David Firth (born 1983) is a controversial, crazy, versatile, ironic, disquieting British video artist. He is well-known mostly because of Salad Fingers, a weird flash animation YouTube series which he worked on for many years (2004 - 2013), doing almost everything by himself (voices, artworks, animation, music). I am sure many of you remember its miserable and lonely protagonist, who became a real pop art icon and whose schizophrenic and mysterious attitude won the attention of several youtubers, triggering deep theories about the meaning of his story. But he also made lots of other things, and unfortunately many people ignore that.
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| Salad Fingers, David Firth's most famous character. It's impossible not to love him. In the interview I talked about below in this post, Firth claims that the idea of the character was born when one of his friend called him "salad fingers" because of the bad way he was playing a guitar. That's all. I know, it's disappointing, but Firth's imaginary world is built in fieri, as a house changing its architecture while it is built. |
I have my personal theory about the gloomy and a little gory Salad Fingers plot too, but I am sure this is not the place to discuss about it (maybe at the end of the post). In general, for now, I'll just say I don't think Firth wanted to spend so much time and energies in a work which was just made out of nightmares and visions, and this will be clear if you have a look at the rest of his stuff. I'm getting there.
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| When anyone watches Salad Fingers for the first time, they are usually taken aback, or, more problably, unsettled. This slim, creepy, melancholic green man with a flair for rusty spoons and tormented by atrocious memories impressed thousands and thousands of viewers. One of the scenes which fascinated me the most when I first watched it is the moment he starts speaking with one of the many personalities living inside his mind, each one embodied by the creepy puppets he puts on his long fingers. Are they real people from the past, or it's just his imagination? Is Salad Fingers living in a nightmare, or the world is actually the wasteland we see in the series? For sure, this sweeter and sadder version of Gollum is one of the most charismatic characters in the web. |
Salad Fingers contains many of the most common features of Firth's works (which can be publicly watched on YouTube; I'll write here the date of release of the videos on YouTube, unless their description says differently): minimalist and purposely rough drawings, strange monsters, scenes of mutilation and killing, eerie soundtrack, creepy voices, a bit of dark humour, and a cryptic plot. One of the most fascinating elements of this artist's videos is the fact you don't figure out immediately what they mean - sometimes, you don't figure this out at all. You often have the feeling the author wants to warn you about something horrible, which may be the reason why certain works are so gruesome, but in certain cases it may just be, like the author himself said in a nice interview, just a fruit of his disturbing fantasy.
Firth is extremely versatile: he is an animator, a moviemaker, an actor, a writer; almost everything you see when you watch a video of his was done by him in person, including the dubbing. Even if you don't like his very personal style and disturbing effects, he is definitely one of the most interesting people you can bump into while looking for video artists. He is a musician as well: almost all of his many electronic music records were self-released under several nick names (as Locust Toybox), and his sound evolved a lot throughout the years along with his visual research, as you can understand from his animated creations.
That said, the main reason I wanted to write something about him it's not the fact he became famous with his self-realeased and mostly self-funded projects, even if this is, of course, very interesting, since his oldest videos appeared more than 15 years ago and they are still very popular, and this makes him one of the earliest YouTube VIP. Also, I'd like you not to focus on the weirdness of his characters or in their funny appearance or voices, or on the violent elements of his works: these elements are not mere decorations to catch more followers. I am interested in the political Firth, in the way he uses his obscene, eye-popping imagination to tell us about the contraddictions and horror (especially) of the capital-based society.
Most of his short creations are a bitter, tongue-in-cheek lunge against the society of stupidity, or, as I called it in one of my previous posts, the society of the spectacle. In certain cases, as in Musical Prediction 2009 (2010) or in the scary Health reminder series (2009 - 2014), his ironic criticisms against the commercial insistence of mass media and, in general, the manipulative action of the economic monopolies are quite clear, and you can grasp Firth's intention notwithstanding his funny creatures and paradoxical dialogues.
