I have no clue if you read these comments, but I wanted to say thanks. This is the best Petscop coverage on the internet that I've been able to find. I had to un-Patreon but just wanted to say thank you for everything and I hope you will make more content about Petscop if it strikes you as interesting/fun. This is more than enough, be assured!
hentropy Ahhh yes, friend, I know that pain well; I too have owned (and still own) Saturns and Dreamcasts throughout the years. They tried their best, but they didn't succeed. ;_;7
It's quality work. David notices stuff I do not notice myself, as much as I fancy myself an investigator of the strange and unknown works of ergodic and otherwise endlessly allusional pieces of work (such as House of Leaves). He's consistently both surprising and thorough.
Triangle face is mike. As it says in his tomb stone, “mike was a gift” Paul censored one of the things that came out of a present early on in the series. If you look closely, you can see a spinning red pointy thing, similar to the guys head. (Also, the red triangle is used as an instrument, but I don’t know about that.
*Intro ****0:00* • New channel description + "the proprietors" 7:34 *Petscop 11 ****10:55* • Paul's Room 11:15 • The "frozen house" 14:39 • The calenders 17:07 • The demo 20:15 • Back to the house 23:12 • The bedroom 25:59 • Care A 28:17 • Back to the demo 29:22 *Petscop 12 **30:38* • Belle 31:38 • 153822 hours 32:03 • "Happy birthday Belle" 33:16 *Petscop 13 **34:02* • The blue tool 34:36 • Back to the gift plane 35:24 • Roneth 36:02 • Congratulations 37:02 • The knocks 37:20 *Final thoughts **38:34* (Note: these are estimated times and may be off by a few seconds)
Also the Care turning blue reminds me of a Scientology Documentary i once saw in which an Ex member describes something line of: "we put the guy directly under the air conditioner and set it on full until he turned almost blue" ... maybe she is being tortured by the air conditioner in some way?
At 16:40 you refer to the "murmur", it happens when Paul comes in contact with the shadowy figures. It's my belief that the shadowy figures are adults in the home. Notice that they are larger than Paul? The murmuring, like the vague shadows themselves, are meant to represent a memory of the adults and their conversations from the perspective of a now adult Paul and his fading memories of that day. Just my interpretation anyway.
I think people increased the volume of that "Murmur" and it went alone the lines of this: "So you are here to tell me that that's Tiara and That's Paul" I don't know about the beginning, but at the end you could clearly hear Tiara and Paul. Tiara was the original form of Belle, Belle is a "reborn" Tiara, just like Paul is a reborn Care(unconfirmed)
It might not have been intended the way I see it but I think Marvin said “Funny, ha ha” in reaction to Paul’s first attempt at saying hello (Hell), take what you will from that.
Late as fuck with this reply but we have to remember paul isnt real. All the gameplay is planned out, and things that arent going to be shown in the video, i assume, at least, wont be programmed in. This explanation makes a lot of sense with that in mind, id say.
I'm going to bet that the censored object in Paul's room is something used to represent his disability. That could be a unique identifier. I also have noticed allusions to machine learning, which I think is worth a further look. Great video, as always!
Regarding the demo sequences: many Playstation games had demos in them, if you simply waited at the title screen, a demo would play. They often had a flashing "demo" text on them. I remember waiting on the title screen of the game Hercules and sure enough, a demo of the game would play. But, if you waited long enough you would get to see a small excerpt of the movie nowhere to be seen in the actual game. What I think is happening is that Paul is recording himself waiting at the "press start" screen, the same way he recorded himself waiting for something to happen while observing the windmill. Maybe some uninteresting demos would play at first, but maybe if you wait long enough, you'll get to see the demos shown in Petscop 11. That would explain why is there no talking, he's doing something else. Now, I have no idea why they play after he enters the bathroom, maybe it's the proprietors editing the footage? The way these demos are made is simple, the developers record their keystrokes while playing the game. When they want to play the demo they put the game in a special state where the input is disabled, a flashing "demo" text is shown on screen, and let the recorded keystrokes control the game. There is a glitch in Crash Bandicoot 3 letting you control the game while in the demo mode. (crashbandicoot.wikia.com/wiki/Bye_Bye_Blimps_Demo_Easter_Egg) Maybe when he talks over the "demo" footage it's simply a glitch, the game keeps thinking it's in the demo mode?
