My Absence

[@rickyw867]

Widepeepohappy

[@SynthesizersAreLife]

Something to think about is that (according to tony) Petscop was never a puzzle to begin with, therefore it can’t really have missing pieces. I view it kind of like a David Lynch movie, where it has characters, a plot, themes, but a lot of things also just don’t make sense (dead men standing, the pencil factory scene in eraserhead, etc) and that’s kind of the point. Petscop has always seemed more interested in creating moods and small moments than one over-arcing story. Tony has also talked about the philosophies of digital art a little bit, about how if you’re making something digitally it should be “alive” in some way, and I really believe Petscop is just tony’s weird digital surrealist painting that happens to have a runtime. Petscop feels like it was never meant to be something that’s consumed like traditional serialized media (ex: a tv show) it is a piece of digital art and sometimes art is just kind of formless. Something being formless doesn’t mean that it’s worthless or that the creator messed up entirely. Sometimes that is the point.

[@SynthesizersAreLife]

something to tack onto this thought; tony revealing himself as the creator didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the series as it was going and I thought about why a little bit, and I think it’s because I wasn’t trying to solve it. my friends and I absolutely discussed the series as it was happening but we were more talking about the themes or just the fact that what happened in that episode was interesting rather than us trying to piece together a solid story. I didn’t mind tony doing things like breaking the fourth wall or interacting with fans a little bit because the whole thing was never entirely serious anyway, he was just making something for fun. However, I also wish that nobody had found tony until after Petscop was done but not because it would have ruined the mystery or broken the story. I wish it didn’t happen so he wouldn’t have felt pressure while making the series so that it might have been even stranger.

[@Cooe.]

This

[@lifesoldier]

@@SynthesizersAreLife agreed 100%

[@Fantasticanations]

I think you might gain a lot of insight on this stuff by investigating David Lynch and twin peaks. People lean on the phrase 'lynchian' a lot, but David Lynch's secret actual modus operandi and what makes things 'lynchian' in actuality, from what I've been able to gleam based on his interviews, is this: He thinks of a coherent concept and story, probably in vague terms, and then he removes more and more until the story reaches the point that it is no longer something that can be 'figured out' - there's simply not enough context. It's sort of like lazer blindness- if you shine lazers into your eyes, your eyes will degenerate but can still create a picture by filling in the gaps created by the lazer damage for a while. But, once you reach a certain point, there's simply not enough of the original information remaining for your visual cortex to create a coherent image, and you essentially go blind. David Lynch - and Tony - are creating a puzzle (to use your metaphor) and then removing pieces until there's not enough left to be able to see the original image no matter how many pieces you connect - it'll always be just a vague idea of what it is and it'll never be satisfying. And that's what makes it so good and unlike anything else - not just surrealist randomness like the sketch in the video. David Lynch has learned to not fuck this up because his entire career rides on people taking him seriously, and he learned his lesson when he revealed Laura Palmer's killer, which was never supposed to happen, and twin peaks nose dived because what made the show so good was the lack of a definitive answer to the mystery at the heart. As well, many people found the answer to the mystery to be unsatisfying. But if it was never solved, they wouldn't even have the chance. This can also occur when breaking the illusion like Tony did with the channel's proprietors. If David Lynch's workflow is as I've described - or if he just makes shit up to spark people's imaginations and has no real answers to the mystery like you suspect Tony might have - nobody will ever know, because Lynch understands the most compelling part of his works is the lack of a solid explanation, and flat out refuses to ever offer his own interpretations of his works or describe his creative process. Tony had not learned this yet, and made the mistake that Lynch never will again. He told us who killed Laura Palmer. He made petscop, it's definitively over, the soundtrack is on bandcamp and you can read his interviews. The biggest 'who killed Laura Palmer' of petscop is 'who made this and where did it come from and what is going on' and he made those answers clear and killed the mystery and thus that addictive feeling of wanting to go back and find something in it.

[@michaelaj4495]

I think you're right about David lynch even the addictive nature of solving the 'anomalies' in both stories by guessing at random, gathering and piecing info to get a clearer understanding. It's a smart way to tell a story since it hooks you into the mystery but if there isn't a solution based in reality or your original plot wasn't well thought out then your audience gets stuck, sometimes you'll have to throw a bone to correct your mistake. I think it's over now as well but there's always room for petscop 26-52, investigating and explaining each episode like a directors commentary. But do we want to go down that path again? Would it add more than it takes or take more than it adds from the current petscop experience? I'm not sure.

[@RotroBreakteve]

Damn that was a really good explanation of Lynch. I kind of understand his process now, thanks. I find it kind of interesting that you and other people see 'who made this and where did it come from' as part of the core Laura Palmer-esque mystery. To me it was always 'what is going on' -- I didn't really care who made it and I knew it was just a webseries, and so when Tony revealed himself it didn't really affect me. That's really illuminating though, it makes more sense now why so many people were made upset when it happened.

[@hackerdackers8832]

i agree 100% with everything you said, tony’s reveal ruined petscop for a decent amount of people because, just like laura palmer’s killer getting revealed, a core mystery was answered.

[@Magbiy]

I think the big disconnect between Lynch's writing with Twin Peaks and Tony's work on Petscop is the presentation of each individual work. Twin peaks is a TV show, and never presents itself as anything else. Even if Lynch stumbles or missteps with his writing, there's no illusion or immersion that can be damaged as a result. David Lynch is free to interact with his fans and viewers outside of the confines of his work specifically because Twin Peaks is a self-contained narrative. Its narrative devices never extend past what you would see in any other, more mundane, crime drama. While I certainly can attempt to engage with and "figure out" Twin Peaks, I don't have to; it's a piece of media I can passively consume if I so choose. This is not true of Petscop. From the first few videos, Petscop quickly established that the normal constraints that you'd see in a similar series do not apply. Instrumental to Petscop's appeal is the fact that a viewer has to piece together a narrative from nearly incoherent pieces. Petscop is a puzzle, something to be attacked and analyzed. The sense of immersion - buoyed by the found footage format, the use of the channel description, and the ambiguity of Paul and the channel owners - are central to the work. If these factors are rendered inert, much of the viewer's engagement with Petscop is as well. Realistically, I don't think there was ever going to be a satisfying end to Petscop, just as there isn't for almost every other found footage webseries. Tony's original concept and the way people ended up engaging with the series meant that any peak behind the curtain would destroy that immersion. At the same time, Tony put a herculean effort into writing, planning, and creating assets for Petscop. It would be wrong to deny them recognition for the work they put into the series. And so there's a core contradiction; Petscop does not work unless it obfuscates its creator, but Tony brought his narrative to an end, thus dispelling a good portion of that obfuscation.

[@vanilla8956]

My god you described everything I was thinking so perfectly. Strange thing is a few hours ago friend just asked me why i felt so disinterested in the series now when a year ago i made a petscop birthday cake for myself, and i had a bit of trouble describing, and then you upload this right after. I do have to say how amazingly happy I am that petscop never actually ruined its mystery, by doing something like leaning on doing something controversial for a reveal instead of something unique. The candace references were the closest it got to that but like he said that was a mistake in the beginning. I could pretty much tell he wanted to distance himself from that when I was watching, and I basically predicted what is essentially the rename of the newmaker to "the guardian". But I had no idea that the issues he had in the story were so bad until I saw those posts he made. Honestly I can relate a bit, I have my own story I write, and I feel like i'm always adding new ideas and changing things in it, but I never have to worry about my prior stuff being set in stone, already published content. I even got the idea to take what was a background character, and turn her into the surprise main protagonist for the end, an idea I'm proud of, but I had to change alot of the earlier stuff for it to make sense, but if I couldn't do that, would I? Or would I have shy'd away from the idea and told myself "its too late" to do that? Personally I think I would try to do it anyway, and not be so scared of contradicting myself. But with something as drenched in mystery as petscop, that decision must be much much harder to make. I hope that Tony didn't stop himself from creating a great conclusion to the mystery because of details like that, but who knows. I have high hopes for his lego island project, I'm sure whatever the mistake here was, he has learned from it for sure.

[@BitsInBits]

Amazing video as always. I've followed Petscop ever since Petscop 7 was the latest one, and when your videos came out they became like a sort of companion to the main series, so to me you've played a really important role in the unfolding of petscop, and i believe for others too. When it comes to Tony saying that we as fans understand the work better than he does, I do understand him to some extent. It's not unheard of for an artist to end up disconnected from his work, when you know what you started with and what you end up with. We as viewers see the finished product, we don't see the thousands of lines of code hand written, the pixel art that was hand drawn, the hours of video editing. When you're working on something as great as Petscop you will most likely end up focusing on your effort, not your finished product, and thats not even to mention the many possible ways in which the story may have gone, all the things Tony may have tried to implement but couldn't. It's not only the regrets of seeing the mistakes in the finished product that can get to you, but also the regret of "I could have gone a different route, I could have told the story different". I probably made one post on the Petscop subreddit, but it would have felt like a community effort to understand the story even if I hadn't done that. You helped shape understandings of the story and I think it's only right you know that. Your videos were never pointless, and even if "all interpretations are correct", some will be subjectively preferred by some. I can't wait for more of your videos no matter what the topic, you have a great sense of humor and obviously enough technical skill to put out awesome content.

