The “kid” side of YouTube has always been infested with content farms who make cheap, bland content with colorful, recognizable characters from different properties, all to get as many clicks as possible.
It’s always been that way for that portion of YouTube. Whether it’s Poppy Playtime, Garten of Banban or some other recognizable property, it’s everywhere. But, far and away, the series that was most disrespected by the content farms is none other than the indie animated show, The Amazing Digital Circus.
The Amazing Digital Circus (TADC) is a 3D indie animated show made by Gooseworx and produced by GLITCH Productions. It follows Pomni as she gets trapped in the titular computer game, The Amazing Digital Circus, along with a colorful cast of characters of Ragatha, Jax, Gangle, Zooble and Kinger, led by the ringleader, Caine. They do wacky adventures.
Except that’s just the surface level. TADC is about so, so much more than its premise, and that’s the point. That statement may seem confusing at first, but watching it makes it clear.
Even in the very first episode, it’s made apparent. The entire plot of the episode is Pomni trying to escape the circus and go back to the real world, struggling to mentally process the fact that she’s in this computer game. This implies that everyone in the circus is from the real world, are real people and have their own desires, virtues and flaws.
Every character in the cast gets an episode exploring their struggles, fleshing out their character through exploring people pleasing, body dysmorphia and masking. Each of these are real things that real people suffer from, and each are attributed to certain characters with care and tact, showing that their struggles are real.
But no episode makes this more clear than episode 6, “They All Get Guns”. This explores every character. But, first, it sets up the thought process of Jax. Jax views the others as cartoon characters with surface level traits, like “crazy”, “sad”, “cheerful”, “grumpy”. But, the episode goes through each character, and contradicts each of those oversimplified traits. It shows that Jax’s line of thinking is wrong, that these people aren’t just one trait, but multiple, and that deeper level is what’s truly important.
That is why TADC is about how there’s more beneath the surface than the flashy facade. That’s why it’s so insulting for content farms to churn out slop that disrespects the source material.
Content farms are only concerned with the surface level, the flashy stuff that attracts the eyes of kids tapping away on their iPads. They don’t just ignore the source material, but outright insult it by having this view.
Sure, this is screaming into the void, and will do nothing to stop those content farms, but it’s important to say this because of the kind of damage these content farms did. They gave people a bad taste in their mouth about TADC. They made those people think that the show is nothing but kids slop.
But the show is so fundamentally the opposite of that idea that it’s genuinely upsetting to see people hold that opinion.
With the recent Dec. 12 release of Episode 7, “Beach Episode”, now is a good time to pick the series up. Even that title, “Beach Episode”, proves the point of it being so much deeper than what it presents itself as, because the episode is not a beach episode. It’s so much more. And the only way to see what lies beyond the colors and noise is to watch it.
