When Shakespeare said the world is a stage, and Braden Boyko took it to heart. And on his YouTube channel, Beluga, his stage is the communications app Discord.
If that sounds a bit confusing, let me explain.
The skits typically only last three minutes. And in each video, an innocent-looking cat named Beluga chats back and forth with friends and enemies alike on the game-focused social media app Discord. Sometimes, he’s breaking all the rules of a Discord server. In other instances, he’s dealing with a hacker threatening to use his personal information against him.
Note: Beluga 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 one video, Boyko encourages content creators, whether they be YouTubers, authors or artists, not to talk themselves out of an idea. He mentions that when he was first testing video ideas, he nearly convinced himself that his Discord skits wouldn’t do well. But because he took that experimental leap, the channel took off—and others may have creations that’d do well, too, if only they’d put their ideas out there and gave them a chance.
Some crude jokes are made. There’s a reference to masturbation and a joke about a gift card for a pornographic website. As Beluga scrolls through a list of Discord server rules, we see restrictions such as, “No pornography” and “No sexually explicit usernames.”
Someone threatens to “touch” another person. Additionally, some thumbnails reference things like “gyatt” (a slang term for rear end) and selling pictures of feet. Another video jokes about someone attempting to admit they have a crush on Beluga but accidentally implying they like children instead.
Language beyond the acronyms such as “OMG” and “WTF” isn’t often heard. However, in a few videos, Boyko races through thousands of messages in a Discord chat, and words like the f-word, s-word, “h—” and “d–n” flash by onscreen (noticeable only if the video is paused). Misuses of God’s name occur, too.
In a rare non-Discord-based video, two characters from the show Death Note debate using adjacent urinals to each other.
Beluga’s skits don’t always make the most sense, but Boyko is really just trying to make you laugh. Whether the often-chaotic humor succeeds in that goal is up to you to decide.
Given that most of his skits involve text chat, much of the channel’s content concerns are text-based as well, such as written references to sexual topics and crude language.
To be fair to the channel, however, Boyko speeds past many of these concerns, and you’d usually only see them if you were to go back and pause the video on the right frame. But those issues are there for anyone paying close attention.
All in all, while much of the channel’s humor is rather innocuous, the occasional inappropriate joke or reference does beach Beluga’s momentum.
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.”
Our weekly newsletter will keep you in the loop on the biggest things happening in entertainment and technology. Sign up today, and we’ll send you a chapter from the new Plugged In book, Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family, that focuses on how to implement a “screentime reset” in your family!