[@violetjune5046]

i get your point, but you have to treat petscop as not just a mystery or a horror or a webseries but a full on delve into the surreal as well. in the interviews tony has done since the reveal he has repeatedly marked david lynch specfically as his biggest influence "filmmaking" wise and it's pretty obvious to see if you have even a cursory knowledge of lynch's works. even more specfically if you haven't seen it i recommend you watch the movie inland empire as it's what tony said inspired his writing and directing the most and has the most obvious parallels to petscop thematically and structurally. david lynch created the movie by putting together seperate short film ideas and bridging them together with story he would make up as he went along from scene to scene, adn the result is this mystery that seems to twist around in a new direction everytime you think you've gotten a grasp on it. lynch had similar anxieties about the work to tony as well fearing that it's inherently incomplete nature might frustrate his audience (which coming from a director like lynch especially means a lot here). however the result is something mindbending and singularly intriguing that couldn't have been created with a full picture in mind going in. in fact he ended up liking this style so much that he carried it over into the 3rd season of twin peaks in 2017. this kind of storytelling can be frustrating on first glance for both the creator and audience , but it gives room for the viewer to dream and find connections that just wouldn't be possible in a more conventionally horror/mystery. this is especially true on a meta level as work like this gives a greater possibility to create vast meta analysis of the creators works in their entirety. this is very true of david lynch who's movies almost run a thread (not shared universe bs) where you can connect the dots thematically between each work and come out having a greater understanding of any of the individual works in and of themselves. i think tony utilized this style knowing that it might cause some frustration with the audience especially for people who want a concrete indented conclusion to come to (although i do think that if you understand the themes of petscop and nifty and read the short story he wrote tapers you'll basically have all the answers you really need to get a full picture of what the work is trying to say). i understand the frustrating of putting so much work into understanding the innerworkings of the series so intimately only to find out that just wasn't where the creators intent lied but there's still value to come from this type of analysis as it can give greater understand and appreciation for exactly how tony went about creating the actual in game universe and how his direction informed the atmosphere through subtle heavily planned out details. i don't think tony made all of this shit up as he was going. he had been workshopping ideas of petscop since the tapers story which was written in 2009 and had been actively creating the game 3 whole years before the uploads started just he didn't want to so heavily workshop the plot so that it would have a more natualistic feel that he probably thought was better for a story that was emulating a live recording of someone's discovery of a game. if you DO read tapers it's pretty obvious he had all the ideas for the plot already swimming around in his head pretty concretely. tldr: just because we aren't getting an answer for absolutely everything doesn't mean that there isn't use in analysis and secondly doesn't mean the intent for the story wasn't there. keep up the great work! i've been following ur channel for like 2 years now and i've loved every video . sorry for my rambling non formatted post.

[@Spaghetti-dinner]

Thank you, fr I don’t get why people are so turned off by ambiguity or the idea that creators aren’t omnipotent and that their art is a constantly evolving organism (much like petscop itself) I do not want to have things spoon fed to me and I am fine with things being inconclusive because it doesn’t detract from the art at all to me

[@SantiagoItzcoatl]

Welcome back Sock Muppet. thanks for the video, best wishes.

[@Meganarb]

God, this has put everything I've thought into words. The ending left me feeling like I wasted fucking 2 years of my life expecting something that wasn't made up on the goddamn spot. It's just.. Bleh. It just really sucks to see, I used to be super into Petscop, but when it got revealed who made it? It just killed it for me. It only died further when I realized there was no conclusion, there was no answers, and all those loose ends would never be solved. Because not even Tony knows what the answers to those loose ends are. Knowing that there's no solution kills any fun I could have with Petscop now. I don't even bother to interact with the community anymore because there's nothing to work towards. What's the point of helping with the progress document, or trying to solve a puzzle if there's no actual solution? I'm not expecting the whole thing to be fully explained, but I want the possibility of that there. Petscop at the start seemed like everything was planned, every question had an answer, but then the ending happened. It pains me to know what Petscop could have been. Edit: I even remember when the final episode came out, and I was convinced it wasn't. My exact thoughts were "There's no way this is the end, there's too much stuff left unanswered". I didn't want everything answered, but don't bring up questions that even you, the creator, don't have the answers to. Don't make like 500 loose ends just for them to go nowhere. Edit 2: I don't want all of it answered either, that'd fucking suck too. Just, knowing the answers existed would be enough, and before the ending, I believed they did.

[@TheZenytram]

Just like the example in the video, a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces still has a image behind, even if is too hard to see, you cam make up what is missing. Petscop has no image there, it's just noise there nothing to fill the hole. And that completely suck out the joy i had for petscop.

[@ven950]

I see where you're coming from and I definitely respect your input but I have to share my own in response: I don't think Petscop was ever meant to be seen in the way that you see it. I think it's painfully obvious, with the deliberately jumbled videos, the confusing arrangement of clips, that we would never get (and we didn't even really build up to) a "Comprehensive"/"concrete" solution or climax. Petscop isn't really meant for that, and from just a few couple videos, I thought that was obvious. (By the way, this next part includes my thoughts of what you've said about tony, which might be flawed by a lack of info, so if you have some link of him saying that he doesn't know some answers, please reply with it.) I don't think you're looking at it the right way, as Petscop seems to be something Tony created with a concept in mind, NOT a plot. The idea that "he doesnt have answers" can be so much more than not knowing answers to a plotline--because Petscop simply really doesn't have one, more like some semblance of one. I think him not knowing means that Petscop is a subjective piece and answers really aren't part of the puzzle. Also, I think it is unimaginably disrespectful to claim that Petscop was made up "On the spot." because, with evidence of Tony's twitter showing concepts he made from 2009, the claim is simply untrue. The effort, the concepts, the execution, everything about Petscop wonderfully displays the creator's effort and craft. Again, I just believe you're looking at Petscop in a very bad way. Someone I'll recommend for more explanation and insight into the inner workings of Petscop and comprehending the series, is Nightmare Masterclass, or Davis Stockwell.

[@solophentii3468]

@@ven950 I second this analysis. Petscop as a work of art was never intended to be what its fans resultantly hoped it would. One doesn’t simply get to decide a work of art- and certainly not its creator- is flawed because you interpreted it in a way that lead to the over-elaboration of certain tidbits of information. It is what it is, pure and simple, and no amount of anger is justified because Tony *never* intended Petscop to be a reciprocal process between himself and the fans/their massive theories. I was in the same boat. I was shocked and gutted when it ended with no ‘conclusion’, leaving many questions unanswered. But in the end, we the fans created these questions via our interpretation and speculation- none of what we generated and went through in ‘solving’ Petscop was an inherent function of it as a work of art from the very beginning.

[@ven950]

@Derbemag22 cool

[@solophentii3468]

@Derbemag22 For sure.

[@taatzi5554]

A traditional story arc doesn't make or break a narrative. Neither does ambiguity or incoherency. So many Petscop fans seemed to view the series as an ARG, a "puzzle to be solved", and then were shattered when the final upload still left out crucial pieces and Tony revealed himself, like something would have changed. But we all concluded from very early on that Petscop IS "someone's channel", a video series on KZbin, created by a creator. Nothing changed. Petscop is still completely self-contained on the KZbin channel. Now we just know it's finished. Secondly, just because Tony recorded voiceover on the fly doesn't mean that the whole series is ad-libbed. Tony still had to meticulously craft the whole game and all text included, eg. signposts, pet descriptions and Rainer's letters. Not that it would matter if it were made up on the fly, though. Creativity is inherently stacking ideas on top of each other because the creator "just came up with them" and "felt like it". A story works if it works, and it falls flat if it falls flat. But the content and it's execution is to be blamed, not the intended direction. Amibguity certainly is an intended direction in Petscop, and I think Petscop succeeds pulling it off. Someone might feel otherwise, and for them, the interest in the series dwindles.

[@DemonixTB]

it's sort of gut wrenching, isn't it? everyone thought and theorised for so long theres concrete story in it, and there are definitely parts of it there, just most likely not anywhere near enough to see the whole thing, too many cut pieces for the sake of an atmosphere, and it's not anyone's fault really. Tony is still just one man who got a lot more attention then expected, and in the end what IS there is still astounding pice of storytelling that won't be trumphed anytime soon. We all wanted it to be something more than even it hinted at. I'm personally almost content with what we got, of course I didn't want it to end, not with so many loose ends anyway, but I feel like the core plot did get it's conclusion, and I'm fine with that. Still can't belive the gamepad language is real.

