Object Show Community
Out of all independent animation communities out there, the Object Show Community (OSC for short) is by far the oldest growing one on YouTube. It is the name given to the general fanbase that grew beyond the Battle for Dream Island community and now it focuses on making object shows or talking about them a part of the community, though some make real life competitions too!
Origin
The OSC is often credited to have originated through the popularity of two object shows, Battle for Dream Island and Inanimate Insanity. The slowly-growing audience given to the community originating from these two web shows (first released on January 1, 2010 and April 1, 2011 respectively). The main reasons why BFDI became popular, attracting and forming a kind of audience that inspired them to make their own.[1]
Humble beginnings
The origins of the term "Object Show Community" or "OSC" are unknown. Some people such as JoanStar and Wuggolo in The OSC Discord Server have estimated that it could have been coined as far back as 2013. Much of the Object Show Community's early history is built upon the early practices of making object shows but the earliest controversies were AnimationEpic hacking in September 2011, Derpy Hooves incident from August 2012 and the exposure of AnimationArea, a prominent figure in the OSC, between July and August 2018. Sometimes the OSC goes through massive changes when especially Battle for Dream Island, Inanimate Insanity or any other show in existence introduces something new and the community will follow it, which is often called a revolution.
Today
During the pandemic and according to Google Trends statistics from 2018, the OSC started to grow to popularity with brief characters from that community even appearing in real life. The community during Total Drama's return to the air on television possibly made the Object Show Community grow even further, though this drew the attention of bad actors such as LorenTzel, Freesmart and worse such as Derrick Animations.[2]
The OSC went through chaos unfolding between July and August 2024 with unexpected turns of controversial events such as AnimationStudiosOSC's exposure, the return of OdysseyTen, and more online. While the summer seasons on previous years were terrible, it wasn't even that chaotic before this one.[3]
Fan activities
Most members in the community are kids or teenagers just to watch object shows, have fun or just chat around in general in most subreddits or Discord servers.
Majority of people that care about contributing themselves either make an object show or decide to do a camp, originally created by Cary Huang with Ten Words of Wisdom (TWOW). The people either mostly work as voice actors, but there is also animators, composers, revisionists, artists and more such as writers and directors (mostly the creator of the show).
They also advertise their contents through some object show servers on Discord or subreddits such as r/ObjectShows, either to watch them such as videos or episodes, or to call and form a crew to develop it.
ObjectCon takes the advertising in a whole new level for conventions, while the 48 Hour OSC Film Festival shows the shorts made by the community for attention or quality. Speaking of events, Texas Object Hangout and the yearly BFDI events, and one thing in common is that they take place in real life.
Reception and criticism
The OSC has been either seen as one of the oldest active communities out there on YouTube or the weirdest animation community on the Internet, due to the uniqueness and creativity or repetitive plotlines in the Competitional genre.
Some people inside the community criticize the sub-community on BFDI due to the toxicity and hatred amongst fans and others, notably some incidents in osctwt and at the old Battle for Dream Island wiki back on Fandom. Some people trace this toxicity back to 2019.
The community, like very large fanbases, were criticized by the amounts of toxicity and drama around their surroundings, mainly during summer 2024 as it was quoted as "falling". Some dramas that mostly take place are either on the HTwins Central, The OSC Discord Server or Object Show Artist Server.
