There were a lot of weird, niche art and animation communities to rise anad fall during the 2010s, but one of the biggest standouts of the bunch is no doubt the "object show" community. The name is about as literal as can be: members of the community create their own animated series in which the main characters are all, literally, everyday objects - and the premise of every single one of these series is that they are all competing against each other in a reality game show to win some kind of prize, in which they must partake in different challenges in varying levels of wackiness.
If this all sounds like stuff little kids would come up with, you are pretty much exactly right - the community is about 98% comprised of children and young teenagers, most of whom are just learning how to draw and animate. However, beyond the extreme amateurishness and absurdity of it all, I think there is something to be said for the impact this kind of community can have on young artsy kids just looking to find their place in the world; and overall it is just a rather interesting piece of internet history to go back and look over.
Origins: Jacknjellify and BFDI (2008-2010)
The first ever instance of an "object show" was actually in the form of a small, crudely drawn comic series created by 10-year-old twin brothers, Cary and Michael Huang. The comic, entitled "Total Firey Island", was created from their small San Francisco home in May 2008, inspired by TV shows like Survivor and Total Drama.
The Huang twins are best known as the creators behind the Scale of the Universe website, an astonishing project that they made together when they were just fourteen years old! True child prodigies they were, in pretty much everything except... drawing.
Despite this, another passion for the two brothers was animating. So, in the summer of 2009, they teamed up to create an animated adaption of their object show comics, which they called, "Battle For Dream Island". The first episode was released on January 1, 2010, exactly 11 years ago.
The series didn't exactly take off - according to Michael, the video only received seven comments in one month - but they were not deterred. Each BFDI episode came out on a rigid monthly schedule, never once missing a deadline, no matter how little attention people paid it. Keep in mind, these guys were 11-12 years old at the time, with this level of dedication and discipline. Truly something.
Inanimate Insanity, BFDIA and the rise of a community (2011-2012)
While it may not have appeared that BFDI was attracting many devoted fans, there was one young New Yorker who became so enamored with the bizarre series that he created his very own spinoff. Sometime in 2010, 13-year-old Adam Katz created his own comic series, Inanimate Insanity. The first six episodes of this series were launched from April through September 2011, but had to all be reuploaded after a hacking incident. Like BFDI, it followed a strict monthly schedule as well.
BFDI and Inanimate Insanity would constitute as the two titans of the object show community for the rest of time. Inanimate Insanity in particular served as the catalyst for the community, as unlike BFDI, it quickly went viral, due in part to its cruder humour and references to internet memes; as well as being more character-focused than its predecessor.
In January 2012, BFDI concluded with the 25th and final episode. However, just five months later in June, the series was re-launched as Battle For Dream Island Again. In December 2012, Inanimate Insanity also concluded.
By 2012, attention drawn to these three series had reached the millions, and dozens of young rookie animators wanted to mirror what their idols - almost the exact same ages as them - were doing. Two of the most popular at this point besides at the main titans were Object Universe and Object Mayhem, coming out of the UK and Ireland, respectively.
The structure of an object show
Basically, in most cases, for every series, the "contestants" are competing to win a prize, usually in the form of money. They are split into teams in the beginning but usually merge at some point. For most object shows, a certain number of contestants are put up for elimination in every episode, and the viewers get to vote on who goes out. Rinse and repeat until the finale.
What made animation in these series so easy is that most of them used large, simple assets for all of the characters, greatly minimising the need for painstaking attention to detail.
Peak Popularity and Camps (2013-2014)
By 2013, the community was rising rapidly, with dozens upon dozens of object shows - greatly varying in quality - debuting throughout the year. Most of them ended after only a couple episodes, but some notable series to crop up this year included Inanimate Insanity II, Excellent Entities, The Strive For the Million, Object Overload and Object Land.
It was around this time that Inanimate Insanity was proving to be a standout amongst all the other shows. While most object shows placed most of their story around the challenges presented in each episode, Inanimate Insanity has always been a highly character-driven series, which would ultimately save it from declining along with the rest of the community (more on this later).
2013 was a pivotal year for the object show for one particularly egregious event; BFDI (or BFDIA at this point) abruptly stopped releasing episodes, with no absolutely no explanation given. The last episode of the series officially aired in August 2013, with the next episode set to be released that September. No episode did come out, and no explanation would be given... until two-and-a-half years later (more on that in a bit).
For now anyways, the community pushed on. The most notable object show of 2014 was Object Redundancy, the first ever "adult" object show. While most object shows are kid-friendly - being made by kids themselves - O.R. was raunchy, vulgar and had anthro sex toys as characters. Unfortunately the series is lost to time now, as are many of these shows.
Around this time as well, there began to crop up a phenomenon called "camps". Users would submit their own OCs to someone's "camp", and the "camp" host would release videos describing challengers for the users themselves to partake in. I never really got it either, and it's a pretty small part of the community anyway so we'll move on.
Object Show Movie and Stagnation (2015-2017)
In 2015, 12-year-old PotatoOfAwesome embarked on a very ambitious project: to create an object show "movie". Surprisingly enough, he managed to do it... more or less. With the help of many other notable users - XanyLeaves, TacoTurtle, Cormac Oliver and others - he released the first 24-minute part to the movie in September 2015.
Unfortunately, this came at a point when the object show community was stagnating. While more shows were being created than ever before, there weren't nearly as many active followers. Many of the old titans had left the game as well, usually because of school priorities. However the changing landscape of YouTube regarding AdSense was also changing, as Michael Huang dictated in this March 2016 video after years of silence:
Perhaps marking this change in landscape, many of the more notable object shows at this point became more character-focused and satirical than ever before, as exemplified by shows like Object Madness and Object Show 87, the latter being a parodic commentary of the community itself.
In September 2016, the Huang brothers brought back a new BFDI incarnation: IDFB. Ironically, it lasted only one episode before yet another long hiatus.
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