[@marhepto]

Petscop is a story about characters being plagued by traumas from their past so heavy they have warped time and space. In response to abuse, neglect and grief, their memories have become replaced and lost. Everything is confused and jumbled, even the world they inhabit. Petscop's structure evokes that haze, and very effectively imo. It was never a straightforward mystery or puzzle - it was a mood piece, and it was incredibly consistent and lush with moods. In regards to Tony's tweet - he's not saying that he didn't know where Petscop was heading. he meant that as author, he has certain intentions, and as audience we may or may not connect with those intentions. This is how all art works. In that sense, we do know Petscop better than Tony, because the importance of art is how each person connects with it, and we've all connected to Petscop in incredibly different ways. You can leave unsatisfied due to the lack of a puzzle-box style resolution, and that's valid; you can focus on the metaphorical implications and atmosphere, and that's also valid. But if you're so eager for a statement of authorial intent, Tony has basically said that the former approach is not the intended one to use on his work. If you dislike that, you don't have to listen to him - the way that you connected with Petscop is just as valid as anyone else's. But you should accept that Petscop wasn't necessarily written with you in mind.

[@thob]

The real petscop is certainly not the friends I made along the way.

[@weneedmorefacemapsasprofil1593]

I remember a youtube man mentioning that for a loose end to work it needs to be side content to the main dish and showed Pulp Fiction as an example. On paper it was about 2 gangsters trying to yoink a valuable suitcase, the contents of which are never explained, but it was actually about the gangsters witnessing a miracle and having a change of heart. The suitcase just got mixed up in a story of spiritual awakening, but if it was fully about the suitcase we'd need clarity as to why the characters want it. But we don't, so we are free to have fun speculating why the suitcase was important. Petscop is 1 loose end after another: is it a family drama disguised as a let's play? What family? Is it a secret experiment and our characters saw too much? What did they see? Is it some desperate man's digital ouijia board falling into the wrong hands? Who's our ghost? Is it about some schmuck barely avoiding the wrath of Marvin_McBloodeyes.exe? You just have no fucking clue what is happening and it's not even Lovecraftian because our minds aren't racing towards ideas of incomprehensible power, it's racing towards "original the .exe donut steel" People point out that it's an incompletesome "feelbad" story and you shouldn't expect any sense, in which case we're kinda moving away from breakthrough art and into "numbuh fifteen: burgur king fut lettus". And sure, being completely vague and opening the theory making to everyone is kinda nice, but your status as an artist becomes questionable when you just toss your canvas to the viewers and say "go ahead, paint some stuff".

[@michaelaj4495]

Thanks Sock muppet, your vids actually gave me a break between reddit, discord, progress doc. I felt like you had theories closest to the original intention but after the Tony announcement, reading tapers and following twitter I realised it was over too and it wasn't as complicated as we made out etc Your theories were a highlight of petscop IMO. So methodical too in terms of testing, exploring the vids and finding new things and bringing them to the community. Thanks again man

[@ghosters1072]

Thank you. For a while, I thought I was going insane. I felt either confused or even bored by Petscop most of the time I watched it. The boredom part, as I watched the Guardian plip-plop around, stemmed likely from a vague-at-best grasp of any possible stakes. Despite this, when a new video would get dropped like on Halloween of last year, I'd click it so fast my mouse left tire skids on the mouse pad. Petscop held my attention and curiosity. I felt that if I held out and kept looking into it, watching the episodes and following the theories, maybe something would get clear. I was invested. While I was watching the series, the general consensus in the community was, "Petscop is so intelligently put together, and its production value is so amazing, that there HAS to be an equally intelligent story, ambiguous as it may be." That's what I hoped, too. Then Tony gave his Shrug of God. Now, the community says things along the lines of, "Oh, it's just presenting a mood, it's not meant to tell a story." What? I don't want to feel like I wasted my time with Petscop. I don't want this creative, unique series to be soured in my memory like this. But the fact is, that was my reaction to all of this.

[@adammezza5362]

Perhaps it is merely a false finish, Can't blame a guy for hoping.

[@reemal-misky5850]

2001 and the shining are ambiguous as shit but I can summarize both movies with a clear climax and resolution

[@RoxioGamingHD]

I think Tony is just arguing for death of the author. He probably has an idea of what happened and will happen with the characters, but he just views it as one perspective of what the characters are and who they are. Most stories are written in an improvisational way, and as such will nearly always have inconsistencies when digging very deeply. TV series are usually written season by season, and I see Petscop as being the same way with the episodes being released in bunches. Pointing to authorial intent as what gives a story purpose isn't entirely accurate, and it would invalidate nearly every TV series and even many books that people say have good and coherent stories. The death of the author argument is in my opinion the most valid way to look at most fictional series'. Not doing it just results in viewing everything that doesn't conform to a theory as a mistake by the author, and lets you write off points entirely if they don't fit with what you think the author meant to write or should have wrote. Even if Tony was just making stuff up as he went along, which I don't think he was, it wouldn't make a difference as to the actual work. The work stands on its own and will always stand on its own, the most the author can do after the last of the work is published is guide people to their interpretation. Tony pointing things out as false leads or saying he improvised it doesn't really matter, unless it is incorporated into the work Tony is just speaking as a member of the community sharing their interpretation.

[@VuldEdone]

The work doesn't stand on its own but who cares anymore. A TV series has constraints. Namely ratings, editors, etc. The team never knows if there will be a next season and hence how far to plan. What's more, writers for the episodes can change a lot, with them often having only a general knowledge of the series. Indie projects are very different. The team is set, especially when it is a team of one, and the only constraint is motivation. Yes, you can go freestyle even with that, but then you plan it to be freestyle. You go for a big plot for which you roughly know the answers, and then you plan your more local plots according to how far you think you'll go. And in such a case, let's be clear: you're not really planning to answer the big plot. You could stop in the middle and leave your viewers roughly satisfied. That is the TV series technique: think the ending of X-Files season 1, where the mysterious man seems to get shot. Perfect conclusion to a mystery that was never meant to be uncovered -- because X-Files has a one-shots, "slice of life" structure, not a progression. Another point still. Freestyle is a valid way to write, but just because it's the beginner's way doesn't mean it's how it should be done. Freestyle requires a lot of planning and thought to make sure that you never drive yourself into a wall. That also means ensuring you keep the reader/viewer updated on where you're going. If there is a turn, (s)he must be taking it with you. On that end you can see a change of pace between episodes 1-10 of Petscop, and episodes 11-16, and arguably another change of pace with 17-24. Nobody complained about those changes. We still knew where we were going, cohesion maintained. I could go on and on but this is getting tiring. I just want for Sock Muppet to try and solve local little details. Paul is happy, it was aliens, who cares, let's have fun.

[@secretxxstars]

ABSOLUTELY AGREE, I'm still sad when I remember petscop because of everything that happened and learning that like... there might not be anything "there" necessarily and yet I spent so much time and energy on it. because I was the same way, not at your level, I could only aspire to that, but I spent so much time rewatching episodes, hashing out possible theories with others, looking for connections, I even built on your version of the map in hopes more detail would help me see something, I also made a very detailed and elaborate transcript to connect as much audio, text, and other visual cues together. and like you said, every time I felt like I would hit a wall because there was a fundamental piece of information I was still missing and I just had to wait. and then to find out... no?? this is everything?? things just can't fit together because the gaps are far too wide but at the same time the information we do have is so crowded and contradictory that every explanation destroys the possibility of explaining something else that's important?? I also agree that Tony is definitely a really creative and intelligent person. and tbh I think if anyone could really find the Story of petscop and put the pieces together as satisfactorily as is possible with what we have, it'll be you, Sock Muppet.

[@mice2188]

Never clicked on a video so fast

[@hannahw3761]

I agree with the person who recommended looking at David Lynch's process for a helpful parallel. From the petscop creator's tweets, I think it's actually very likely that he started out with an A-Z story. I'm thinking about the tweets about how the discovery pages are written up somewhere, but Domenico felt that they were too linear/exposition-y to publish. My thinking about these tweets is some of what has kept my interest in petscop going. But I really understand your frustration. I've had similar experiences with a lot of other mystery TV shows that I followed and wrote about for years. Where I had (what I still honestly think is) the perfect interpretation/prediction for the show, only for the actual ending to completely bungle it. In addition to the mechanics and my curiosity about syncing and the tarnacop machines/clocks, my interest in petscop is also in looking at it as an art piece and comparing it to Domenico's other works. Thinking about Good Sky on the Mr. Yes youtube in particular. That video actually helped me understand petscop a little better.

[@taticatnineland]

I feel very similarly, and it’s my opinion that this kind of event is how we pay the price for pushing perspectives that essentially say that everyone’s interpretation is equally valid, thrusting the burden of meaning back onto the creator instead of giving the audience something to aspire to and fight towards. Confronted with, bluntly, wrong, stupid takes on a work, many artists wither and withdraw, falling back on the ‘everyone is a winner; I probably didn’t pull it off well’ bit. I wish Tony felt comfortable with saying ‘no, you’re wrong’. I really, really do. In terms of mental effort, emotionality, and persistence, I had quite a bit invested personally also, and while I genuinely enjoy Petscop and hold Tony in high esteem, I am heartbroken that the resolution is that everyone gets to be right...because I know that isn’t the truth.

