WARNING |
what is the amazing digital circus?the pre-digital circus experience
the amazing digital circus released on october 13, 2023 - but i didn't watch it until january 20, 2025. i knew of its existence, of course. right as its pilot released it practically blew up on youtube, relentlessly showing up on my home page no matter how many times i'd try to ignore it. i clearly remember seeing concept art and animation progress videos for it even before this, despite knowing nothing about the project at the time. i just thought, "oh! those are neat character designs." without any context, i think i liked jax the most?
after a week or so, the pilot stopped showing up in my recommendations, and i instead began hearing about the various elsagate-esque content farms that started to massacre the characters from the show to create youtube kids slop. this made me feel even less interested in watching it - the reason i wasn't initially was purely because my evil contrarian brain saw the pilot's staggering view count.
since early 2023, my biggest long-term goal has been to create my own indie animated psychological horror web series. "your memories, rewritten!", or YMR, is a passion project that i've been determined to realize for years. the plot follows a teenage boy who ends up in an unfamiliar place with no recollection of who he is and must find his true identity to escape - needless to say, when i first heard about the plot of the amazing digital circus, i was genuinely terrified that YMR would unintentionally come off as a complete ripoff.
on top of this, i have a severe and (probably) irrational fear of getting into new media. why? my tendency to hyperfixate. there are literal dozens of various anime and games which i KNOW are things that i would enjoy, i just don't think that i could handle hyperfixating on anything new at this point. too much time, money, emotional investment, plus my old interests all immediately dissipate. yuck :(
for over a year, i somehow managed to avoid coming across any and all spoilers for the show. the only thing i knew about it was that it was about humans trapped in a virtual reality game, solely from memes. i didn't get spoiled even after watching an entire video essay on it, which in a way honestly feels impressive. in other words, when i first watched it in january 2025, i went in completely blind.
giving up
to keep this brief for the sake of privacy - in december 2024, i unfortunately ended up in an extremely abusive relationship. while it only lasted 2 months (and thank god for that), it was an experience so disturbing that it ultimately left me seeking comfort in anything i could. on january 20, 2025, i finally gave up on my contrarianism and decided to watch the amazing digital circus for the very first time.
before i pressed play on the first video of 4 that were out at the time, i thought to myself: "this time, i will consume this like a normal person would. i don't need to know everything about a show to still enjoy it - i will just watch it once, and leave it at that. no rewatching, supplementary content, anything." that unfortunately did nothing to help, as you could probably tell from this shrine's mere existence.