The expression “youngsters today…” by no means fails to precede a superior show of generational and cultural disconnect. I’m making an attempt to inoculate myself towards in the future getting the urge to say that by getting dangerously uncovered to the factor that’s at present taking the youths by storm. That factor, proper now, is Skibidi Bathroom.

Skibidi Bathroom is a weird YouTube collection that mixes Half-Life 2 character fashions with bogs to inform a bonkers story. If it helps, you may consider it as an try at making the brand new era’s Area Ghost Coast to Coast, or the G.I. JOE PSAs by somebody who seemingly doesn’t even know these exist.

YouTube HL2 spoofs aren’t new, however the factor about Skibidi Bathroom is how big of a phenomenon it has develop into, and the way it nonetheless managed to fly beneath the mainstream radar. To get an concept, “Child Shark”—the most-viewed video on YouTube—got here out in 2016 and has since amassed a bit over 14 billion views. “Despacito,” the most-viewed music video that isn’t a few Child Shark, has surpassed 8 billion views after six years on YouTube. The Skibidi Bathroom collection is already previous the 65 billion views mark being just a bit over one yr outdated.

I might attempt to describe what it’s all about, however there’s no alternative for watching it. Click on play beneath! It’s quick and candy — one of many the explanation why it’s such a giant viral hit each on YouTube and TikTok.

To keep away from assessing the cultural phenomenon from a spot of harmful ignorance, I requested for the opinion of Half-Life collection author Marc Laidlaw. Marc promptly mentioned one thing alongside the strains of “What the hell is that?”, however then went on to look at the entire thing and even shared his ideas with me.

How did it really feel to see a collection that turns the characters that you just created 20 years in the past into singing bogs turning into one of many greatest issues within the historical past of YouTube?

Laidlaw: I don’t actually really feel any connection to the characters…I didn’t mannequin the G-Man, as an example, and no matter a part of that character I created, it’s not the visible facet. So I expertise no discomfort in any way, however simply watch with bemusement because the Garry’s Mod group wreaks havoc with the outdated playset. I believe those that sunk a number of time and experience into creating HL2’s facial animation system would possibly really feel in another way after they see these fashions with their vertices twisted and distorted in ways in which make the underlying fashions look damaged and terrible, however DFB clearly is aware of the best way to do cautious facial animation after they wish to, and so they’re utilizing the everyday G Mod distortions to make the Skibidi Bathroom folks appear extra alien. As in the event that they got here in at a foul angle from one other dimension, and so they’re unstable right here. Plus after they leap on the digicam and their heads open up like a lamprey, that’s simply scary. And I get pleasure from being scared. It’s actually a testomony to one thing that these 20 yr outdated character fashions are nonetheless strong sufficient to be repurposed and weaponized for the wholesale colonization of the YouTube eco-entertainment area of interest, however to not my position of their authentic design.

What have been your ideas on Garry’s Mod again when it began making waves? Did you ever see this as a doable end result?

I’ve all the time been all-aboard in terms of fan mods, contemplating that my first entry into the sport trade was in trying to make maps for Quake. My background was within the [science fiction] and peculiar fiction communities, the place you begin out as a fan, imitate your fashions, borrow from them and warp what you’ve taken and in some way via that attempt to discover your individual path and construct your individual worlds. So the followers of in the present day as a result of the creators of tomorrow, and that’s completely pure. The cynical view is that by encouraging this, the trade trains up its low-cost younger labor, so they’re excited to leap in and be labored to the purpose of burnout doing one thing that they began off in all innocence loving till it turns into their destroy. Garry’s Mod appeared too insane and chaotic from the outset to offer rise to something apart from extra playful chaos, and actually that’s nonetheless fairly clearly seen even within the newer installments of Skibidi Bathrooms. No approach might I’ve foreseen this, however it encourages me. A number of folks on the market are conscious that deep within the doldrums between HL1 and HL2, I made a number of surreal maps akin to “Ickypop,” the place I used the sources accessible to me on the time (a restricted variety of fashions and environments and map entities). I really like this type of factor, and I acknowledged the identical impulse at work within the first skibidi rest room episodes—simply to construct the weirdest factor you may think about, with no clarification, however just because you may. After which, one of the best half, you may share it with different folks to see in the event that they assume it’s as amusing as you do.