[@connor48880]

I feel like he didn’t want to step on anyone’s opinions about the story, so he decided to go for broke and say that they were technically all right. I think he has a story in mind, but wants to keep it a secret

[@other4333]

Totally agree, Sock Muppet! I had wondered if Tony half assed the last few Petscop episodes (with all due respect) - perhaps due to a disconnect and/or eventual lack of passion for the series. But there were far too many coincidences, story lines and answers to some of the questions for it all to be “interpreted by the viewer” in the end! I like to believe that there is a cohesive story and ending to it all that Tony isn’t sharing, maybe due to fear of the Petscop community picking holes in it. If there was, I’d be fascinated to know what it was, even if flawed. It feels like the end to a series where the main character wakes up and it was all a dream - a disappointing ending to an otherwise, interesting, entertaining and creative series.

[@spacemansam9476]

Literally the Neon Genesis Evangelion of Let's-Plays with how they both end. Maybe Tony can/should make his own "End of Evangelion" too?

[@pankake2208]

​@@spacemansam9476 the difference is that end of eva has a legitimate story and artistic intention. It's not about nothing with interesting disconnected visuals to bait people.

[@星音杜]

Some thoughts on this. I'm in a very small minority of people; I heard of Petscop from a friend around the time the first couple videos were uploaded. I had assumed it was an ARG or something at the time, and with most ARGs though they can be interesting I never find myself at the forefront of solving a puzzle or anything--there are smarter people than me with more time on their hands and more knowledge on various things that can help them and such. I remember specifically saying to my friend "I'll check it out when it's over", and Petscop came and went, I forgot about it and only remembered and decided to watch it very recently. I really enjoyed watching it all, the atmosphere was perfect, the graphics and sound design and Paul's nervous voice, hell the whole presentation was perfect. There's so many things that could've been done horribly--the fact that it was a supposedly a children's game but actually hid something creepy/scary seems cheesy, but I believe the swift introduction of the "creepy part" of the game did wonders. Usually with creepypasta stories, there isn't a whole section hidden in a game, but rather the game is normal but things change, and the layout stays the same. That's why game-based creepypastas tend to go with more blunt horror, like a character suddenly bleeding or the game glitching out and spelling something threatening. Petscop is just genuinely unsettling, and the potential in the whole hidden area idea is endless. It makes you think "what else is hidden?", and even though (at least I would argue) the game seems limited in terms of size at a glance, the ambiguous triggers for "events" paired with the blocked or out of sight areas makes it enticing to think about the level of what unknowns there are in the "game". Though I have (and I don't think anyone does) zero problems with the presentation, the story is obviously an issue. I wasn't surprised to learn that the creator was a regular on tigsource, and that place is full of game developers who have been honing their skills for over a decade. But because of this, I'm guessing Tony fell into the trap that other game developers fall into, where they focus on the mechanical aspect of developing and thinking up little tricks to do. For example, once Tony thought up the idea of recording player movement, he must've really been obsessed with it, because he used it in multiple different ways. It was likely only going to be used at first to create the illusion of the "AI" player characters like Marvin and Tiara, but then he had to go and create the whole demo thing that Paul had to figure out, and then even incorporate it into the "game" as a testing/developer function. I truly don't think Tony had a detailed enough outline of the overall story, and focused more on things he could do with the game and then tying it to the meta-narrative somehow with at least some thought, but not enough to where things could possibly make any sense with one set theory. If Tony had a detailed outline of the whole story (that made sense), and a script for Paul with no improvisation, it would have been much better, and there would have been no disappointment among fans. But would the presentation have taken a hit instead? I'm not sure. Maybe it wasn't possible for Tony to write a concise story, because he's more able as a game developer, maybe he needed a partner. I'm not sure. Anyways, I still really liked the series, there are moments that are very iconic, and I think every Petscop upload can be enjoyed on its on standalone for the atmosphere. Also, I read the article/interview mentioned in the video, and checked out Tony's Twitter. Seems he is still working on the project mentioned in it, and that it's supposed to be somewhat horror and related to Lego Island, which I also played as a kid. I'm sure he had the same fascination I did with the impossible to open door in the cave with the pirate in it. I'm excited to see what he will make out of it, and positive that it'll be something tackling the nature of unknowns in a game, sort of when being a kid and thinking that there's all this secret stuff that you'd find if you could go out of bounds or whatever. God speed Tony

[@jlinus7251]

As someone who also was really into petscop theories and was a massive fan of the work, I knew the day Tony came out as the creator things could go wrong. What I thought would do wrong was that Tony would give a detailed analysis of the work and then whatever interpretations we've done so far would forever be under the creators himself, because his words would mean much more. The second thing that could go wrong, which did was that he didn't have a story. So in the end what we all theorized didn't make much of a difference either. Part of the fun of a mystery is to solve it. You're right about that. I kind of just blocked Tony's tweets from my mind at this stage so I can still pretend there's something very coherent there.

[@itsthevillainerd1351]

It makes me wonder if option 1 would have been worse.

[@DemonixTB]

it's not like there isn't anything there. There is way too much detail in minute things, too large attention to detail for it to be meaningless. The real issue here is that Tony doesn't belive himself. There is a coherent story in his mind, and he feels too afraid to tell us what we saw was not what he intended, that he'd rather tell us how every single one of us is correct in what we think we saw. But that can't possibly be true.

[@redactado266]

i think the point where petscop breaks is when you made the Windmills' location video, where you can pinpoint (with a margin off error ofc) the in universe real life windmill with the game windmill and solve one of the mayor mysterys of the series giving the noise that was the "puzzle" at that point, form into at least a silhouette of the story as a whole. Tony could prove us right or wrong and show us at least in game why it was so important, how it disappeared. but the story went in an other direction. leaving us with nothing to play with. having said that the ending of petscop and the authors actions not kill completely the story, for me at least.

[@connor48880]

That’s not Tony?! Shit, that’s a really really great impression of him

[@NightmareMasterclass]

If you're disappointed with a lack of answers in Petscop, that's fine. I get it. But keep in mind, those were expectations you brought to the table. My view is that Petscop is purposefully ambiguous on a number of fronts, specifically with respect to the story, and that's baked into the work itself. The function of this ambiguity is to make it easier for viewers to form emotional connections to their own respective situations, particularly those with a troubled childhood. Whether its a history of trauma, abuse, or perhaps even gender dysphoria, people with difficult lives connect to Petscop in a way that is entirely unlike anything else I've ever come across. And this sort of structural ambiguity helps foster that connection. I also think it's problematic to assume that just because some of the dialogue was improvised, that the entire thing was haphazardly thrown together. There's very clearly a discernible structure to the work. It's just not what you wanted to see. Just my two cents.

[@VuldEdone]

"But keep in mind, those were expectations you brought to the table." No. Take those who thought Petscop was an ARG. It wasn't just expectations they made up out of thin air. The main comparison they had was Ben Drowned; Petscop 2 was basically inviting viewer activity; the video description became part of the experience; loading times were hiding images. All of that conveyed the idea of an ARG. Likewise, that ARG idea was quickly defeated not by people reaching omniscience overnight. The lack of interaction, of hidden codes / messages, quickly made it clear it just wasn't one. And sure, the confusion lasted, especially during the hiatus culminating with the website debacle, but the main drive was impatience. Cause and bloody effect, here. So expecting Petscop to be a puzzle is not something falling from the sky. It is literally all over Petscop. It is what was there, your two cents can go to hell. It is, of course, also a "psychological" experience with its themes and what not, but to deny the puzzle part is to ignore narration 101. It's like telling me Columbo is only comedy, and not a detective story because "we know who is the killer and how he did it from the start". Just because you personally focused solely on comedy doesn't make the detective part void. And to continue with that Columbo analogy, if the episode ends with the killer still free -- and not just because Columbo let him/her go -- then people will feel like they've wasted their time. No matter the number of jokes inbetween. I won't argue on whether maintaining the ambiguity was necessary for that identification aspect -- nor for the suspenseful atmosphere -- but I will repeat the basics. Communication is not a simple coding-decoding process, we abandoned Shannon & Weaver quite a while ago. It is about monstration-interpretation, and what that means is any communication will have its dose of misunderstanding. It's unavoidable, you can't say "I saw a dog" without people having two distinct ideas of what the dog looked like. During a communication, participants can't eliminate all misunderstandings, but it's their responsibility to reduce it as much as possible. In a story context, communication is one-sided, meaning it's the author's responsibility to make sure the interpretation is as right as can be. He will put out less than what he wanted, because we can only encode so much, and people will see more than what is there, because that's how interpretation works. But what is there is the author's responsibility. To try and fabulate otherwise is to deny the very principle of literature. And my, by now what, ~3-6-ish paragraphs? should be indicative of how fed up I am of people ignoring such basic principles. So no. Expecting answers is not something viewers "brought to the table". It was something the story kept and kept promising and never delivered. Period.

