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if you've been around youtube for a bit, you've probably seen this face:

[image of the bfdi smile]

it'd be more odd if you haven't, honestly. it's become very common to use all over video thumbnails, for whatever reason.

i don't really know why it's so popular. eye-catching, maybe. looks funny, especially on a human person.

and it does, it does look funny. but, okay, where is it actually /from/?

well, luckily, it's not some drawn-out internet mystery. chances are, going to any video that happens to use this smile, and heading towards the comments section, will yield you at least. three comments maybe. going "LOL!!! BFDI mouth jumpscare!!!" or something. i dont use youtube a lot anymore stay with me here

Battle For Dream Island is a youtube indie animation series created by the Michael and Cary Huang. It officially began on January 1st, 2010, with the upload of BFDI Episode 1a, "Take the Plunge". as of March 2025, the first episode (well, the part one to the first episode, anyway) sits at around 71 million views on Youtube. The show revolves around (in)animate objects competing in a series of competitions for a chance to win a prize-- originally, the eponymous Dream Island. The show currently spans five seasons; Battle For Dream Island, Battle For Dream Island Again (BFDIA), Island Dream For Battle (IDFB), Battle For BFDI (BFB), and Battle For Dream Island: The Power Of Two (TPOT or i guess BFDI:TPOT). add dates for seasons later

there. now that you know the basics, i can talk about II

you see, BFDI is actually far from the only show of its kind; it's actually something of a trailblazer for indie animation. it ended up spawning hundreds of shows mimicking the format of "objects competing for a prize". many broke the mold and created BFDI-inspired shows outside of the reality-competition genre, though the majority tend to keep to safe waters and stay within. which isn't bad, far from it; object shows, as they went on to be called, can still do interesting things even when they /are/ competing for a prize, though most successful shows have more to them than that. before we talk about the wider community and the legacy of BFDI, though, we should touch on II.

Inanimate Insanity is generally considered both the second ever object show and the second biggest, behind only BFDI in both. it began on September 14, 2011 (at this point BFDI was still running; its first season only concluded in 2012) with "The Crappy Cliff", and has been going since. currently, it has three seasons: Inanimate Insanity, II seasons 2 (yeah), and Inanimate Insanity Invintational (III).

Seasons 1 is also getting a remaster, which is much needed, because the original season looked like this.

• GRANTED. a) this was released in 2012 by Literal Children, and b) later episodes actually give some pretty interesting in-universe reasons as to why it looked like that.
• that said, though, it's something of a barrier for entry to newcomers.

regardless, II helped popularize the concept of object shows. While it shares plenty in common with BFDI, such as the overall format and the shared enjoyment of pausing seasons only to begin a brand new one (in BFDI's case, releasing episodes for two (TPOT and BFB) at once), and while the creators of both remain close friends, having done voicework for each others shows and even going on US tours together, II was markedly different. S2's later episodes had a more mature tone (and musical numbers!), and Invintational styled itself as a more... I hesitate to say professional show? but it kind of felt like they were trying to subtly replicate actual cartoons, like the way the titles were displayed at the beginning of each episode in quotes, and the more sleek artstyle, and like the humour? felt different? it's been a minute since ive seen II but just trust me here

II showed people that they could just Make Their Own Show, and perhaps even be successful, and it gave them a blank slate medium (object shows) to do that. Without II, it's quite possible that there may simply not /be/ other object shows. Instead, today, we've got thousands upon thousands of people making their own, unique indie shows, and I think that's really cool. you don't need prior experience or money to make an object show; you just need an idea and a lot of free time.

there's an utterly fascinating community (the object show community, or OSC, is what it's called by the way) surrounding this gateway into animation, and it's almost like a fandom within a fandom? because it's not exactly overlapping fandoms, but it's not quite seperate fandoms either. it's one big fandom for multiple shows which are technically only connected by inspiration, and i think that's fascinating.

