Formal Analysis over the works of Vivziepop
It was almost two years ago when young content creator Vivienne Maree Medrano or Vivziepop, as she is known on YouTube, made a phenomenal impact on 2D animation and content created on YouTube.
Vivziepop first joined YouTube in 2012 as a talented comic book creator and animator. She has over 200 videos on her channel, around 14 animated short films and pilots, and over 5 million followers as of 2021. In October of 2019, Vivziepop premiered her biggest project to date: a full length, half an hour, independently created pilot for a musical animated show called Hazbin Hotel. The video has reached over 62 million views.
Two months after premiering Hazbin Hotel, Vivziepop released another animated pilot, a sitcom co-created with Brandon Rogers, called Helluva Boss, which has now reached 32 million views.
Both shows have had tremendous success, setting a new precedent for animated content produced on YouTube. Likewise, due to their choice of medium presentation on YouTube and social media, the shows have also had very unique ways of taking advantage of new media to progress the narratives and stories.
Hazbin Hotel is about the princess of Hell, Charlie, attempting to do what has never been done before: reform damned human souls so they may be sent to Heaven, inviting the souls trapped in hell open to this opportunity to stay at her “Happy Hotel.”
Her mission is laughed at on the news by most of the souls and demons in hell, with her only tenants being her girlfriend and business partner, Vaggie, and a gay, drug-addicted, porn star, and prostitute named Angel Dust.
That is until a powerful and infamous former ring leader of Hell, known as the Radio Demon, Alistair lends his hand free of charge in helping the hotel. Not because he believes in Charlie’s ideals of rehabilitating any demon or souls in hell, but because he’s bored and wants to have the joy of watching these sinner’s souls attempt to reach heaven only to tragically fail to reform.
Hazbin Hotel is also a musical, using multiple styles of show tunes and music throughout the pilot.
Helluva Boss is an animated sitcom about three imps creating an assassination company called I.M.P. or the Immediate Murder Professionals. It follows the head of the company Blitzo who makes an ongoing deal with one of the princes of Hell, Stolas, in order to use his ancient book to get access to the human world. The show also features his employees: the sharp shooter and wet blanket, Moxxie, the sweet and deadly assassin, Millie, and his Hell Hound receptionist, Loona.
The art of animation, especially 2D animation, in America has had a long held stigma of needing to cater to children and families. Walt Disney’s dream to make media that children could enjoy alongside their parents unfortunately set a precedent that has only begun to be challenged in the last few decades, which is: not only can adults like cartoons, some cartoons can just be made for adults. One of the most influential series’ on television and very notable in this endeavor, was 1987’s The Simpsons, which made many Americans realize that cartoons made exclusively for adults can be a successful and profitable market.
However, there is another stigma that has been attached to these adult cartoons, which is the need to separate themselves from kids’ cartoons. Most animated adult shows, like those on Adult Swim, feel they need to market themselves as disconnected from kids shows in order to be taken seriously.
Thus, most try to include shock humor, violence, gore, and require the animation to move away from traditional cartoons with big heads and eyes.
Because Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are not a part of mass media and are independently created on YouTube, they are able to circumvent a lot of these unwritten rules that separate adult and kids’ cartoons on television. They utilize bright colors, big eyes, fast-paced animation, Disney-esque musical numbers, and cartoon sound effects, which are usually deemed to be used exclusively for kids’ cartoons.
However, they also have violence, sexual adult themes, and language that would never be allowed or appropriate for kids’ cartoons that are mass produced on television.
Not to mention in Hazbin Hotel, every single main character is a member of the LGBT+ community and one from the asexual community with no heterosexual subplots or couples. Even for an adult’s show today, this alone would make the show have a hard time getting produced in old media platforms as many rarely include LGBT+ characters or main characters. Helluva Boss’s main character Blitzo is also a pansexual man which has never been done before in western mass produced animation.