[@NightmareMasterclass]

​@@VuldEdone Sorry, no. This is circular reasoning based on a very loaded notion of what constitutes a successful work of art. Specifically, you are begging the question. In other words, your conclusion is front-loaded into the premise of your own argument. You have no idea what the author was trying to communicate. Thus, you have no basis to claim they haven't done their due diligence to make sure the work is sufficiently expository. In fact, the very idea that communication is one of their goals is an assumption on your part, something you're imposing onto a complete stranger who may well just be trying to express their own internal struggles or perhaps convey a general mood or atmosphere as opposed to telegraphing some concrete resolution. Authorial "responsibility" with respect to providing expository information is not a "principle" of literature. I don't know where you got these dogmatic notions from, but there are plenty of examples of works which set up a mystery and subsequently do not resolve every single thread. If you're not a fan of that sort of thing, that's fine. But it is nonetheless true that your disappointment is based on your own expectations. You have an aesthetic preference which you are attempting to rationalize and make others adhere to. Instead of brow beating those who disagree with your view of art, just say it's not to your taste and move on!

[@VuldEdone]

​@@NightmareMasterclass First, it's not dogma, it's science. It's called literature. Second, there are plenty of examples indeed. One of them is Catghost: sets up a mystery, doesn't resolve every single thread. No complaint. Another is Lost: sets up a mystery, doesn't resolve every single thread. Massive backlash. So if you are done with platitudes, can we actually have a serious conversation here? Third, here is the formal representation of my reasoning: > 1. Petscop is a puzzle. > 2. Petscop's puzzle cannot be solved. > 3. If x is a puzzle, x's puzzle can be solved. > 4. From (1-3), Petscop's puzzle can be solved. > 5. From (2-4), contradiction Note that at no point whatsoever did the author's intent intervene in there. Note also that here (1-3) are premises. Of those, you are not questioning (2). Thank god. That leaves (1) and (3). You can try and argue (3) all you want but until you can defend that an unsolved mystery in Sherlock Holmes is satisfying, your argument defies conventions. I know that if you even read that far you'll try but do please spare us both the grinding process of genre rules and conventions. So it's really all about (1). Where does the author's intent intervene, then? > 5. From (2-4), contradiction. > 6. Tony intended for Petscop to be a puzzle. > 7. Tony didn't intend for Petscop to be a puzzle. > 8. If x intends y, y is. > 9. From (6-8), Petscop is not a puzzle. > 10. From (10-9), contradiction. > 11. From (7-8), Petscop is a puzzle. > 12. From (11-3), Petscop's puzzle can be solved. > 13. From (2-12), contradiction Note that here (6-7) are hypotheses, whereas (8) should actually be a premise (here it works as an hypothesis but eh). I'm also being loose with hypothesis scope but give me a break. What matters is that whatever Tony intended, the same result occurs, one premise is broken. But where I assume you assume (I am Kira) my logic is circular is on how I claim (1). Do we require (7) for this? Do we require (2) or (3) or any of the conclusions (5, 10, 13)? No. All you need is a good look at Petscop. From the literal puzzles in it to Paul's main activity (think 'identification' here) to the many invitations to 'investigate'. But let's stay scientific and ask the question differently. How could you demonstrate that it's not a puzzle? Conversely, how could I demonstrate that it's not just psychological? If you want to demonstrate that it's not a puzzle, find instances where Petscop discourages puzzle-solving. One argument could be how Paul solves puzzles on his own, with the viewer being rather passive when he does it. That could be the series actually telling its thick audience to lay off. Another argument could be when Paul looks at the calendars. While he does discuss the dates and deduces the years / events, his focus is more on the family, his relations, the whole psychological aspect; likewise when he captures Care A and reads Rainer's note, he will talk about Rainer, not what code it could contain. Another argument yet could be the sheer amount of abandoned leads. We have a random Naul in I think Petscop 7? Infamous to this day, never to be addressed again. Likewise for the girl shot in the face. Instead of criticizing it as piling up questions without answers, it could be argued to be the intended mechanic to tell people those questions are not meant to be answered. You can argue that Petscop is not a puzzle using the work's mechanisms. Meanwhile, how do I demonstrate that it's not just psychological? No, seriously, how do you want me to do that? What would not be circular, what would be acceptable to you, is there any method whatsoever you could allow? If you say there are none, you are saying literature doesn't exist. Fictional stories have no narrative mechanism, no technique, no structure, and the effects those sequences of words, pictures, sounds, animations, etc produce are unexplainable genius. If you say there is any, do tell me how, because I actually do not care in the slightest what people think Petscop is or what they think of Petscop. I do, however, care about people's ability to judge simple things. And in this case, you don't need a master in literature to check whether Petscop is about puzzles or not.

[@NightmareMasterclass]

@@VuldEdone There is nothing scientific about this hyperliteralist diatribe. Literary analysis isn't a science, and you are an aesthete masquerading as an objective critic. Just because Petscop gives the impression of a puzzle, that doesn't mean it is a literal puzzle. Again, you've front loaded the conclusion of your argument into the very premises. Again, if you feel Petscop doesn't resolve certain matters that it sets up, and this somehow constitutes a failure in artistic terms, that's fine. But this is a matter of artistic sensibilities, not "principles."

[@VuldEdone]

​@@NightmareMasterclass In short, you don't want to argue. You won't explain how my reasoning is circular, it just is by your decree. You won't give the conditions for an art piece to fail, you likely consider it never can. And of course you won't give me even a chance to try and demonstrate what this art piece does. I can assure you I also have quite a lot of bird names for you, but mostly I am just reminded that this video's goal is to move on, leave this whole sterile debate behind, not to give it a second wind and have endless bickering from little internet brats. It wasn't just foolish of me to think it could go anywhere, it was misplaced from the start. I don't mind being called a hack.

[@itsthevillainerd1351]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I´ve been saying the same thing for months and have always been shut up by the larger Petscop community. It´s a mantra of storytelling that the what-happens isn´t as important as how the story is told. That is usually the case, but Petscop was a new and innovative form of storytelling we´ve never seen before. It advertised itself as a mystery, a complicated mystery it takes us all to solve together. I heard that mentality a lot, that the theory channels are more enjoyable to watch than the videos themselves. These videos were not made to be entertaining like lets plays or any other youtube videos were. The enjoyment came from looking for clues and working as a detective watching videos. But now we know that there were no answers to be found. It´s like playing a complicated game because you were promised a prize if you win. Then you found out there is no prize. “Didn´t you have fun playing?” “Yes I did, but part of the fun was the anticipation of that prize, now I´m disappointed and feel cheated.” P.S.: Do you think Tony had any idea what the 5 words written on a chalkboard were supposed to be, or was that something else he just threw in? You can read as far is “Garalina, is…” Garalina is what?

[@taticatnineland]

Part of the problem is that I truly do believe that there is something coherent there. I don’t buy that nonsense about everyone is right and Tony was just goofing mostly. That doesn’t even make sense if you stop and think about it. Eleventy billion redditors probably looks intimidating from Tony’s side of the fence though, and I get that. What was that line about how if everything is art, then nothing is art? Well, if everyone’s interpretation is right, then no-one’s is. And here we are. I absolutely do believe that Tony knows what those five words are, as well as a whole lot more that we lost out on hearing because it’s hard to stand alone and get battered by people who don’t understand you.

[@itsthevillainerd1351]

@@taticatnineland Maybe, just MAYBE, the new project Tony is doing ties into Petscop somehow and gives us some answers...

[@taticatnineland]

Itsthe Villainerd Maybe. I hope so. I’m not going to count on it, though.

[@SisterRose]

Tbh I read into those tweets differently. I didn't take it as there was no master plan, rather than a lot of it was(somewhat obviously looking back on it) improvised and that a lot of people had all kinds of wild theories which maybe went deeper with the themes than he had first envisioned, i.e. in some ways they were able to go further with his intentions than they did. I do think a lot of it is modesty & imposter syndrome and not wanting to admit to him creating this compelling complicated universe and instead crediting the fans. And to Tony that ambiguous atmosphere was as important than that - which some fans may disagree with. It's not so much that answers don't exist, rather than he doesn't consider them the "solution" because the sense of mystery is too much a part of it. IMO your videos hold up too much for there not to have been a central plan. It's maybe a little looser than we first intended, but we also got confirmation that there is indeed a narrative and meaning there intended by Tony, and we've perhaps been getting at it, just sometimes extending the themes in ways Tony didn't predict.