Time will see culturally related work find yourself estranged, generally to the purpose of it shedding all connections to its authentic context. It goes from cowl songs that substitute authentic in our consciousness, to revolutionary messages turning into mass-produced merchandise. Skibidi Bathroom has over 65 billion views, most from a demographic youthful than Half-Life 2. It’s doable some from the youthful generations could know the G-Man as an enormous rest room, slightly than the enigmatic Half-Life adversary. How does this make you are feeling?

As you say, that is a technique we cross down our cultural DNA. I grew up watching Looney Toons filled with celebrities of the ‘40s, a few of whom have been already practically forgotten by the ‘60s. Mad Journal parodies have been my introduction to all kinds of seminal motion pictures I’ve nonetheless by no means seen, however really feel I’ve. Children youthful than me who by no means learn Mad nonetheless noticed photos of Alfred E. Neuman, although I’m positive many don’t actually know the place he comes from. Possibly the G-Man is simply our new Alfred E. Neuman.

Anybody who follows you on Instagram or YouTube is aware of that you just love making music. You have got already created no less than two remixes of the Skibidi rest room tune on the time of this writing. What are your ideas on the tune itself? Do you think about your self concerned within the motion now?

Effectively, I gotta say, Little Massive’s authentic Skibidi tune, which is the place all of it started, is absolutely incredible. I do know there’s extra to it than that however I haven’t dug into it an excessive amount of. And sure, I did two remixes, however I can’t see doing any extra of those. I really like sampling however I’m cautious of creating music out of issues that aren’t mine. Nonetheless, if some precise rightsholder have been to method and ask and fee me to do a remix, then hell yeah! So far as being within the motion, I believe my ongoing YouTube collection units about the correct stage of involvement… I’ve remodeled three hours of movies of me taking a look at my laptop computer, and in some way various folks derive enjoyment from watching me watching a display they themselves can’t see. However I confess the entire tradition of response movies, the place an viewers watches another person watch one thing, is weird and unfathomable to me. I say that even having completed it myself now. And I did it partly to grasp it. If I have been writing a brand new satiric sf novel in regards to the close to future, within the vein of Dad’s Nuke or Kalifornia, this might be a fairly good beginning theme. Possibly that’s why I did it. Yeah, it’s analysis! “Who will watch the watchers watching the watchers watch the watchers?” (It sounds a lot cooler in Latin, imagine me.)

One of the vital endearing elements of the Half-Life collection is its mysteries. Followers always surprise about issues such because the (actual) G-Man’s endgame. Does experiencing the Skibidiverse make you surprise comparable issues about this bonkers new world?

Hahah, probably not. I’m not all that large on the lore aspect of issues, at the same time as a shopper. I’m completely satisfied to only take what I’m giving, get pleasure from it as I’m watching, and transfer on. Very hardly ever does any sort of fictional world—recreation, e-book, or film—regardless of how a lot I get pleasure from it, make me wish to delve deeper into its background. I prefer to know there’s shadowy stuff there and causes beneath the floor stage of what I’ve seen, however it’s sufficient to sense them. I believe the one recreation that ever impressed me to hunt out the exterior lore (whether or not official or pure hypothesis) was Bloodborne. I can’t say I spend any time questioning what’s happening between the Skibidi factions after I’m not truly watching an episode.

Do you favor to look at from the sidelines, or does Skibidi rest room offer you even the slightest urge to provide you with your individual story set in its universe? Would you be right down to a collab with the person behind this collection?

I don’t prefer to intervene with people who find themselves making cool stuff. My very own involvement or injection of myself into this world would simply make it much less amusing to me. It’s not very “me,” and I like that about it. It’s its personal factor and I respect that. It’s authentic and distinctive. Why mess with that?

Lastly, anything you’d actually like your followers to learn about Skibidi rest room, and your emotions on it?

I attempt to categorical my ideas and emotions as I watch the episodes, and interacting within the feedback is pleasing and one of the best ways to maintain up with how I really feel at a given time. I be taught from the feedback…there are folks in there who know a LOT about Skibidi Bathrooms! I decidedly do NOT. I nonetheless don’t actually know the entire child angle, I admit, I don’t have any relations or buddies who’re the prime age for this as a youth phenomenon. Possibly I ought to be glad about that.

When not binging Skibidi Bathroom on YouTube, Marc spends his time writing and making music. Do you end up dearly lacking the Half-Life collection? Effectively, then you need to think about heading proper right here and getting a e-book written by the one that wrote that universe. You may take a look at his solo tunes right here, and his band Mort Solár right here.