How did this take over the internet?
“This video is not safe for work.”
This is Pink Guy.
He’s part of the lore of the Filthy Frank
omniverse — more on that later.
Even if you haven’t seen Filthy Frank on
YouTube, you’ve probably seen his impact.
He’s reached the Billboard charts as “Pink
Guy” with stunningly profane raps
and collaborated with mainstream YouTubers.
If you don’t know those celebrities, you
probably remember this.
In 2013, everyone in the world was doing the
Harlem Shake.
It became a corporate trend for stuff like...Hot
Pockets.
Filthy Frank and Co., they started that.
He — and his fans — even touched this
video.
By that, I mean his fans kinda made us do
it.
“I just saw a Vox video saying you could
comment down below on what you wanted the
video to be.”
“We’re gonna commit to make a video on
the top comment from this video.”
“I went on the Filthy Frank subreddit and
I directed people to comment, ask to do a
filthy Frank Video.”
“A lot of your content has a reputation
for being very politically correct, so I think
people just wanted to see what your take on
Filthy Frank would be.”
Frank is very politically incorrect.
“Ladies and gentlemen, racists, pedophiles,
black people, I don’t even care.”
He indulges in racial, ethnic, and cultural
stereotypes for just about every single country.
And he is unflinchingly disgusting.
But Filthy Frank is not just rants.
His series has an elaborate mythology that’s
crucial to understanding his success.
And his career says something about the future
of all shock comedy
in an age when YouTubers don’t just flout
taboos.
They ignore them completely.
“Filthy Frank and the characters of it are
just that, they’re characters.
Joji is absolutely nothing like that.
He’s taking a lot of what teenage guys think
and their edgy humor and putting it into a
character, putting it into an entire omniverse
of beings that exemplify that.”
Filthy Frank fans like Abby dissect this YouTuber
in parts.
At the top is George Miller, the guy who makes
all this stuff.
“So, hello!”
The persona closest to him is Joji, a music
project so generically hipster that it should
be sold bundled with a flannel and knit cap.
Music outlets have supported him in this new
identity, portraying him as a quirky totally
chill bro, not somebody who profited off cruel
humor.
But most fans know him as Pink Guy, Filthy
Frank, and related sub-characters.
Pink Guy released those chart topping albums,
with songs like…
“Anal Beads”
“I love hentai.”
“Dora the explora, Dora the explora, bitch
look good for a four year old.”
Pink Guy has also been in skits alongside
Frank, where he’s often mute or incomprehensible,
or he appears in glorified prank videos where
he spasms around and gets oddly muted reactions.
Filthy Frank is equally scattered.
Occasionally he semi-ironically pranks people
in the real world,
sometimes he’s in skits,
and other times he just has offensive rants
about commenters and stuff like Pokemon Go.
Just to be explicit about what Frank is willing
to do, he has:
Dined on vomit
Cooked dead rats
And even dressed like Guy Fieri.
The only overriding rule?
“Everybody gets shit.”
“Frank shits on everything..”
“First of all, is it OK if I swear?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Because he swears, and I’m quoting him.
He says, ‘we support prejudiced equality,
everyone gets shit.’”
You can make critical gestures at describing
Frank’s work.
David Lynch plus Weird Al plus head injuries.
“I feel like every generation has that Ren
& Stimpy or 3 Stooges.
You know it’s really kind of gross and bad
humor, but for some reason you can’t stop
watching it.”
“It’s like going back to the 2 Girls One
Cup days - you didn’t like it, but you liked
seeing your friends watch it.”
All these different sides to the profane nonsense
of George Miller can seem like unfiltered
garbage.
Yet some of his millions of YouTube fans are
happy to talk about it.
Well, most fans.
“Can you guys like, actually lower my voice
a bit so it doesn’t sound like I’m the
person I am?”
They argue it's more than just outrageous
comedy.
It's art.
It all started with Pink Guy.
There was a competition with a lycra-covered
being named Red Dick and powerful Prometheus.
On the verge of defeat, Pink Guy summons the
dark lord Chin-Chin.
“Oh Chin-Chin!”
Frank fans believe an elaborate mythology
— a lore — is key to understanding the
comedy of Frank, and they’ll parse all things
Filthy Frank to get it right.
You’ll find hours of compiled lore videos
on YouTube, a wikia, as well as a book.
None of the lore is completely consistent
but, to fans, that’s either reconcilable
or not an issue.
“Is there a cosmology to what is known as
the Filthy Frank omniverse?
The book basically just threw me off so I’m
kind of starting again.”
“I do cosplays of both male and female characters,
primarily from anime or cartoons.
Filthy Frank is pretty popular within a lot
of anime communities.”
“I actually had to rewatch that specific
video, a couple scenes a couple of times to
figure out what shoes he was wearing, how
his hair looked — it’s a little floofy
— what kind of wig would I need.”
“The lore kinda happened, it just developed
randomly and then the community got involved
and Frank went, “Ok.”
Lore layers artifice over the offense.
It paints Frank as an artist, not a bomb thrower.
It’s the same dynamic that lets ventriloquist
Jeff Dunham blame his puppets.
“Do you know how racist that is?”
“That’s why it’s so fucking funny.”
And for Miller, it also serves as a way out.
When Fox airs pedophile jokes on Family Guy,
or Danny DeVito gets oiled up on It’s Always
Sunny in Philadelphia,
there’s an implicit promise: the disgust
is OK, because a big company is in on the
joke.
Or when Sacha Baron Cohen plays to stereotypes
as Borat and Bruno, he earns fawning articles
about his inventive costumes.
We don’t get outraged when Bono is in on
the joke.
But independent YouTubers can't buy legitimacy.
The lore lends Miller credibility.
“The offensive humor of Filthy Frank has
a purpose.
I think it’s like a showcase of the semi-negative
sides of humanity that actually are very intertwined
with the positive sides of humanity.”
That credit doesn't roll over to other YouTube
stars.
“I’ve been in the PewDiePie scene since
he had 200,000 subscribers.”
“I believe the things PewDiePie says are
actually PewDiePie saying it.
PewDiePie is just a nickname for Felix.
Filthy Frank is an alter-ego.
I see Joji as an artist, he created a character,
he’s writing a character, he’s trying
to show the human embodiment of what you should
not be.”
But there’s a bit of a contradiction for
Miller himself.
He benefits from the success and fan base
the character brought him, but he doesn’t
want to be tinged by its toxic appeal.
In one video, he asked the fanbase to see
beyond his characters to understand him.
He revealed his own life.
He shared details about his worries, his then
college life, and his medical problems.
It was a plea to be seen as an artist, not
an asshole.
“People not knowing that I existed and that
it was just these guys really gave me a lot
of stress.
Because I’m a normal person, just like the
rest of you guys.”
That video?
It was reuploaded by a fan.
George Miller deleted it.
“It’s just a Spiderman mask I found at
Toys ‘R Us.
I don’t want people to find out I watch
this crazy, insane stuff and I’m talking
about it for a Vox video.”