[@aditsoma6902]

What was the point of Petscop, just give some "surreal horror" atmosphere to the viewer? Was it just a vibe? Ok , the mistery was never the point, but maybe we could have got this information from the actual Petscop videos, and not from random tweets by the creator? Also I think that a writer has all the rights to trick the audience and twist their expectation, but if he does that without any kind of motivation then what's the point? It just feels like an exercise in futility. Idk, maybe it would have worked better if the project was dropped all at once. Dragging this for years created a long set up with no pay off. And I'm still salty about that. I know that it's subjective and I'm glad that others are fine with how the series wrapped up, but as an artist who was deeply inspired by Petscop I felt almost betrayed. Also ok we get it Lynch does stories that are kinda surreal/without all the explanations but they usually are more accomplished, coherent and with a satisfying ending that leaves you with the feeling that and artist was actually trying to tell you something, and not just making you waste your time (I' m not including Twin Peaks in this because it's a project that was shaped by more writers, even if Lynch is one of the key creators and handled the third season all by himself with Frost).

[@VuldEdone]

From the author's perspective, he did say it was a mean to test new methods, an experiment before bigger projects. I don't know about dropping it early as he seems to have learned quite a lot in the late parts. And I mean, for "viewers" it is also an excellent "technological demonstrator", except here the technology is more narrative media and mechanisms. So it wasn't an exercise in futility either. But yeah, a lot of the narration itself went to waste.

[@aditsoma6902]

​ @VuldEdone ...well I totally missed the "experimentation" aspect of the project, you're 100% right. Maybe I was a bit too harsh. I still feel that Petscop could have been so much more than what it was tho, and the buzz and interest it created will be very difficult to obtain a second time. It could have been a real masterpice, but probably I was seeing more potential in the series that the author itself ever did. Anyway I hope Tony proves me wrong with his next project, I still have faith in him and I can't deny his talent and creativity.

[@shadow85553]

Death of the author is a good idea in concept but not an excuse for an unfinished story. I think people are a little confused when we hear that the story is up to how we individually perceive it. The experience and what we take from it are always going to be ours yes, but the text itself is not made up of our interpretations like we had some grand hand to play in the story and will never have sway on what is cannon no matter how hard we try. Though we have the power to interpret it’s the authors job to convey information so that there is something to be interpreted.

[@ChickpeaTwo]

It may be because I’m watching this after just waking up after sleeping for two hours but... I really thought you got “Paul” do lend his voice to the video. I had to check the description. I agree with everything you said in this video. I think Tony is a weird, creative genius but young and inexperienced or, more likely, disinterested in a building coherent storyline. I’ve been thinking a lot about the real life reveal of the creator of Petscop in relation to the game The Beginner’s Guide. Trying to push meaning onto something the game creator didn’t intend. But also... he did upload it all onto KZbin and advertise it in reddit, so what did he expect. I’m still half asleep and rambling, but the end of Petscop gives me the same feeling, emotionally, as getting dumped from a relationship you didn’t want to end.

[@samno911]

I know this feeling too well, it always ruins escape rooms and tv shows for me, finding a seemingly impossible puzzle to work out with the vain hope that maybe I would stumble upon something only to find out your jigsaw puzzle was actually two partial puzzles in the same box. Whether it's a behind the scenes commentary or a creator's tweets some of the magic is always lost in finding out the truth, but the hope of discovering an incredible mechanism beneath it all makes it all worth it. I have always wanted to make an ARG, but I couldn't ever seem to figure out the best way to do it, I was always so impressed with the existing ARGs and how they made it look effortless to keep people guessing for years. I look at problems logically and I do some writing as well (specifically video game writing) so I always start with the skeleton of a story and fill in from there. In my eyes the best way to make a mystery to be solved is to start with a complete picture, then tear a corner, burn out a face with a lighter, add a coffee stain or a stamp to give a clue where it might have been, that way there are guaranteed links, someone will eventually reverse engineer why things happened. That's the joy of mystery media, as each puzzle piece is slowly revealed the mental exercise is for you to arrange and rearrange the pieces until they fit, gathering your facts and making logical steps, but your channel shows you already know that. Thinking optimistically, maybe this will inspire others to create ARGs (I know it has for me) and worst case spite is an excellent motivator. You move a mountain one bucket at a time unless it mentions your mother and then you're dropping your next paycheck on explosives. - to everyone saying it was an art piece to show a mood, to me it is like finding a folder of damaged pages that constantly raised questions and inspired you to uncover the truth of the story, only to find out at the end it was actually just damaged collection of random poetry and all the time you spent thinking and working out ways to solve it were moot.

[@davidslevs]

Your videos were like the pannenkoek2012, for Petscop. Please keep doing what you like doing, you're really good at it and you lay it out very nicely. :)

[@robvalue]

I always felt like there were several very deliberate but different through-lines that very vaguely explained the backstory, and that any of those could be "correct". I feel bad for Tony, he was put in a very difficult situation, but I feel it would have been better to just refuse to provide any answers and certainly not to allude to there not being answers... even if there actually weren’t any. Fantastic channel!

[@maxmanly3122]

a very fair video to make. understand and agree with what you're saying. have followed a lot of petscop channels to hear different interpretations but those lose some of their weight when the artists interpretation doesn't seem to exist. keep on making videos and hopefully you'll find a new passion! I think petscop really was the friends we made along the way

[@orvilleredenpiller338]

K but I’m still solving Petscop doe.

[@tizza963]

I think you are absolutely correct. It’s a god damn shame because if everything ended up connecting and everything had a answer Petscop would be the best piece of media ever.

[@mojo_pohl]

I had such mixed feelings about the reveal. On one hand I felt the same way as you, but on the other hand I was excited that I could now follow Tony and be able to see his future works.

[@LIMECAINE]

For what reason is it less beautiful to find an answer, rather than the answer? Imagine a jigsaw puzzle. If you make a completely different picture with all the same pieces but was unintended, is that not art?

[@mauricebottomley7623]

Your channel is god tier Sock Muppet, can't wait for you to branch out into other topics!

[@anonomyous65]

I respectfully disagree with 90% of the points you have made. Petscop is a masterclass in surrealist horror. You don't have to look far at all to see common tropes of surrealist horror that are extremely common in David Lynch films, some of the best examples of the genre (The idea of turning into someone else to understand trauma, someone else controlling your body, an omniscient, seemingly all powerful malicious evil character that only threatens from a distance, repressed trauma expressed through the world around the main character, even something as innocuous as speaking to a microphone as if it is another person.) Because of this, he has seemed to innately internalize what makes surrealist horror so good(specifically, in my opinion, the best tropes of David Lynch films). If you ever look up interviews with David Lynch, or other eccentric surrealist artists, you will see that they categorically refuse to answer certain simple questions about their work, often saying things like "I don't even know the answer myself". That's not because they don't know the answer; that's because they know the answer and they understand that it's very disappointing. Surrealist art is always highly ambiguous on purpose, that's one of the main things about surrealism. Tony coming up with the dialogue of the story on the fly isn't unprofessional or lazy; Paul is quite literally experiencing what is happening for the first time and it only works because Tony does a VERY good job at literally becoming Paul during the recordings. That's what makes Petscop entertaining on a base level at least for me, the incredible acting skills of Tony. Just because he didn't write anything down doesn't mean he did everything in one take, either. Tony is human. Humans stutter and stammer and flub their lines sometimes. Tony probably sat down and recorded for a very long time, writing the script not with a pen and paper but his voice, and making the final draft during editing. What I'm trying to say is, just because there was no paper script, does not mean that he is irresponsible enough to leave in a blatant continuity error such as a cat meowing if there shouldn't be one. Ambiguity is what makes art good. I know it sounds silly for me to keep bringing up David Lynch, but what makes his films so amazing is the fact that there simply isn't one correct answer to the story. David Lynch films are not puzzles to solve, they are movies to make you think about life. Petscop is not an actual game that you can clear, it is an experiment in storytelling. The fact that Tony does not have a specific "answer" or "explanation" for everything or even a majority of things does not make Petscop bad. We are all going to die one day and the earth will explode. NOTHING inherently has meaning in this world because it will all disappear. Art has no inherent meaning. Because of this, the only things in the life that have meaning are things that have meaning TO YOU. There's a reason that one of the most famous art pieces of all time is just a urinal with initials on it: pieces like that pull back the curtain and show exactly what little meaning art has in isolation. The only thing that gives art meaning is your personal interpretation. What makes Petscop amazing is that it has provided just enough information for Petscop to have a different, personal meaning to different people. Tony saying that Petscop means something different to him isn't a sign of laziness, Tony doesn't want to make different interpretations "non-canon" because that would defeat the purpose of his work. At the end of the day, I feel some of your criticisms are valid. He was under a lot of pressure when his personal Twitter was leaked, so that led him to make some bad decisions which pulled back the curtain on how much Petscop was planned a little too much. That doesn't mean that Petscop has no meaning TO YOU. Not the uploader of the video, YOU the one reading this. Does Petscop help you deal with trans feelings? Does Petscop maybe help you come to terms emotionally with remembering a former childhood friend or family member that went missing? Does Petscop help you explore in a safe place past trauma related to abuse, or just the anxiety and stress of being a child in the middle of a divorce? It might not for you, but these are all things that Petscop does for other people. And that's the beauty of Petscop, I could sit here all day and think of as many interpretations of it as I wanted to, and I probably wouldn't even scratch the surface of what it means to others. Making art this ambiguous, yet meaningful, is incredibly hard and just because it's not perfect isn't a reason to get discouraged.

