issue 4 // volume 43

Filthy Frank, the Ed Wood of YouTube

> Konnichiwa, you magnificent bastards

Adam Tatelman
Arts Editor

 

[ is harder than ever nowadays
to get noticed in the swirling
singularity of middling content
that is the internet. No matter
what topic you choose to focus
your vlog, web series, or YouTube
show on, you'll be competing
against hundreds—if not
thousands—of content creators
looking to dominate the same
field, many of whom are trying
to connect with the same pool of
viewers through their humanity
and charisma. And yet, one show
has found millions of subscribers
by being as alienating and
anti-charismatic as possible.

The Filthy Frank Show,
the brainchild of George “Joji”
Miller, can loosely be described
as a semi-improvised variety
show involving alternative,
offensive, and often plainly
disgusting situation comedy.
Any attempt at further summary

 

would fall utterly short of the
madness contained therein.
The show features a
staggering cast of bizarre
characters, many of whom
are played by Miller himself.
The eponymous Filthy Frank
looms over them all as “the
embodiment of everything
a person should not be.” He
rooms with whackos like Pink
Guy—a Gollum-like, jumpsuit
wearing rapper who speaks in
gibberish—and Salamander
Man, who apparently is the best

Image of filthyfranktv via Youtube

pl

ass-flute player in the world.
These characters never
develop, at all. They are
expressions of pure mania whose
sole uniting purpose is to satirize
current trends, upping the ante
for gross content with each
upload. Their exploits include
playing the Batsu Game (that
is, eating a raw squid found in
the sewer}, holding a cabbage-
eating race where the loser is
pelted in the groin by fireworks,
cooking a bathtub full of Ramen
noodles and then bathing in it,

Big Brother US’ launches new
online-only fall version

> ‘BB: Over the Top’ ready for action

Lauren Kelly
Editor-in-Chief

 

Bs Brother US, the long-
running spinoff from the
UK original, just concluded its
18th season on September 21.
The 19th— officially named Big
Brother: Over the Top—began
on September 28. Saving the
BBig moniker for next summet’s
season, this new experiment will
take place entirely online, with
no episodes airing on television.
Big Brother is a reality game
show in which contestants
live together in a household
without any access to the outside
world. The house is filled with
cameras and microphones, and
episodes of the regular seasons
are cut from the mountains of
footage obtained from these.
Each week, the Head of
Household competition decides
who will run the house for the
week. The HoH then nominates
two other houseguests to be
evicted. A veto competition
follows, and whoever wins,
nominee or not, can replace
one of the nominations with
another contestant. By the end
of the week, the houseguests
vote on who to kick out, and
then compete for the next
HoH. Whoever is the last
houseguest standing wins
$500,000. Although BBi8 lasted
13 weeks, OTT will only last 10.

CBS offers “live feeds” to
viewers who pay for CBS All
Access. With this, viewers can see
what the houseguests were doing
at any time during the day. That’s
where Big Brother comes in.
Taking inspiration from i984, the
show is all about surveillance and

 

Image via thinkstock

control. The houseguests can’t
bring books except for religious
texts, they can’t sing songs,

and there are no TVs to watch
Netflix on. Each week, some
houseguests even become “have-
nots,” who can only take cold
showers, sleep in uncomfortable

betting on illegal underground
crayfish races, and starting

the Harlem Shake craze. Yes,
this is where it came from.

The show always produces
its best anti-humour when it
takes its nonsense into the real
world, recording the candid
reactions of ordinary people.
One of Miller’s most popular
videos featured Frank and Pink
Guy satirizing YouTube prank
videos by insulting people in
public, then lamely justifying
their actions by stating “it’s just
a prank, bro.” Aside from the
obvious message that pranks are
only really funny to the prankers,
watching confused civilians
get roped into Frank’s skits is
some delicious schadenfreude.

The Filthy Frank Show, of
course, receives a ludicrous
amount of hate, but the way it
weaponizes that hate as new
content is nothing short of
brilliant. The show is endlessly
controversial, which perhaps is

beds, and eat specific food.

Since anything they do can
be seen by audiences, previous
seasons have seen houseguests
losing their jobs and relationships
due to their behaviour, such as
season 15, which was notorious
for racist comments made
by multiple houseguests.

With OTT, the surveillance
elements will be turned up to 11.
The live feeds, being the only way
to watch the season, will feature
fewer blackouts. All competitions
will be shown, and some Diary
Room segments—where the
houseguests relay their plans
and opinions to the audience on
the show—will be shown live.

The audience also has much
more control than any previous
season of the US version. They
will receive one eviction vote
each week, and nominate a third
houseguest for eviction weekly.
They will also vote for the winner
instead of leaving the decision to
a jury of evicted houseguests. In
a twist first introduced in BB18,
the audience will also be able
to vote for care packages—each
containing a different power—for
their favourite houseguests.

The cast for this season
includes a twist—sisters Alex
and Morgan, who auditioned
separately. It also contains BBi7’s
Jason Roy, who was voted in
over season 18’s Jozea Flores.

The other 10 houseguests are a

arts // no. 7

why it has become so popular
to begin with; not because its
production values are high,

or because it has anything
particularly interesting to say,
but because it is so completely
outrageous that it is impossible
not to have an opinion about

it once you've seen it.

It would be easy to dismiss
the show as being reliant on
shock value. Certainly, it won't
appeal to everyone, but there
is a sense that Miller is getting
at something a little deeper
than simple oddity. Frank
and the rest seem to live off
the dark, slimy things that
crawl inside the human mind;
perhaps, through them, we
can confront the most hideous
parts of ourselves, and laugh
at the cruel absurdity of life.

Or maybe it’s just a weird
YouTube show where a guy
makes cake out of human hair.

Yeah, that’s probably it.

wide mix, and seem a little bit
more like regular people than
those on the average TV season.
All of these changes will
create an entirely different
dynamic that will heavily aid
the online format. Where last
season’s live feeds were often
dull due to the houseguests
tendency to lay around instead
of trying to entertain viewers,
the addition of the audience
vote each week will hopefully
have houseguests trying to be
as entertaining as possible.
Some fans were scared that
the popular vote would make
it so nice houseguests would
stay and more interesting or
“villainous” houseguests would
get the boot early, but the fact
that it is a pay-to-watch format
ensures that viewers will be
more invested in the strategy
side of the game as well.
Although many Canadians
found workarounds in previous
years, CBS All Access is not
available outside of the US.
However, if you really want
to get your fix—and pay for it
legally!—you can use a VPN, and
sign up for All Access using an
American Express gift card. All
Access also gives you access to
every previous season. The first
month is free; subsequent ones
are US $5.99. Whether it succeeds
or crashes, this should prove to
be a very interesting experiment.