LogFAQs > #929615724

37. Salad Fingers (18.5 points)
Nominated by: GavsEvans123 (0/5 remaining)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3iOROuTuMA

Importance: 6.5
Fear: 5
Snake: 7

Boy, does this series go back a ways! Created by David Firth & Christian Webb, I still remember one of my best friends in 8th grade showing me the first ever episode of this legendary and influential web animated series in 2008, 4 years after it had initially debuted. We just thought the crude animation and the voice of the titular character was hilarious, and at the time, I didn't pay any mind to its deeper horror roots or psychological tension. Now, over 10 years on, I can appreciate this series in a whole new light. I now see the various psychoses Salad Fingers suffers from, ranging from OCD to dissociative identity disorder. Strictly speaking, there is very little continuity in Salad Fingers but what is consistent is Salad Fingers' near constant state of loneliness in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world. He has finger puppets as companions though and each episode usually involves a meeting with one other character, which typically serve as exploratory pieces for Salad Fingers' deteriorating mental state. I think the scariest episode is number 5, entitled Picnic, which sees Mr. Fingers hosting a picnic and imagining a little girl arriving to attend it, or so it seems. The girl speaks to him, which is a big deal since all characters in the series either talk to him in screeches or he himself makes the voices up, and it ends up driving Salad Fingers mad. I think this shows just how desperate for human contact Salad Fingers is that he doesn't even know how to respond to it. Every episode of Salad Fingers has some short but scarily effective concept like this, with every episode just totaling to about an hour, it begs for a straight watch-through.

I think Salad Fingers' virality, surrealist animation, completely indie production, and dark content behind an innocent facade paved the way for all sorts of modern, internet-based horror content, like Charlie the Unicorn, Annoying Orange, Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared, creepypastas, Five Nights at Freddy's, I even sense a little of Rick & Morty here. It has certainly stuck with me over the years, mainly for that great first episode, a funny diversion that's actually a deep nightmare if you look into it enough.
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I try in vain to slumber, my reveries gripped by violent terror. My only salvation, the shock of awakening. Something is very, very wrong here.