[@Fantasticanations]

I like your comment. Mine makes a lot of similar points.

[@anonomyous65]

@@Fantasticanations Yours articulates them a lot better, probably because I wrote this at 3am before bed lol. It's very nice to see someone understand my sleep deprived ramblings!

[@Fantasticanations]

@@anonomyous65 I wrote mine in the same state haha!

[@hackerdackers8832]

i agree 100%

[@areallycoolhat5427]

Personally, I liked it. I think it was kind of abrupt, but it's the good ending; Paul was finally free

[@willferrous8677]

Joseph Anderson described this kinda poor writing in his Fallout 4 - One Year Later retrospective review very well, to paraphrase: The audience may think "Oh wow, that's very interesting, i wonder how they're gonna explain THAT" in truth, the author was thinking: "Oh wow, that's very interesting, i wonder how *I'M* gonna explain that" Relatedly, Joe also sorted media(stories, games, etc) into 4 categories. Consider that, firstly, the story itself can be simple or complex, and secondly, the delivery of said story can be simple or complex; we get these 4 categories: 1)Simple story told Simply: Nothing wrong with simple, found in kid's media or dumb films. People like these for a reason 2)Complex story told Simply: If you wish you can always just enjoy the surface level of the story, but if you really wanted to, there is something deeper there to look into. (Moby Dick can just be a story about a captain hunting a whale, but it can also be about plenty of other things) 3)Complex story told complexly: Masterpieces or train wrecks. The obfuscation needs to be WORTH it, that the added difficulty in reading the text should in some way enrich the complex story beneath it somehow (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) 4)Simple story told complexly: It's probably possible to do this well, but odds are this is just the lazy way out, hiding a throwaway piece of nothing behind riddles and puzzles. Basically the author putting on airs at the detriment of the audience. As they will eventually figure out there is nothing really concrete to "get". You wished for a complex story told complexly, you get nothing for all your troubles, good day sir.

[@polimpiastro9857]

I agree with you. Many people on the subreddit tried to justify Tony, but I felt a void. Giving answers or your take on your own work does not detract from people's interpretations.

[@adi_baa]

Sending this to people now when I say thst petscop was amazing and dull. This addresses all of the points I feel about how Tony sent the series off poorly and how it ruined the mystery and immersion.

[@DbossHasGrit]

I feel for him, hes just a creator trying to create. Sometimes, things dont end up the way we imagine. I knew about Petscop when it was happening, but I just recently have been trying to properly wrap my head around this story, and its a shame I dont think I will

[@peachjam8828]

Wow, your impression was so spot on, for both Tony and Ben. Made me giggle!

[@RPGuillem]

This is your best video, in my opinion, and I've seen all of them. You've put so much effort in this passion in your channel and, despite the ending and Tony in Twitter, you've gathered the calm and honesty needed to understand a situation like this in your own way. I think Tony made a monster without even trying, with Petscop. Thank you for making this video and please, keep sharing your content with us!

[@stoplight2554]

ehhh i dont agree 1. the small change to the description was needed to make the reddit not be paranoid about toby being a game jacker. i remember when the nifty vid was first posted it was flagged by an auto mod as 'known game jacker' 2. just because something isn't a puzzle doesn't mean its not cohesive. is rabbits by david lynch a puzzle? no. you can search and search but there aren't any conclusions. there are bits that connect, but they will never form a whole story that follows a perfect series of events. for games what comes to mind is OFF or yume nikki. OFF gives you a story and world, and an ending, but there's no definitive meaning or interpretation of the surrealistic world displayed, you get the how but are refused the why. yume nikki throws 'vibes' at you, has no text and no real plot, but still gets across its themes of isolation. even if a work lacks a plot that follows all the way though with no missing information, it can still be made cohesive via its themes or atmosphere. petscop is rich with atmosphere, and has plenty of themes that we can pick out - nostalgia, childhood trauma, identity, cycles of abuse, family but when you watch something like david lycnh's rabbits, or play something like OFF you probably dont come away with 'well this is incomplete'. so what made petscop different? well the ugly truth is almost no artist has a plan for every little loose end. some loose ends they may not even realize exist. they focus on the things that speak to them then fill in spots in between. this is normal. what makes a GREAT artist is the ability to TRICK the audience into thinking they had everything planned out from the start, and that there are definitive answers to be found. then simply allow users apophenia to tie up those loose ends themselves, either as individuals or through collective theorizing. tony.. didnt get that chance to fool us. we barged in one day on his twitter at random and he just chose to roll with it. i dont think he can be blamed for that. we were insatiable.

[@troin3925]

Apparently, Tony said in an interview that David Lynch, more specifically Inland Empire, was his major inspiration.

[@KoffeeDoggo]

Happy to know that youre fine.

[@sammytim3520]

Making something that really doesn’t make any sort of sense for the purpose to make something creative.

[@veraivanova7601]

Another weird thing about the storytelling is "the website". Tony tweeted that he really wrote the entire website thing, (with a development chronicle or something) but decided not release it (apparently because it gave away too much). But at that point it was very obvious from the narrative itself that there should be "the website" somewhere, and many people were looking for it, and it was a very bad idea etc. Still it was a predictable reaction. There should've been a website, and it wasn't made 100% clear that there won't be one.

[@polybiusou]

i get what tony was going for with "it's an abstract piece of art and everyone's interpretations are valid", but it seems more like tony thinks the story and what he's created doesn't matter at all.. which is disheartening to the people it does matter to.

[@mysticete248]

Personally i think its important to realize tony's a person, and he can present his work however he wants. if you've ever undergone a years-long creative process like this, with the types of goals he has in mind, things like this are expected. petscop gained a much larger and more dedicated audience than tony was expecting, and from that there becomes a sort of dissonance between your intention for your art and how its perceived. he never expected people to look at it under a microscope to the degree the fans are, and i dont feel like its fair to criticize him for it.

[@AnimeCloud22]

Tbh you come off as really whiny and entitled in this even if you're saying you give all due respect to Tony. Just because Petscop doesn't have one answer doesn't mean that any of the time put into analyzing it or looking for the answer was "meaningless", it just means it's has more than one meaning. That's art. It's why interpreting art is so important and why Tony said all interpretations are true in their own way. Petscop isn't a puzzle, it's a piece of art meant to start conversation and generate questions. If anything you'd think it would open more avenues to talk about the game from because you don't have to worry about being "right". I think what you have to say about Petscop could still be extremely valuable and illuminating, so I hope you don't get too discouraged by Tony or by anyone in the community lamenting that it's "all over"

[@bezoekers]

This video is a prime example of cognitive dissonance. OP spent years working under the assumption that he was solving some kind of grandiose puzzle, when in reality he was just reading between the lines on 24 pages out of a 1000 page book. And what does a person do when they found out they've wasted their time? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, etc. I hope OP has reached Acceptance by now.

[@samno911]

If you are given a mystery, what else are you to do but try and solve it? If you are given a box of parts and a broken machine with fragments of instructions you can only attempt to piece it together, and finding out in the end there was no thread connecting it all you doubt everything you have done, and everything you will do in the future, so it goes from an inviting challenge to a desk piece.

[@Lyo2323]

I think he is going to make a new game and that new series is probably going to put the puzzle together idk tho just guessing

[@Lt_Gonzo]

Simply knowing that there were answers would have been enough to me. Knowing that there was an answer to be found would have made all that time worth. I honestly thing telling everyone the answers would have been a bad move because leaving them for people to narrow down and figure out is what keeps fans engaged. But... learning that there aren't any answers? Solving the mystery was the fun. But now there isn't a mystery to be solved

[@NurOnVr]

this kinda makes me sad, but i learned an important lesson. what is that lesson you ask? i have no idea. i just know that its somewhere inside of me that means something to me. the reason why i think its sad is because 1. i was hoping to find a cool yt channel from tony to see if he still has a life online(couldnt find anything) 2. i was gonna see if there was a REAL answer to why petscop stopped making videos. Because game theory just explained the references the game had to offer about the real life event. Not what the games entintion/purpose was. Now that i know that all petscop theories are real, and have somekind of timeline in the story. There really is no REAL answer to why petscop even exists. It was a cool ARG that carried through the 2010s. but its just depressing on how petscop stopped because of self doubt, and not knowing that the project would be popular. Jeez, i just hope that another ARG amazing as this one doesnt come out to end. As this one.

[@NurOnVr]

i dont think i can ever come back to my petscop phase knowing that petscop doesnt have an "answer"

[@p1xelat3d]

noooo I am so sad

[@superwhizz114]

Nice to hear from you again!

[@aguuaaa]

Love your content, underrated channel should try other ganes or creepy pastas

[@KDrop84]

I rewatched petscop yesterday. Funny timing.

