#amelia rambles

At the beginning of the story, everything seems normal; he comes across as a reasonable man. He puts things into perspective a bit by noting how kids today often watch cartoons online and how they sometimes tend to watch some that can be a little scary, pointing out that when he was young, he did the same thing with the shows available in his day... But that’s where the normal part ends.

He goes on to describe how his nephew started watching the series, which his sister (the boy’s mother) didn’t like, since she felt the series wasn’t appropriate for children. She even takes it a step further, mentioning that she doesn’t even consider it suitable for adults, and pointing out that the characters seem psychotic.

I think you’re starting to get the gist of the letter

He then goes on to describe how the boy began drawing “gory” pictures of the characters and started having nightmares.

The video shows the drawings, but I feel they might be fake or misinterpretations by the boy’s mother

He and his sister start investigating whether there’s something about the show that’s causing these problems for the boy. But their investigation veers toward looking for more paranormal events or curses rather than logical explanations (like, I don’t know, figuring out that the show is NOT for kids).

Among the things they discover are:

The series premiered on Friday the 13th.

It's inspired by a horror story called “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.”

There have been incidents involving children who were fans of the series.

The author of that story cursed his works.

Gooseworx had problems with the author.

Gooseworx is psychotic.

No one wanted to work on the series because it gave off bad energy.

All of this leads to the conclusion that the show is somehow having a negative influence on children, almost giving it a “cursed” connotation (though they never say it in those exact words), and issuing a warning that if you have a child who starts acting strangely, you should check to see if they might be watching that show.

...

*Take a veeeery deep breath*

Honestly, when I saw this video, it made me laugh more than anything else, and all I could think was, “Is this for real? 😅” And again, I have no doubt that Dross probably laughed too the first time he read the letter, but hey, content is content.

But anyway, getting back to the point, this story reminds me of the past, when every popular thing was associated with something evil. When I was a kid, there were parents who believed that "Dragon Ball" was satanic, that “Hello Kitty” in Japanese meant “Hello, demon” (don’t judge—back then, there were a lot of people in Latin American countries who didn’t even know English), that "SpongeBob SquarePants" would turn you gay (because, yeah, they were worried about that), that Disney slipped in subliminal messages of a sexual nature, among other things…

In short, everything was cursed, everything was negative, and everything was somehow meant to corrupt and harm children.

Plus, I can’t help but think that the story seems straight out of some kind of creepypasta that was popular 10 years ago. It even has its own twists, like: the series is cursed, the creator is crazy, if you watch it you’ll go crazy, and things like that.

As for the list I provided from your research, with the exception of the first three points, I found no evidence to support their claims. At most, there’s just speculation among fans that the author of the story, Harlan Ellison, and Gooseworx probably would have had issues (though they never met); I found no official record showing that they ever interacted. This theory is based solely on the fact that Harlan Ellison was very protective of his work and probably wouldn’t have liked the idea of TADC being inspired by one of his works.

There’s also no evidence that he cursed his works, nor is there any evidence regarding Gooseworx’s behavior or that she had major problems getting the series off the ground due to circumstances unrelated to financial issues. As far as I can tell, there are no mentions of bad vibes or a hostile atmosphere.

As for the first three points:

Friday the 13th is more of a superstition, which the creator likely used to heighten the mystery of the series. Besides, that superstition isn’t universal.

Tadc wouldn’t be the first series to base its premise on something scary. In fact, many Disney movies are based on pretty dark stories. My point is, basing your story on something gloomy doesn’t automatically make it evil.

This is the most sensitive point, so I’ll address it separately.

Linking entertainment with accidents and tragic events is something that has always happened. I think we’ve all heard the phrase “video games make you violent”, and while it’s true that entertainment media can influence us, pointing to that as the sole cause has always been an oversimplification of the problem and fails to take into account the various factors that affect a person and lead them to commit terrible acts. Furthermore, this argument is almost always used to divert attention from something more uncomfortable, such as parenting issues, since it’s easier to blame whatever the child is consuming than to acknowledge that perhaps you need to take better care of your child.

And that’s without even getting into the fact that, often, forms of entertainment end up being associated with terrible crimes simply because a person—who clearly had mental health issues—happened to enjoy them. There are many products whose fans have personal problems that have nothing to do with what they consume.

Anyway, to wrap up this post, here’s the obvious fact that these people apparently never managed to figure out:

The Amazing Digital Circus IS NOT FOR KIDS

I mean, it says so everywhere—both on YouTube and Netflix… All that research, and they didn’t even notice that? 🤣

I hope you enjoyed this funny story that happened to me.