Why Do People Like These?!?!?!?!

It's going to seem pretty contradictory that I'm dedicating this blog to knocking down animation, but hear me out. John Lasseter, director of the Toy Story trilogy (and soon to be quadrilogy), once said:

"If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story."

What I want to talk about in this post is that no matter how good your animation is, it's NOTHING without a great story behind it. I think that's why some of these YouTube channels are so popular.

For instance, Joe, the YouTube channel that created Dog of Wisdom and this gem of a fan film for Monster's Inc, receives millions of views. Let me say that again...THIS video got 1.2 MILLION views.

Another channel that has received such success is my new favorite channel (which may or may not be NSFW), GradeAUnderA. This guy animates like THIS...and I keep coming back for more. I don't watch this guy rant for the animation, though at times it can be quite comedic, I watch for his points and jokes.

So I guess what you should take away from this post is, sure, you can be the best animator in the world, but if your design or story are lackluster, no one will want to watch your stuff.

Believe it or not, I'm walking on air.

After becoming someone who roams the internet out of habit rather than personal pleasure anymore, the amount of creativity that I've come across is honestly crippling. Well, crippling in the sense that say you go to a Van Gogh museum and you get so enraptured by his work that you cry 5 times throughout the day. Except instead of crying, it's a vague sense of oneness with people on the internet just like you, creating things that you thought only gods were capable of. And then I found this masterpiece:

Titled Dog of Wisdom, (the only thing that could actually describe this work), a pair of floating mutts is featured and they pretty much just go to town in conversation. In over a few days, a post on Tumblr got over half a million views. The only problem was that the creator was not sited in the post most know it from. I actually had to go and do research to find the original video, which you'll find matches and even triples that amount.

Anyway, as amateur artist, one thing that constantly gets me is a lack of citation and credit towards artists. All of this hard work (see; above) could've gone to waste because someone was selfish and wanted to claim a masterpiece as their own. Don't do that. Cite ya artists. They are struggling.

PS: Happy belated National Dog Day, am I right? Dogs af.