[@onooooooooooo]

Thank you for making this.

[@VuldEdone]

Amused to see you too were from the Game Theory wave. Tony is right to say he can't access "our" Petscop. Petscop has a story only he has access to, and that story prevents him from getting our experience. He is, however, wrong to think keeping the ambiguity is so important. Even if you experience it only once, maintaining all ambiguity at the end will only lessen the experience. Now you can give ambiguous answers -- like Monkey Island 2 did, for example -- but without answers the ambiguity becomes hollow. A very lengthy random jumpscare. It gets worse upon repeating the experience. Ambiguity wasn't generating the tension: what it could hide was what generated expectations, curiosity, surprises... and "knowing" there is no answer, it won't generate any of that. Rewatching Petscop is like walking through an empty museum. On the opposite, giving answers would have only maintained the experience. As said, those answers can be ambiguous, and people could just accept them or, encouraged by that one path, seek more. But even if they were clear-cut, they wouldn't answer everything. It wouldn't need to answer the origin of those pieces -- why would it -- and we could try that. It wouldn't solve Hudson -- please never solve Hudson for us -- leaving one more corner of theories. Catghost gave plenty of answers, plenty enough to satisfy, yet left many mysteries for people to solve. What I think is, Tony expects his answers to look too small, too simple or too "selfish" to ever satisfy us. "It was just that?" or "that's dumb" is probably the most feared reactions someone who poured years of his/her life in a project could get. And if anything, again, we will never truly see it the way he does. Keeping the veil preserves a precious story. Or, well, that's my theory.

[@gathor_]

welcome back

[@gmolinacarvajal]

Tony is the David Lynch of youtube web series.

[@coreyrachar9694]

Yeah... That IS pretty disappointing. Kind of a slap in the face for anyone caught up in the hype and even more so for those doing the heavy lifting and actually researching and analyzing it.

[@tizza963]

Amazing video thank you!

[@SisterRose]

Rewatching this nearly a year later, I feel like this is similar to how I felt with Mr. Robot and how it's ARG went nowhere, and every single mystery in it was meaningless. Only difference is not many people actually criticised it :(

[@AniematedSteph]

Tony chose to reveal himself, with the tweet “I made Petcop :) on November 13th, 2019. People were rightfully suspicious, but they eventually found Nifty through his Twitter, then the rest of the dominos fell.

[@2side882]

Old video but I find it strange you were essentially upset you forced yourself to waste numerous hours trying to solve something that didnt ask to be solved in the first place. They were a series of videos presented to an audience and at no point was it indicated to the viewer that they should be actively participating in a sort of "alternate reality game". This was an assumption taken on your part, and your dismay at an artists creator feeling comfortable to talk about their work is really strange. If you didn't want to hear about the creative process maybe you shouldn't have investigated it? All of your grievances with petscop begin and end with "I assumed this was an ARG and i'm mad I can't complete it." I could understand simply not enjoying the story for being ambiguous and lacking resolution but it's a bit immature to say that it has been ruined because it isn't congruent with your established notion of the concept of petscop and how it should work and play out

[@frogginet5353]

Who did you get to do the Tony/Paul impression? It sounds really authentic.

[@casiopea2161]

it was sock muppet

[@dakaridakara2045]

manfalldown h a h a

[@fhdream]

I want to encourage you to look at anything I myself and perhaps NMMC have said about Tony's connection to the literature of David Foster Wallace. Petscop is an exercise in post-modernism. It was never meant to have cohesion. In my opinion, it was supposed to convey the chaos created by psychological traumas involving captivity. It is perhaps similar to the work of Knausgard in this way. It is a great innovation in the realm of nihilism because it creates positivity and solidarity out of horror and isolation in both its essence and its transmission. People who expected Petscop to have a plot... I just never understood that.

[@jackorlove4055]

The abstract art angle of everybody and anybodys interpretation is correct is usually a massive creative cop out. On one hand Petscop is a brilliant invention, it is intriguing and inspires discussion; that is what great art does. However there is something to be said of intent. It is entirely possible, even in the medium of abstract art, to create something that makes no sense. Take any famous abstract painting and each & every brush stroke is deliberate. The entire piece, no matter how much of a mess it may seem, is still a cohesive, deliberate creation at its core. There is always a reason, a fundamental truth or point. Having no point, will be the point being made, for example. Your analysis is spot on in my opinion-- while there is so much creativity, passion and brilliance present in Petscop, there are definitely moments of amateurishness. There are moments of laziness, and perhaps hastiness. If his intention was to make something ambiguous and abstract, he did a poor job in doing so. He did not properly bake his ideas and executed them haphazardly-- to me it seems more like a cop out on that front. If he had put a LITTLE more thought into what he was doing, Petscop could've possibly been one of the greatest visual arts piece in history.

[@jadendafinger]

ooh! He changed his pfp!

[@AlanHernandez-jg1xv]

wait, who is the guy that narrates the tony tweets?

[@sockmuppet568]

me

[@howdypartner8958]

Paul Shapiro

[@VuldEdone]

It has been almost a year now, and really this video is just for you to move on, but I do still feel like ranting about the "it's not a puzzle" argument. 1. Paul is talking to his friend, who at that point was basically the audience. In episode 2 he is literally offering to investigate it. That is a direct call to solve it. An investigation is exactly that. 2. Paul's whole activity is solving puzzles. The library, the House, etc. By identification the viewer's activity is puzzle-solving. The whole progression is through puzzle-solving. 3. Watching the treadmill was weird by itself, but there is undeniable added value by solving its puzzle, aka the synch mechanic. Now Finger Salad had (3), but Finger Salad had neither of (1-2). It was disjointed one-shots where the character literally made things up as he went. To make an analogy, just like you can only watch a video, you can only do one thing with video games: press buttons. What you press buttons for is what matters, and sure enough you can get different things from games. Some play Starcraft like Sim City. Some play Zelda like a hack'n'slash. Some play Hearts of Iron like an RPG and so on but there is no denying what the games were designed for in the first place. Just because I spend more time in Fallout 4 building settlements than exploring / killing / talking doesn't mean Fallout 4 is a Tycoon. 70% of its mechanics are about spilling blood. Likewise, movies will go for comedy, horror, romance, action, etc irrelevant of what someone might be turning the experience into. What it was designed for, what its (movie) mechanics were built to do, is different from what you took from it. It is just as true for TV series, and for YT series and videos. A let's play can focus on skill, speed or silliness, on character or roleplay, on completionism, discovery, etc. Petscop is no different. Most of Petscop's mechanics are about puzzle-solving. We call it horror or creepypasta (and keep thinking Paul to has died every two videos), but it is really closer to a detective story, focused essentially on curiosity, with the "murder scene" being a whole game. Once you realize Paul is actually never at risk it stops being about survival, and it's not even that "psychological" -- though that's clearly an angle -- because all in all Paul remains rather equal to himself all throughout. It's creepy, sure, but the focus from video to video is on how to progress in the game. And that's done through solving its puzzles. People might be confusing "puzzle-solving" with ARG. No, Petscop was never an ARG. The viewer never had to really solve anything for the story to progress. But viewers, when they identify with the characters, when they wonder what happened or what comes next, are active too. And with Petscop, because it is the questions Paul is asking himself and the situations that keep occurring, down to figuring out who the family is and what they want, that activity is puzzle-solving.

[@APaleDot]

As a counter point, the "puzzle-solving" in Petscop is far from conventional, and becomes ever more obtuse and non-sequiter as the series progresses, requiring leaps of logic and information gained outside the game, or known only to Paul. Even the audience is asked to make more and more absurd connections between parts of the series and try to "solve" these correlations, often looking for meaning in randomness and arguing among themselves about whether or not a given connection is even a puzzle to be solved. I think therefore, it is entirely within the paradigm of Petscop to leave the final mystery ambiguous and obtuse and requiring some sort of assumption or theory that the audience is bringing themselves to "solve" Petscop. This ultimately results in there being no _one_ true answer to Petscop, because any answer requires some sort of leap of logic that can't be justified within the series itself, in exactly the same way solving the puzzles in the game requires leaps of logic based on things Paul believes, rather than clues hidden within the game.

[@stevie2.040]

Fuck 'Death of the Author' is pretty much the TL:DR for this video, and I wholeheartedly agree. Write a story, not a painting.

[@mauricebottomley7623]

Hope you are doing good Sock Muppet!

[@Spaghetti-dinner]

Ambiguity is fine idk what you’re issue is lol I still see petscop as a perfect art piece

[@Xesh]

big oof.

[@theskycavedin]

I think Tony got to a certain point with the story and didn't know what to do. So he put it more to the side because he didn't want to or couldn't come up with a more definite ending or outcome. Maybe he only ever had a few parts of the story worked out. I always hated when TV show writers made it up as they went along. Always makes for a lesser story.

[@klaud7311]

Nice impression, but it feels mocking.