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| The three Health reminder episodes are an unsettling journey into the world of medicine and mass manipulation. They depict some doctors as parasites trying to dodge the problems of the patients claiming it's all in their mind, all fruit of their imagination, and giving them lots of medicines full of side effects, or persuading them they are ill in order to sell them useless cures. I think this is related to a certain tendence of the medical industry (not of all doctors of course) to focus on the effects instead of the causes, and to minimize people's suffering by telling everyone that well being is something coming from the inside, from your ability of staying positive, instead of blaming the thousands of bad effects of what we eat, we breath and we do every day. These doctors, in my opinion, are also a metaphor of the capitalist invisible power in general, and this metaphor is horribly effective. |
A short cartoon about time (2009) is a terrifying glimpse of the greed and cruelty of an economic empire based on rush: the fact we must consider time as an economic source makes most of people narrow-minded and miserable, especially because their rush to get more "time" devour their biological time much faster. Basically, it shows us that we lose our time looking for more time, in a ridiculously overpriced life. I find it terribly staggering, and this dire exactness in describing the human society is what I love the most about Firth. Science (2008) is another ironic and sad fresco of the omnivorous, unsatiable nature of mankind, considering his yearn for conquering everything and everywhere as a part of its destructive dominion.
Sometimes, instead, his videos are purposely obscure, and you can only make conjectures about their meaning (if they were meant to have one). Odd voices, disfigured creatures, surreal situations germinate continuously from Firth's brilliant mind, and he imagined any kind of characters, so that it can be difficult to understand what exactly we are watching. Neverthless, even in this case, you can catch the spirit of the story as a brutal metaphor of our everyday life, a commentary of society, maybe in relation with our stressful conditions of work or the fear caused by the news, the money, the sense of guilt for being not competitive, or not social, or not rich enough (The Latest Model [2006], Dog of Man [2008]).
Even when you have the feeling that certain situations and characters were invented just for fun (The Adventures of Music Mouth [2009] is mostly based on puns, for example), usually the ending leaves you a sense of anguish, persuading you to go deeper and to find out what's always present in all Firth's works. Practicing Pat (2008) and 10 Different Types of Soup (2009, from the Sock series) are good examples in this sense. In general, it's not necessary to analyse every single element of the cartoon, but you just need to get its gist, the big picture, as a mosaic you can appreciate only if beheld from far.
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| Spoilsbury Toast Boy is the protagonist of another creepy famous Firth's series (2004 - 2005) which includes three episodes and takes its name after him. This quiet child, who lives with his sister and his spooky grandma in a desolated world where humans are enslaved by huge clever beetles, is even more miserable than Salad Fingers, given that, as many other children of this world, he has to suffer every day because of the cockroaches' dictatorship, which forces him to make toasts for their fat master. Maybe I'm just overthinking, but I cannot help assuming that this world is again a metaphor depicting ours, especially when I see the beetles that, after the mysterious boy's grandma's murder, wear elegant suits and, speaking with a well-mannered accent, fix an appointment with him and offer him a business card. This cannot be a coincidence: in Firth's hopeless world, monsters are often businessmen, and they are totally capable to condition the working class' behaviour (in this case, sneaking into their ears). Is it just Firth's world?... |
I guess many of the Firth's followers are also passionate about macabre films, but to me his horror tales are expression of a metaphoric kind of monstruosity. Many times, in his works, you see a lonely and troubled protagonist meeting strange creatures or making a specific inquiry. The monsters they bump into frequently use a commercial terminology or have a business person's poise, and Firth's subtle irony underlines the ruthlessness of the Western world by populating the protagonist's travel with such fiends.
It's the case of the Sock series (2007 - 2012) or the one named after its protagonist, Spoilsbury Toast Boy (2004 - 2005). In particular, I'd write for hours about Sock 4: Sock Lops, where you can see one of the cruellest portrait of the ruling class, who willingly enslaves the poor making them docile apathic creatures and inventing their needs; some kind of salvation is found in solitude and introspection (the protagonist cannot but shrink and shrink untile reaching the true substance of the universal matter). The programmed dumbness of masses is another frequent topic in Firth's unaware sociology.
It's the case of the Sock series (2007 - 2012) or the one named after its protagonist, Spoilsbury Toast Boy (2004 - 2005). In particular, I'd write for hours about Sock 4: Sock Lops, where you can see one of the cruellest portrait of the ruling class, who willingly enslaves the poor making them docile apathic creatures and inventing their needs; some kind of salvation is found in solitude and introspection (the protagonist cannot but shrink and shrink untile reaching the true substance of the universal matter). The programmed dumbness of masses is another frequent topic in Firth's unaware sociology.
