Skibidi Toilets have taken the internet by storm. In just a few short months, these strange figures have gone from a sight gag in a video by animator DaFuq!?Boom! to the fastest-growing trend across TikTok and YouTube. What makes these uncanny figures so popular? It may not be what you expect…
What are Skibidi Toilets?
DaFuq!?Boom! created Skibidi Toilets in a YouTube Short in February 2023. New concepts, abilities, and forms of toilets are regularly introduced in later videos, but all Skibidi Toilets are disembodied heads attached to long necks that burst out of toilets. The toilets frequently appear in groups and are usually accompanied by music. In all official videos, the music is a mashup of “Dop Dop Yes Yes” by Biser King and “Give It To Me” by Timbaland ft. Nelly Furtado, originally created by TikTok user doombreaker03.
What are the Cameramen?
“Cameramen” are the enemies of the Skibidi Toilets, first introduced in “skibidi toilet 8” in April 2023. Cameramen are human bodies in suits with cameras for heads. The Skibidi Toilets are introduced as the aggressors, invading the Cameramen’s territory, leading to an all-out war fought with everything from explosives to lasers to plungers. Further videos introduce other figures with speakers and TVs for heads, always allied with the Cameramen.
What is the lore behind Skibidi Toilets?
For all their success, Skibidi Toilets lack any official lore or background information to speak of. DaFuq!?Boom!’s videos all lack dialogue and are presented with no explanation—but enough artistic intent to suggest that lore behind the toilets does exist. This makes them very unusual for something so popular, since there’s a common expectation that a story will have more to it than meets the eye, and finding that background information will grant some kind of deeper understanding.
So…why do people like Skibidi Toilets?
Seeing a Skibidi Toilet gif has the same effect as seeing a brief image from a fandom you know nothing about—a fancam for a character you don’t recognize, or the climax of a game in a sport where you don’t know the rules. The difference here is that the thrill of discovery is maintained no matter how many videos you watch, even as they become popular enough that each new video easily tops 10 million views in 24 hours.
People who first learn about the toilets tend to be confused…
…but that confusion is, in itself, all part of the fun. It’s partially an outgrowth of the “random” style of humor that’s persisted on the internet since the days of LOLcats, but it doesn’t seem random, suggesting an order that the viewer is never shown.
The expectations of lore are strong enough that fans have filled the void. There are thousands of unofficial explanations that fill in the details behind the toilet-cameraman war. The explanations range from mobile games that add stats and game mechanics to the toilets, to flash fiction in the comments of the videos.
Now that there are so many different forms of lore to choose from, thousands of fans cheer for their favorite toilet or camera in the same way they would support their favorite streamer in videos from Minecraft multiplayer battles—which tend to have a style and presentation very similar to the Skibidi Toilets.
Is there a Skibidi Toilet fandom?
If viewers can’t pick a favorite, the basic iconography makes it very easy for them to create their own. Thousands of fans have made drawings and 3D models of themselves or a character they already like coming out of a toilet. It’s a simple formula to make fans feel like they can leave their own mark on the thing they enjoy, and it’s been seen everywhere from “spider-sonas” inspired by the Spider-Verse films, to the “fantrolls” that grew to define the infamous webcomic Homestuck.
Both of these examples have far more involved backstories than Skibidi Toilet memes, but that makes relatively little difference to how these forms of fan engagement have sprung up. Lore, specifically the kind of lore that requires active participation to completely assemble, has become more and more important to recent storytelling, especially where media for young adults is concerned. Gen Zers have spent their lives with most information just a click away, so anything difficult to seek out inherently seems more important and meaningful while adding an extra dimension of personal involvement to the story.
Is there anything similar to Skibidi Toilets?
To find content similar to Skibidi Toilets, they need to be put in context as the latest incarnation of creepypasta characters. Creepypasta is a general term for any horror story that spreads online, with the term deriving from “copypasta,” which refers to how stories can be easily shared by copying and pasting. Early examples of copypasta in the 2000s and early 2010s tended to form around characters like Slenderman or Jeff The Killer. Another common element was disturbing versions of pre-existing media like Minecraft’s “Herobrine” or Spongebob’s “Squidward’s Suicide”.
The “creepy” element of creepypasta was eventually de-emphasized, with trends like “Shaggy’s Power” or “Shrek is love, Shrek is life” using the language of creepypasta ironically, and new creations like Momo or Sirenhead spreading equally fast as both humor and horror.
Later on, the conventions of creepypasta were used to create a deeper sense of lore in projects like Five Nights At Freddy’s and Undertale. Figures like FNAF’s Freddy Fazbear and Undertale’s Sans have amassed enormous followings online, thanks in large part to the way they were written to recall creepypasta figures that developed naturally. Fans could enjoy these characters on multiple levels, since they not only mimic creepypasta but the original beloved children’s characters that led to the creepypasta in the first place.
Momo and Sirenhead, just like Freddy Fazbear and Sans, became enormously popular among children for the way their designs combined a simple, cute style with more uncanny elements. Skibidi Toilets do much the same, and their popularity is largely thanks to that design. DaFuq!?Boom!’s animation adds a more mysterious and fearful element to a simple toilet humor joke, turning it into something that not only scares children but also compels them, and inspires them to fill in the details to try to better understand what they’re seeing.
Skibidi Toilets seem strange and random, and this is part of their appeal. If you view them alongside similar characters who have gone viral among children in the era of TikTok and short streaming videos, they look a lot more like they belong.
