, and they talk about roleplay. A video jokes about girls in Japanese anime often having massive breasts. When his girlfriend accuses him of cheating by throwing lacy underwear at him, Chow reveals to her that he likes to wear women’s underwear by flashing her the side of his current pair.
Chow reacts to “the scariest videos on TikTok,” most of which contain some sort of animated monster. Some people cast magical spells.
God’s name is used in vain occasionally. Otherwise, while the characters don’t use any crude language, we did hear the n-word, “b–ch” and “douche” in the lyrics of the background music.
Alan’s Universe portrays high school skits about love and friendship, vampires and bullies, rivalries and the absurd. It’s a channel that I’m sure, with its bubbly characters and bright colors, appeals to kids and teens. I say that since, quite honestly, I’m not too sure very many adults would get the appeal of the channel … myself included.
But if the channel is aimed at a younger demographic, there are quite a few content concerns within it that parents will likely object to their own child seeing, such as comic violence, crude language in background lyrics and a surprising number of sexual jokes or situations.
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 thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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