Seemingly, Firth is growing more and more political, which is great. In a video, he explained that YouTube stopped funding a certain type of disturbing stuff, and that he would like his followers to fund his works from now on, by using Patreon, a famous website used by independent artists. Cream (2017), born thanks to these Patreon's donations, is one of the longest and richest videos of his, and its artwork is much more refined than usual. Again, the satirical commentary and the dark parody of the financial dictatorship is underlined by monstrousity, and again, monstruosity symbolizes the stupidity of the Western metropolitan population.
Firth's planet is made of flesh, and has the eyes of a monster. Monsters with unexpressive faces and idiotic sights follow the latest news and get scared by everything. Monsters living in beautiful huge palaces devour resources and spread their horror everywhere, forcing people to be hungry, violent and stupid (as in the Drill Bit Head series [2010 - 2013] a tall skyscraper keeps all the other living buildings unders control, showing no worries even when a "breeze" fills their mind with easy-to-remember lies and silly lines).
Stupidity, apathy, hysteria and fear are the main qualities of masses in Firth's works, and, in the case of Cream, they are worsened by few powerful people, scared by the miraculous invention which could solve any problem in the world, making money useless. This video has no mercy, no compromise. A small group of individuals on earth may actually find a solution to many tragedies, but this is just not convenient to their élite. The fact someone tells this in just few minutes of an ostensibly silly cartoon is something really cool.
Last, the three episodes of The News Hasn't Happened Yet series (2017 - 2018), three little masterpieces of satire against the world of information. It's not a cartoon, but more like a mixture of many footages edited with various techniques, where almost every person has Firth's face pasted on them. Imaginary TV reports mislead the population, making them paranoid and scared. People's shallowness and journalists' insincerity interact with each other, creating a world of useless news, professionals of fake news and haters of these professionals of fake news. In the society of the spectacle, nothing can be real, nothing can be perceived as a true fact, since the news are not the medium of the message, but the message itself: people listen to it, have a reaction, feel a sense of guilt, are entertained, and then just forget. Rumors about a war fought in a far poor place or of a mortal disease can make them feel alive for a while, before a new distraction comes.
David Firth's creations are a cruel and ravishing summary of the truth we love keeping secret, of the horror of the financial élite, of the hypocrisy with which we talk about the problems of the world and even of our laziness and apathy. We are monsters in a monstrous system, and this is not just a common expression. I thought it was nice to dedicate him a post, since his uniqueness is not just entertainment to me. He is definitely worth a look, even if maybe you'll have nightmares: it will be a kind of nightmares you need to feel awake. At least you will make interesting considerations about happiness, suffering, modern age slavery, and all the other things which won't improve your serenity.
Artistically born when YouTube was still not such a viral thing, Firth stayed on the web for a long while, and I am happy he did not disappeared. I hope that in the future (we could say, when most people born in the 90s will be parents), he will be considered as an icon of pop culture, one of the most effective dark comedian of the era of dumb information, and one of the main mavericks of video art. So please, if you like him, support him on Patreon. Let's support this kind of disturbing serious works, in general.
Oh right: my theory about Salad Fingers. I am persuaded, as many of his fans, that Salad Fingers is a former soldier, tormented by horrible memories and trapped in a schyzophrenic dialogue with the personalities living inside him, and that he is now an old man blabbering in his solitude. What I think about the final episode, which shows you a macabre meeting between the protagonist and some former members of his platoon, is that he's being introduced to the modern society as a valiant veteran, whose life can be a good example to everyone.
The huge pole popping out of the ground, which his fingers cannot "get any information from", is probably the reality of the next generations, a reality which the former soldier, because of his traumas, cannot understand (he is confused by a world rejecting him). When the pole comes down, showing him the present he was yearning for (a horrible hat which looks made out of pieces of skin knitted with each other), he is once more persuaded that he counts something, while the platoon fighters, disfigured and traumatized by their past experiences, join a macabre feast - of course, they may be in Salad Fingers' imagination themselves, since they look identical to him.
Once again, here you can realize the struggle of the individual against the social recognition: totally isolated in his own memories, he is given a reward for the horrible things he did, but he cannot even remember who he is, pranked by a greedy nationalist system. If my theory was true, Salad Fingers would surely be one of the saddest characters ever invented.
But enough making theories. Just enjoy this author.
Firth's planet is made of flesh, and has the eyes of a monster. Monsters with unexpressive faces and idiotic sights follow the latest news and get scared by everything. Monsters living in beautiful huge palaces devour resources and spread their horror everywhere, forcing people to be hungry, violent and stupid (as in the Drill Bit Head series [2010 - 2013] a tall skyscraper keeps all the other living buildings unders control, showing no worries even when a "breeze" fills their mind with easy-to-remember lies and silly lines).
