Last year’s most disturbing viral video was Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, a stop-motion animation that combined a children’s TV aesthetic with the ominous mood of a David Lynch movie.
If the Fine Bros’ Kids React and YouTubers React videos are anything to go by, it was way creepier viewing for adults than for kids. And since then, its nonsensical children’s TV-style artistic advice, “Green is not a creative color,” has become something of a Weird Tumblr catchphrase.
The new sequel video, Time, takes a similarly weird tone, with the puppet characters listening to an animated clock sing a song about the passage of time. It starts off like Sesame Street, but, well… we wouldn’t want to spoil the ending.
Yes, perfect for teaching your children about existential dread and the horrors of mortality.
The creators of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared and Time are a pair of British artists named Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling. The first video screened at the sundance Film Festival and won a short film award at South by Southwest.
In other words, not your typical viral YouTube fare. Not that that stopped it from going viral, though: Don’t Hug Me has been viewed more than 13 million times.
Screengrab via YouTube