Rain (SKBIDID TOILET FANFIC)

***Skibidi Toilet*** is a web series of YouTube videos and shorts created by animator Alexey Gerasimov and uploaded on his YouTube channel **DaFuq!?Boom!**. The series features a storyline about a war between toilets with human heads and humanoid characters with electronic devices for heads. Since the first short was posted on 8 February 2023, *Skibidi Toilet* has become viral as an internet meme across various social media platforms, particularly among Generation Alpha. As of December 2023, Gerasimov's channel has over 36 million subscribers and 13.8 billion views overall.

## Plot and characteristics

The series documents a conflict between singing human-headed toilets—the titular "Skibidi Toilets"—and humans with CCTV cameras, speakers, and televisions for heads. In a New York City-like setting, Skibidi Toilets, and their leader G-Man, threaten humanity. Two legions of hardware-headed robots, cameras and speakers, form an alliance against the toilets. Each has one titan, but they are hampered by a toilet parasite that controlled the speaker titan. TV-headed robots and their titan are .introduced and with their help the speaker titan is disinfected. The battle spreads to other cities, where the titans destroy what seems to be the G-man, but they find a decoy. The titans convene to defeat the mastermind behind the toilets, the Scientist Skibidi Toilet, but again they destroy another decoy while the true scientist is revealed to be hiding.

*Business Insider* describes the series as "an endless arms race as both the toilets and their foes [produce] stronger fighters". The viewer is sometimes rescued by other characters, or is jumpscared by a toilet. Mashups of the songs "Give It to Me" by Timbaland and "Dom Dom Yes Yes" by Biser King appear in each episode as the theme of the Skibidi Toilets. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears also features in some videos as the theme of the camera-head resistance.

## Background and production

*Skibidi Toilet* is produced by Georgian animator Alexey Gerasimov (born 1998), also known as "DaFuq!?Boom!" and "Blugray". Since 2014, he has been learning animation on his own without a formal education. His channel has produced a few prior viral hits, such as when his video *I'M AT DIP*, which features several characters from *Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*, accumulated over 45 million views.

Every episode is produced using Source Filmmaker, a free Valve-published 3D computer graphics software, often used to create and edit clips and movies online, primarily using video game assets. The creator has said he uses this software because "it allows me to work easier and faster with assets that I need doing animation, direction, writing, and editing myself." The music prominently featured in the series was popularized due to a TikTok dance video posted by the user @yasincengiz38, which was also an internet meme before the series' release.

The creator of *Skibidi Toilet* cites TikTok user Paryss Bryanne's adaptation of this meme, in which Bryanne moves in a jerky fashion with quick cuts, as inspiration for his series. Some assets are taken from video games *Half-Life 2*, *Counter-Strike: Source*, and *Garry's Mod*.

## Reception and influence

The magazine *Dazed* characterized *Skibidi Toilet* as "frenetic, unpredictable, funny and at times genuinely unsettling". *In The Know* compared the animation to a mobile game, describing it as having "choppy movements and exaggerated facial expressions". According to *Distractify*, the channel is popular with a younger viewer base. Many publications highlighted a viral tweet, in which a user @AnimeSerbia called the series Generation Alpha's Slender Man. *Insider* claimed the series exemplified the start of a new generation gaining prominence, using the relationship between millennials and Gen Z as an example, a stance that Indy100 repeated, who commented that "[Gen Z] will be facing the same mocking and ridicule they dished out to Millennials." News.com.au elaborated that "[the series] is a timely reminder that Gen Alpha are on the horizon".

According to *Tubefilter* rankings, by the end of April 2023, "DaFuq!?Boom!" entered the fifty most viewed YouTube channels in the United States, at 33rd place. Editor Sam Gutelle remarked that animators "used to struggle with the demands of the YouTube algorithm; now it’s possible to get millions of views with a bunch of pixelated toilets." By June, the channel had achieved a milestone of five billion views, making it the most viewed YouTube channel in the US during that month. Gutelle noted that previously, the channel existed largely under the radar, except for a few "animation diehards in the meme community".

Trend specialist Phil Ranta explained that the serialization of the series made it so that "people had a reason to come back". They also explained the series' "genuine" feel and just plain luck boosted its popularity. *Skibidi Toilet* has sparked many fans to create and post fanworks on TikTok and YouTube.

In July 2023, several Indonesian newspapers and netizens claimed that Skibidi Toilet had a harmful effect on very young children, dubbing it "Skibidi Toilet Syndrome" (Indonesian: *Sindrom Skibidi Toilet*). This term later spilled into neighboring Malaysia, where one kindergarten teacher stated that the series contained an "incomprehensible storyline, promotes violence, and has creepy and grotesque visuals" unsuitable for viewing by children under 7 years old. By the end of August, it had spread around the world, establishing itself as an internet meme.

An official video game for Android and iOS devices, titled ***Skibidi Toilet: Toilets Attack***, was released on June 18, 2023. The game was a collaboration between developer *InfluencerApps* and *DaFuq!?Boom!*