The famous Youtube series created by Rebecca Sloan and Joseph Pelling, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, otherwise called DHMIS, is returning as a television series. Such expansion in the platform is significant, especially considering the theme DHMIS conveyed throughout its former Youtube series. For a quick introduction, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is a series of short videos created from scratch by Sloan and Pelling, earning its viral popularity for its eerie atmosphere, the quality of the production, and the bitter end that brings thoughts regarding its message. Its form of media DHMIS takes isn’t fixed to one category, therefore doesn’t define itself to a single stylistic form. The complexion of the medium ranges from puppeteering, stop motion, live action, and digital visualization resembling children’s education animation, like Sesame Street but more twisted and satirical in its nature. In fact, considering the general message it manifests, it would stand in the opposite of Sesame Street. DHMIS raises social issues into the spotlight through a seemingly naive layout, drawing out a drastic contrast with a familiar layout.

As any children’s educational show would, each episode of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared starts with the main characters, the Red Guy, the Yellow Guy, and the Duck sitting in a room. What is interesting about such an arrangement is that these characters show awkwardness toward settings and don't fit into such an oddly artificial environment. The characters exchange dialogue regarding ‘what they are supposed to do’ in such a situation, oblivious to what must be done. That is when ‘the lesson of the day’ starts, with either a notebook or a clock suddenly appearing to teach the characters about ideas such as love or creativity. Through those lessons put out in a song, the characters seem disturbed especially as the lesson turns to a gory scene in the end, with the lesson for creativity ending with crafts with real hearts, and the lesson about time ending with the characters facing their ends. From the oddly discontinuing sequence of situations and in the introduction of each episode, it can be inferred that DHMIS’s characters are actors of a show. Especially actors that don’t really know what they should be doing.

The characters aren’t given the freedom to do the things they want to do and keep being interrupted by other forces that keep straying into unwanted situations. Because the show that features these three characters is sponsored, it is altered and created for the commercial purposes of those firms. Due to such financial support, the information within the ‘lessons’ also changes for the branding. For example, episode 5, where the lesson is about health, significantly indicates the sponsoring. The lesson promotes the products from the sponsor company, Roy's, that are the healthiest and exploits the nature of the program. In the last scene of DHMIS, the Red Guy realizes that they can create their own stories and become free of such manipulation if they go low budget on their own platform, by discovering the process of the creation of their TV show. He pulls the electrical code from the cameras filming the TV series, and the three characters reappear in the last scene in the room that they started off in the first episode, with fewer props and space, but with the freedom to decide. From such an ending, DHMIS manifests the current media being exploited and manipulated to speak up only for commercial reasons and purposes, maltreating the casts. Since Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was featured as a Youtube series independent from the sponsor and financial support of firms, speaking up for such issues effectively raises awareness of the issue.

Now with the new series of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared being aired on a wider platform with higher quality, they are showing how a series without the financial blow of a firm can go so far. In the new series, the content has extended from a 6-7 minute video to a whole 22 minutes for each episode. With the lengthened time, the series is now able to show deeper into their sense of humor, their gory style, and the unchanged theme of social criticism and black humor. The new DHMIS features the stories that moved from the last series and tells the background stories of the individual main characters, especially Yellow Guy who had represented children and innocence throughout the series. Now, how he would be enlightened to recognize the social issues for himself would be a viewpoint for the new series. How the plot of the series would be carried on, and how these independent media would be able to stand a position in society would be the significance of the new series