Due to being independently created on new media platforms like YouTube, Vivziepop’s Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are able to bypass rules and guidelines for mass produced animation created in old media formats like Adult Swim. YouTube is an independently created new media source where content producers do not have to follow any production requirements or stigma’s. Old media format and mass production of animation has not caught up to the internet’s culture of LGBT+ normalization, representation, or stigmas around style of animation themselves. Not to mention the fact that Vivziepop is a queer, Latina woman trying to create shows that do not only cater to straight, white men, as majority of cable television and mass media does. YouTube’s online culture of animation pushes boundaries for the genre as people from any background can create and produce media that do not have to follow analytics or societal expectations. Without the internet and new media like YouTube, a show like Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss would never have been made or exist on cable television.
That being said, taking out all social and content elements that make Vivziepop’s release and creation crucial they be created on YouTube, there are other mediums the shows could work. Although the show would never have been made due to current era politics without the internet and much narrative that was created through fan interaction would be lost, Vivziepop’s shows absolutely could be successful on television, which is an old medium platform. However, a medium the shows would have more success than television, as it could still remain mostly unedited as well keep a digital presence, would be comic books. In fact, Vivziepop has already released two comic books exclusively on their website as precursors and back stories to the fan favorites in the show. The show’s narrative and art style would easily cross over from animation to comic books and graphic novels. However, if the comic books were mass produced rather than independently created or published on the internet, there is the possibility of running into narrative issues and content control that is not present in the release of both shows on YouTube.
Neese describes new media as highly interactive and, due to the fact Vivziepop’s medium for her works are on social media, they definitely utilize this. Helluva Boss has stated they will remain as a web series on YouTube and have had updates of new episodes every two months. However, Hazbin Hotel, due to the success of its pilot on YouTube, has been picked up for a television release, which will come out this October. This means that we have not gotten any new episodes yet since it’s pilot was released. Over the past year, however, they have continued to interact with the fanbase and push forth the narrative through new content on YouTube, while they work on creating the rest of the show.
A year after the release of the pilot, a fan of the show, who was writing a song called “Addict” from the perspective of the character Angel Dust in Hazbin Hotel, approached Vivziepop. That fan’s song was then recorded by the cast and animated by Vivziepop, reaching around 93 million views on her channel. So a fan’s song has now been independently produced, animated, released, and officially recognized as part of the narrative on YouTube.
In addition, to keep up with the fanbase on YouTube, the cast of Hazbin Hotel participates in streams and podcasts where fans can request lines from the voice actors, as well as ask questions about the universe and the characters. Furthermore, due to how intertwined the fanbase is with the production of narrative and characters on a new media platform like YouTube, the voice actors of Hazbin Hotel have gone on record saying that Vivziepop not only sees all the fan suggestions in comments and fan made videos on YouTube, but has stated multiple times, “That’s canon now,” to the ones she likes. So not only has the current narrative been pushed forward and released just from interaction from the fans on YouTube, it’s also being influenced by the fans on YouTube.
Continuing even further, Vivziepop and the cast have also created and released new content through utilizing Instagram. The characters of the show Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel both have given official Instagram accounts to each of the characters, which produce new content and have their own narrative and subplots as the characters post online and interact with each other. For example, a fanbase created relationship of two characters from Hazbin Hotel is not only now canon, but has been teased and given a subplot in the characters’ official Instagram accounts. This level of fan influence of narrative, direct interaction, and use of social media as a medium could only be possible through utilizing new media outlets, something most mass media produced shows rely on far less.
With regard and consideration of Manovich’s principles, Helluva Boss easily follows his terms and conditions of new media, although, Hazbin Hotel raises some questions. 2D animation itself has existed for a long time, long before the digital era of new media. Thus, once Hazbin Hotel is released on television and not on YouTube, most of the new content and narrative will be mass produced like old media. However, what new or casual viewers that only experience Hazbin Hotel on television might miss months from now is the importance of the show’s independent creation and the important details of digital narrative that have been released over the past two years exclusively through new media platforms on the internet, YouTube, and Instagram — all of which follow Manovich’s five principles.
Vivziepop’s works have set a new precedent not only on the quality and possibilities of content produced on new media platforms like YouTube, but on the field of animation in general. It is only through new media platforms like YouTube and Instagram that audiences were able to receive the unfiltered version of Vivziepop’s content and art style. Which brought a unique narrative and tone not seen in current mass produced western animation, as well as allowed characters from underrepresented groups like the LGBT+ community and ace community to the forefront of these shows.