The HORRIFYING Truth About Abstraction! (Amazing Digital Circus)

MatPat (0:00)

What exactly is Abstraction and The Amazing Digital Circus? What happens to cause someone to turn into these glitchy, goopy monsters? And better yet, is there a way to really, truly prevent it?

Hello, Internets! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that is so much more than just a show. Sometimes, it is kinger in it. All right, so it's been a few months since the finale of The Amazing Digital Circus, and I don't know about you guys, but I still see this show everywhere. Glitch is still releasing shorts and merch, it's still all the rage at cons, and Drake was wearing a pomni shirt for some reason. And despite my mixed feelings on the finale, there's something about The Digital Circus that is still driving me a little crazy. What the hell is up with Abstraction? Yeah, Abstraction is one of the biggest unexplained aspects of the show. Somehow it turns these characters into large, glitchy monsters that basically don't have any semblance of their old self. It's constantly looming over every character as the bad ending each of them could face if they give in and lose their marbles. And for something that's so integral to the show's core storyline and the fate of some major characters, well, we just don't know that much about it. And a lot of that comes down to exactly who these characters are. By the end of The Amazing Digital Circus, we learn that each of them are AI characters created from the brain scans of people. They're both unique humans and made of code. They're something wholly original that exists in this world, but not ours. So if we want to figure out what is happening here with Abstraction, we have to look at it from two angles. What's happening from a technological perspective, but also what's happening from a psychological perspective. But well, I wanted to go further beyond what I thought I could provide, even from a research perspective. And I wanted to bring in some actual true experts here. So after our collab last year, it made sense to me to reach back out to my friends at Cinema Therapy. Come on, introduce yourselves, guys.

Jonathan Decker (1:54)

Yeah, I'm Jonathan Decker. I'm a licensed therapist who loves movies.

Alan Seawright (1:57)

This is Alan Seawright, a professional filmmaker who needs therapy. And we have a show on YouTube called Cinema Therapy, where we talk about movies and psychology and healthy relationships.

Jonathan Decker (2:07)

So it's kind of like Cisco Niebert meets Mr. Rogers.

MatPat (2:10)

These two were some of the smartest, most compassionate dudes on YouTube, and they look at movies through a therapeutic lens. I first got onto their content with a video about Aragorn and Healthy Masculinity. It's great stuff. And I've actually teamed up with them to talk about the digital circus over on their channel too. So go check that out after you're done with this video. But for now, well, they're going to help me figure out exactly what's going on with abstraction. And let me tell you, loyal theorists, when you look at the science of it technologically, it starts to make a lot more sense. But how about psychologically?

Jonathan Decker (2:40)

Psychologically, I think it's symbolic of checking out. And that could be anywhere from checking out, checking out where you can't check back in, all the way to simple dissociation and suppression of memory and traumatic memory, and just detaching from reality because it's too overwhelming, it's too hard to cope with.

MatPat (2:58)

Yeah, friends, this one's gonna go deep. So grab your favorite pomni plush and hold it tight as we dive back into the world of the digital circus to solve this mystery once and for all. So first things first, let's put together all the things we learn about abstraction just from the show itself. What do we see and what do we know? Well, when a character abstracts, it turned into a giant, glitchy, black, goopy monster covered in these technicolor eyeballs. It's honestly one of the best designs in the whole series, and this is a show with incredible character design work.

Alan Seawright (3:28)

From a filmmaking standpoint, abstraction is definitely my favorite part of this show. Like both from storytelling and just the cinematic language of it, the very spiky, weird, blobby, you know, non-organic shape with the rainbow colored eyes is just a creepy and really affecting image.

MatPat (3:46)

These abstractions are just so chaotic, both in their shape and their behavior.

Jonathan Decker (3:50)

I also think it's curious that the abstractions literally look like inkblots.

Alan Seawright (3:54)

Psychologist finding inkblots where there are no inkblots? That's an inkblot foot. Yeah, I was gonna say.