Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (DHMIS) is one of the most infamous web series in the history of YouTube. Since its pilot episode in 2011, Gen Z has collectively been stunned, and confused, by the nature of its story, forever questioning why “green is not a creative colour”. The main premise of DHMIS surrounds three characters (known as ‘Red Guy’, ‘Yellow Guy’ and ‘Duck’) learning about different aspects of life in a children’s television show. Each episode begins with the three protagonists experiencing a problem, and an anthropomorphized object (such as a clock, a notepad or a can of beans) teaching them how to tackle it through song. However, it is very quickly revealed that this show has been twisted into a dark, controlling nightmare, with lessons that teach the opposite of what is right, leading to graphic and heinous consequences.
Each episode begins with the three protagonists experiencing a problem”
After the success of the six-episode YouTube series, creators Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan brought DHMIS to Channel 4, widening their audience and commercialising the series with a bigger budget. Despite this shift in platforming, the quality of the content is not compromised. In fact, it is arguably better than the original series. Now spanning to a total run time of twenty minutes per episode, the audience are treated to in-depth character development and more coherent plotlines that pad out the previously ambiguous DHMIS universe.
The audience are treated to in-depth character development and more coherent plotlines’
In episode 1, ‘Jobs’ is a perfect pilot for the series. It follows the three protagonists finding themselves bored of doing nothing all day, and subsequently being greeted by a singing briefcase encouraging them to find a suitable career, and transporting them to a factory that creates ‘bits and parts’. However, in typical DHMIS fashion, everything is not as it seems. Yellow Guy is indoctrinated into the mindless, repetitive work of meaningless labour, and Duck has anxieties about unemployment that remain ignored by management, which Red Guy is chosen to lead due to his lack of interest in doing ‘anything’. After a horrific climax involving Yellow Guy being injured by machinery, the triplet are transported back to their home. Rightly confused, Duck asks “what was it all for?”, to which the briefcase hands him a single coin, seemingly implying that money heals all wounds, no matter how bad. This episode was an obvious satire on working life, highlighting the flaws of devoting your life to labour for the sake of being able to afford to live. In light of the Cost Of Living crisis in the UK, Pelling and Sloan’s message is very relevant.
Episodes 2 to 5 follow a similar pattern, highlighting themes of death, family, friendship and transport in the same satirical manner. However, episode 6 introduces an entirely new element to the story. After a typical lesson on electricity, Yellow Guy reveals that he is powered by batteries, but they are entirely corroded (explaining his dopey, infantile demeanour). The other two friends decide to swap his batteries for the one inside their teacher, a power box called Electracy. In doing so, Yellow Guy becomes super smart, but also self-aware of the universe he is in. He discovers a flight of stairs leading to the top of their house, where we find the only human character in this series: an older woman who introduces herself as Lesley. In Lesley’s attic room, she has a dollhouse which perfectly matches the triplet’s house, and we realise that she has been puppeteering the whole show as an escape from losing her son David, who Yellow Guy represents. This changes the entire perspective on the show so far, explaining why the three friends are unable to leave their home or make their own choices. They are figments of Lesley’s imagination, trapped in her mental prison as a way to deal with her grief. However, as Yellow Guy turns to leave the attic, the camera pans to another flight of stairs that he missed – could this be a way to escape from this time loop and free Lesley from her pain?
Pelling and Sloan have taken a famously authentic version of their previous web series and have made it even better”
In all, the Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared reboot has been a great success. Pelling and Sloan have taken a famously authentic version of their previous web series and have made it even better – something that appears very hard to do in modern days. It is unsure whether there will be a second series to join up any dots, but I also see the value in letting the viewer decide the triplet’s fate and interpreting the show for themselves.