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| Piracy is one of the main themes of Cream. As soon as people get the possibility of creating something beautiful by themselves, the masters of monopoly condemn their creativity and happiness as despicable acts, claiming that piracy is immoral and dangerous. We don't have miraculous creams healing any disease or fixing our car, of course, but we are surrounded by taboos making our life unhappier and expensive because of the mere existence of money (which should be gradually made useless by governments). For example, I am one of those people who are absolutely convinced that internet should be free for anyone, always. |
Stupidity, apathy, hysteria and fear are the main qualities of masses in Firth's works, and, in the case of Cream, they are worsened by few powerful people, scared by the miraculous invention which could solve any problem in the world, making money useless. This video has no mercy, no compromise. A small group of individuals on earth may actually find a solution to many tragedies, but this is just not convenient to their élite. The fact someone tells this in just few minutes of an ostensibly silly cartoon is something really cool.
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| Men from up the stairs (2006) is a mysterious creepy glimpse of some kind of office located in a building sorrounded by a crevasse. I am not sure about its meaning, IF it has a meaning. What I am sure about is that it reminds me so badly of Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853), the famous short story by H. Melville. Even if Firth didn't know about this story, which talks about a clerk who decides he'd prefer not to leave his office, the similarities are impressive. In general, both works tell you that work is a prison. I guess. |
Last, the three episodes of The News Hasn't Happened Yet series (2017 - 2018), three little masterpieces of satire against the world of information. It's not a cartoon, but more like a mixture of many footages edited with various techniques, where almost every person has Firth's face pasted on them. Imaginary TV reports mislead the population, making them paranoid and scared. People's shallowness and journalists' insincerity interact with each other, creating a world of useless news, professionals of fake news and haters of these professionals of fake news. In the society of the spectacle, nothing can be real, nothing can be perceived as a true fact, since the news are not the medium of the message, but the message itself: people listen to it, have a reaction, feel a sense of guilt, are entertained, and then just forget. Rumors about a war fought in a far poor place or of a mortal disease can make them feel alive for a while, before a new distraction comes.
David Firth's creations are a cruel and ravishing summary of the truth we love keeping secret, of the horror of the financial élite, of the hypocrisy with which we talk about the problems of the world and even of our laziness and apathy. We are monsters in a monstrous system, and this is not just a common expression. I thought it was nice to dedicate him a post, since his uniqueness is not just entertainment to me. He is definitely worth a look, even if maybe you'll have nightmares: it will be a kind of nightmares you need to feel awake. At least you will make interesting considerations about happiness, suffering, modern age slavery, and all the other things which won't improve your serenity.
Artistically born when YouTube was still not such a viral thing, Firth stayed on the web for a long while, and I am happy he did not disappeared. I hope that in the future (we could say, when most people born in the 90s will be parents), he will be considered as an icon of pop culture, one of the most effective dark comedian of the era of dumb information, and one of the main mavericks of video art. So please, if you like him, support him on Patreon. Let's support this kind of disturbing serious works, in general.
Oh right: my theory about Salad Fingers. I am persuaded, as many of his fans, that Salad Fingers is a former soldier, tormented by horrible memories and trapped in a schyzophrenic dialogue with the personalities living inside him, and that he is now an old man blabbering in his solitude. What I think about the final episode, which shows you a macabre meeting between the protagonist and some former members of his platoon, is that he's being introduced to the modern society as a valiant veteran, whose life can be a good example to everyone.
The huge pole popping out of the ground, which his fingers cannot "get any information from", is probably the reality of the next generations, a reality which the former soldier, because of his traumas, cannot understand (he is confused by a world rejecting him). When the pole comes down, showing him the present he was yearning for (a horrible hat which looks made out of pieces of skin knitted with each other), he is once more persuaded that he counts something, while the platoon fighters, disfigured and traumatized by their past experiences, join a macabre feast - of course, they may be in Salad Fingers' imagination themselves, since they look identical to him.
Once again, here you can realize the struggle of the individual against the social recognition: totally isolated in his own memories, he is given a reward for the horrible things he did, but he cannot even remember who he is, pranked by a greedy nationalist system. If my theory was true, Salad Fingers would surely be one of the saddest characters ever invented.
But enough making theories. Just enjoy this author.