something else that i find interesting about this community is how incredibly neurodivergent it is at its core. the very concept of an object show, for one; when you create an object show, or even just doodle your own characters in your notebook, you're giving life and emotion to the stuff around you. you seek out things which you'd usually overlook-- which ordinarily amount to no more than Things-- and you see a new potential in these objects to be more than background hum. and, by design, you make them more than that. you study them, learn about them, draw them over and over until they become intimate in a way most often unfounded. and because of that you're getting in touch with the world, weirdly. you learn to see everything in a new light, and you learn to see everything as alive. suddenly everything has weight, every movement of the world is, if not intentional, than at least ascribed meaning, rhythm without pattern.

• kind of reminds me of still life in a way

>which is on its own an incredibly cool thing, and probably what draws me to object shows the most. but it also strikes me as incredibly similar to object personification, a trait common in various disorders, like autism and ocd. it probably wont surprise you, then, that a notable portion of the OSC is some form of neurodivergent

• to be clear anthropomorphism is far from a new concept, even when it comes to slapping faces and cartoon limbs onto otherwise-unmodified Things (see: Veggietales (2006), The Brave Little Toaster (1987), etc), and it certainly wasn't invented by the huang brothers in january of 2010. but it is kind of the main element of every object show. i mean. hence the title, right? you can't really make an object show without Objects
• also to be clear i'm being vague on purpose when i say Objects or Things or Stuff, because while most object show characters are Man-Made Items, plants and fungi are also very common, even in BFDI. well okay bfdi has One plant character but she's pretty important and we've already talked about how BFDI served as a trailblazer and set the tropes of all object shows to come This Is Beyond The Point

i'm sure it also doesn't hurt that, as stated above, the OSC is really three hundred fandoms in a trench coat. you'll never run out of shows to watch, and it's all free and very easily accessible. there's always something new to stumble upon. that alone makes it great hyperfixation material, though i can't help but notice the joy many- and by many i mean I- take in rattling off all the object shows they've (i've) watched and scouring the internwt for more. it feels almost like creating and engaging with a collection of trinkets. which is, speaking from personal experience, very appealing to neurodivergents. the collection and the trinkets both

• give your local autism a shiny coin. now that's #allyship

now, of course, it's probably worth talking about some of those "thousands upon thousands" of object shows.

granted, with the very nature of object shows being indie cartoons, hosted on youtube of all places, most fizzle out after a few episodes and get cancelled. it's not surprising; many of the people who start their own shows are young and don't have the kind of experience needed to actually run one. but! a handful of people /have/ been able to achieve niche internet stardom by making object shows, with some even being able to produce their own merchandise. and a few people have even succeded in making object shows that're enjoyable, a feat previously unheard of. so to finish, here are some that are popular, and some that i reccomend.

off the top of my head:

