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When Variety recently reported that Michael Bay and Adam Goodman are pursuing the development of TV and film projects based on Skibidi Toilet, you could practically hear the voices of everyone above the age of 25 or so cry out into the night “What is Skibidi Toilet and why is Michael Bay trying to make a movie about it?” It’s a valid question that has often been asked in slightly different forms by parents everywhere as they debate the long-term consequences of letting their kids roam the internet freely vs. the short-term benefits of having a little quiet time to call their own.
But now that Skibidi is threatening to leave the toilet and invade the big screen, this elder millennial feels duty-bound to stop wondering how he could have avoided the paths in life that imparted him with the answers to that question and shine a little light on this seemingly bizarre turn of events.
The Question You’re Afraid to Ask: What Is Skibidi Toilet?
Skibidi Toilet is a web series created by Alexey Gerasimov using Valve’s popular Source Filmmaker software. It focuses on the adventures of a group of toilet/human head hybrid monsters as they try to take over the world. Like most Source Filmmaker projects, Skibidi Toilet uses assets from Valve’s video games. Notably, the heads seen in the toilets throughout the series are variations of the G-Man character model from the Half-Life games.
At first, the Skibidi Toilet videos were brief, TikTok-friendly shorts that primarily focused on the toilet creatures as they performed dances and similarly broad actions to various mashup songs. Over time, though, the videos grew to tell the story of a seemingly endless war between the Skidibi Toilet faction and creatures that have various pieces of audio-visual equipment for heads (cameras, speakers, TVs, etc.). Elements of the simpler original videos remain, but it’s a far more elaborate beast these days.
Skibidi Toilet’s popularity may be more notable than the series itself. The various Skibidi Toilet videos have accumulated over 65 billion views across various YouTube channels and over 15 billion views on TikTok. Its world and characters are also a fixture in the Roblox gaming universe, which makes sense given the crossover between Skibidi Toilet and Roblox’s incredibly young core fanbases. It is, by any modern media metric, a full-blown internet phenomenon.
At this point, you may be tempted to check out the videos for yourself. Before you do so, it’s only fair to warn you that those videos will likely be incomprehensible and potentially painful to anyone not in their target Gen Alpha or younger Gen Z audience. It will likely strike you as a bewildering series of images and noises that offer no clear purpose or discernible humor. To be fair, it’s not just an age thing. Even some younger viewers just don’t get the series’ appeal or find the whole thing to be incredibly awkward.
Yet, I do kind of get the Skibidi Toilet phenomenon. Not in terms of what’s actually happening in these videos (I couldn’t hazard a guess on that subject) but rather in terms of how this series became so popular.
First off, any member of any internet-fueled generation does not get to pretend they didn’t spend part of their lives on some corner of the web that they can no longer justify or make sense of. I’ve seen your GeoCities pages, Salad Finger videos, and Planking photos. The sooner you accept that these kinds of things are destined to come along, the sooner you’ll rid yourself of the burden of thinking they need to be of any serious value to you.
Second, you may be underestimating the Source Filmmaker factor. Over the last decade or so, online videos made with Source Filmmaker have become especially popular among younger generations. When combined with the digestible format of the Skibidi Toilet videos (they’re perfect TikTok fodder), that Source Filmmaker format easily reaches and speaks to exactly the kinds of viewers these videos were made for in the first place. The almost Minions-like nature of the leading characters and their lack of any traditional language also helps these videos reach a massive global audience that only needs to speak the language of Source, memes, and the kind of “anti-humor” deep-fried absurdity these shorts ultimately represent.
Finally, there is the lore factor. As Skibidi Toilet evolves and grows, it continues to tap into that sector of internet culture that is obsessed with understanding, keeping up with, and ultimately explaining the lore behind pretty much everything. Entire communities have been built around such deep dives, and if you’re on this site, I’m willing to bet that you’ve succumbed to the allure of such lore at one point or another.
That’s also the element of these videos that likely helps us answer the other part of the question I posed above.
Why Does Michael Bay Want To Make a Movie About Skibidi Toilet?
The simple, and almost assuredly accurate, answer to that question is “money.” I’d be just as amused as anyone to learn that Michael Bay is a diehard Skibidi Toilet fan, but I’m willing to guess that the film industry’s answer to Andrew Lloyd Webber is drawn to this project for reasons other than his creative legacy.
The absurd popularity of the Skibidi Toilet videos and Hollywood’s insatiable desire to consume anything that could become a hot property probably tell you everything you need to know about why notable movie industry figures are even discussing the possibility of an adaptation. Like the vast majority of movies based on video games currently in “development,” though, this particular movie/show will probably never see the light of day.
The far more interesting factor in this particular instance is the strong possibility that is the first notable example of what will likely become the “Five Nights at Freddy’s effect.” When that movie shattered all box office expectations, it forced anyone paying attention to start considering new possibilities. What if the key to getting that generation of younger viewers into theaters was as simple as targeting the largely online phenomenon properties that they grow up with?
Mind you, I don’t think it’s really that simple, but I understand the connection. Skibidi Toilet isn’t just popular; it has developed a bonafide community led by those who are obsessed with every detail of its increasingly elaborate world. It’s not an exact copy of the Five Nights at Freddy’s situation, but if you’re intent on targeting new properties for younger generations, I can begrudgingly see why this one would float to the top of the list despite the fact it fundamentally makes no sense as a movie or scripted series in any other format.
Then again, that realization is hardly a revelation. There is nothing in the Skibidi Toilet situation we haven’t seen before. The slightly unique factor in this instance is the increasingly popular idea that an online sensation can become a blockbuster. Someone, somewhere down the road is going to take a massive loss on that bet, but if you want to free yourself from cynicism (a dangerous road in any condition), you could see this as a likely misguided – but strangely genuine – attempt to reach out to a younger generation and perhaps even help rescue the theater experience at an undeniably rough time for that corner of culture.
The Skibidi Toilet movie/TV series will probably never get made. If it does get made, you are under no obligation to see it or even weigh in on it if you do not wish to do so. The best thing anyone who went into this article without an answer to its headline can do for themselves is become ok with that. There have been many Skibidi Toilets before, and there will be many after. Take comfort in the fact you now know enough about the subject to playfully mock some future adult whose successes will never allow them to entirely escape the Skibidi Toilet phase of their lives.
You can also take comfort in the knowledge that if Skibidi Toilet ever does get turned into a movie, said movie will likely feature Chris Pratt and Kevin Hart as Skidibi and toilet, respectively.
The post What Is Skibidi Toilet, and Why Does Michael Bay Want to Make a Movie About It? appeared first on Den of Geek.