• Battle for Dream Island, obviously, is a classic. it's pretty obvious that it was made by kids in the earlier seasons, but i think it's held up surprisingly well for the most part. even when the writing gets questionable, it's got a nostalgic charm to it, and it never takes itself too seriously. just. please give the first seasons some grace i SWEAR it gets watchable and then actually prtty good PLEASE. PLEASE give it grace im begging you.
• also, as mentioned earlier, they're currently working on two seasons at once so expect some wonkiness with upload schedules. for the most part though if you stick to the All Episodes playlist (here) then you should be all good
• Inaninate Insanity is, as mentioned, pretty important to OSC history. whether it's good is beyond the point. it's... fun. you'll have to give season 1 even more grace than early BFDI for reasons stated above, though it /is/ getting that remaster, which even emulating season 1 is miles better and far easier to watch. the issue is, it's still being released, with (as of writing) only three episodes out. so unless you're deadset on waiting possibly a year or so to watch the remaster before you watch the second and third season, you may just have to go with the original. add links later
• there's some contention for what counts as the Third Biggest Object Show, but for the most part, people seem to agree on ONE (more commonly referred to as hfjONE, after it's creator, Cheesy HFJ. no i don't know what it stands for). it's one of the first shows to deconstruct the object show format, in both the object and the show sense. it has an expectedly more bleak tone, though it's good at not taking itself too seriously. it's also a shorter watch than the above two shows, even when you include the spinoff, ONE Investigations, which is admittedly also quite short in both average runtime and total content. overall probably my favourite object show.
  • not the mention it's got an absolutely stunning OST. like really good stuff. anyways watch it here
• i haven't personally watched Animatic Battle but it's probably tied with hfjone for Third Most Object Show. like it's SUPER popular. its fairly recent, too (add dates later) and it's recieved generally positive reviews, but i can't really say any more than that.
• Love Of The S*n, as a show, enjoys playing around with some tropes (especially ones regarding death and regeneration), and completely disregarding others. It's very recent, and it's only got a few episodes out so far, but it's quite good! what they're setting up, and what they've set up so far, is really interesting. i highly reccomend it. link
• burner is pretty good and silly. it. uh. yeaug. it's fun. pleasing artstyle. listen i haven't watched it in a while. just trust me it's Good And Fun
• It's Time For The is actually really good? it calls itself a joke object show (a mini-genre within the OSC that's actually older than one would think) but i'd call it more an object show with joke show elements, mostly the humour. the pacing can be kind of a lot at times, and it's hard to tell when that /is/ just the humour, but it's otherwise quite good. i even daresay it's beautiful at times!
• QUICK! LIGHTNING ROUND!!! more object shows that're apparently popular that i know nothing about !!!! objectoverloadanimateinanimatebattle(thatone'spopular)thenightlymanorbrawloftheobjectstheminutelyobjectshow uhhhhhhhhclash2bechampion(guybehindthatoneSUCKS)opensourceobjectspaperpuppetstake2
• OH on the topic of Paper Puppets: Take 2, it's probably worth mentioning: i've been referring to object shows this entire time as a genre that's only animated, but that's far from true! live action object shows, while far less popular, do very much exist (such as the original Paper Puppets). comics have also become very popular recently. some of these use the reality-competition format (and sometimes even make use of viewer voting), but most that i've seen tend to do something more unique. the most popular object show comic is, without a doubt, OBJECTIFIED. i haven't read it myself but most people i've seen talk about it really like it so? maybe check it out?
• before you go, i'd like to direct you towards two object shows which have a lot in common, that i think need more appreciation. they're both minimistically-drawn slice-of-life shows with relatively short watchtimes (mostly due to the fact that they have little content out). if any of that sounds interesting, i really think you should check these out. first, i present Lunchbox Kids. it follows two objects, Grilled Cheese and Apple Juice, who find their repetitive life shaken up when a mysterious stranger crash-lands into their struggling restaurant.
• also tupperware is there
• it's a fun series, and it's setting itself up for some interesting things, too. it's fairly recent; as of writing, only three episodes are out, with the first being released ADD DATES LATER. it's already one of my favourite object shows, though. it's not groundbreaking awe-inspiring blow (your tits clean off) your mind type content, but it's really charming and homely. it's also got a few in-between-episodes comics, too, which you can find on the official tumblr (@lunchboxkidscomic, link).
• secondly, i present titletext[]. this one i like because it's more... odd? there isn't really a storyline, nor worldbuilding (yet, anyways). it revolves around four friends just going about their lives, doing Things and talking about Concepts. okay im making it sound really boring i promise it's not. it's only got two short episodes out, with the first releasing in 2020 and the second in 2023. i don't really know anything about the creator? or what their deal is? but whatever they're doing, they're doing it well. everything that happens feels very natural, especially the dialogue. if you're looking for a grand, showy, larger-than-life object show, you won't find that in titletext[], but it's still got a very strange charm. don't get me wrong, the slice-of-life-ness of the show isn't odd by any measure. i don't think i could really say what exactly about the show is. there's just something there? i dunno. it's really good though. i know i havent sold it well but please do check it out

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