If you ever thought about it, the Petscop logo is pink, and the tool that changes from the base color, to pink, could be the game itself talking, pleading to be turned off for being on for so long.
I personally don't think it's something as ominous as that, but I think the pink logo and the tool changing pink are definitely the interesting parts. It's the same as when Paul enters the school with Marvin, where did Marvin go? Maybe he's the green tool while Paul leads around. Marvin's head is green and Paul followed Marvin into the school, which is the only thing I'm basing it off of. The tools themselves might be their own entities instead of "Ghosts".
A few other people probably already pointed it out - but the loading screen displays a chair... in front of a piano. And man, you left a lot out of this... Rainer's implied fate, the probability that Marvin is the mentioned brother of Rainer (implying that Michael A was deceased after his disappearance), the nature of "the needles piano"...
@@sofiemagko5911 the needles piano is the pointy "instrument" that Marvin asks the player to play in the school, telling them to stop after the notes fall out of tune
I think when I first watched Petscop I immediately thought of abusive cycles. But I couldn't really place it, except the fact that I have dealt with them. I'm glad there is some evidence for it now.
You covered everything (and more!) But I’d like to add something: the bathroom scene, 19:59 and then 23:40, Paul made THE SAME movements and says the same things..is in sync. But there’s not the block on the top of the tub, of course. And he says ‘it’s like a deja vu ‘. It looks like he doesn’t know what happened. Love everything, thanks! Keep it up with the good work.
i always thought it was weird that paul doesnt seem to know what christmas is in 11. he questions why the 25th is highlighted on both calendars. i always found it weird that no one brings it up.
SüccoJones Christmas isn't celebrated the exact same way around the world. For example: I live in Austria where "Christmas day" simply doesn't exist. The american Christmas Eve is our entire christmas. We have a nice lunch and dinner with family and exchange gifts in the evening. By December 25th Christmas is officially over. It didn't seem odd to me since I'm just used to it that way (I was so confused when I found out about Americans stretching Christmas out into two days, to be honest :'D) but I get that it would seem weird to people in the US.
"Dissociative amnesia occurs when a person blocks out certain information, usually associated with a stressful or traumatic event, leaving him or her unable to remember important personal information."
@@evershadowvii7848 As an American, there's really not. Maybe in some sects of Christianity, but not as a whole. It's mostly just Christmas and Christmas Eve for the main celebrations, with general "holiday festiveness" for the month of December (ie decorations, stores playing Christmas music, etc).
I've seen all your vids on petscop, but this one, I couldn't avoid leaving you some long-deserved praise. That abuse, PTSD, & categorical discussion was beyond brilliant. You really know your stuff, & it's exactly what I've needed to hear for a very long time. Thank you for being so dedicated to explaining Petscop. Every minute of this hour & 6 minutes was well worth the listen, & to anyone reading the comments who is wondering if they should listen to the whole thing--please do.
"The game has desensitized paul to certain morally dubious actions, and now it's blurring the line between the game and reality itself." Yeah, this is actually terrifying.
I just finished watching the video and I appreciate how different a perspective and conclusion you came to, in contrast to game theory, who in a way, turned the story into a black and white narrative. While I still enjoyed MatPat's video, your videos on Petscop are much more philosophical and intellectually mature, in a way. Thank you for the time you put not only into Petscop analysis series, but also all the other analysis videos you have uploaded, which I also thoroughly enjoy.
This consistent idea of the game having to consistently run made me think about how the series may end up in. It makes me think that at some point in the series Paul's save may be deleted at somepoint. Also, Paul says that his mother owned the game before, did she play the game just like how paul is playing it, leaving it on.
Righty tighty lefty loosy alongside not opening doors could imply breaking and entry, removing screws from another entrance rather than going through a door. It would make sense alongside other theories that suggest Paul is being conditioned to become Marvin’s successor. That he had to perform the rotation, using his FULL CONCENTRATION to do so, which allowed him to open the door and progress, a detachment of emotion to the task he was just doing to reach further into the game, the next step of conditioning
Rainer, like you said, also seems to share symptoms of mental disarray. When Paul is in the house and the repeated references to the bathroom occur, it could be like the following. Rainer gives the gift of the game as he is the creator. He may possibly want to alert other family members. He asks for the bathroom (stretch here) and when they say yes, it’s clear that they don’t mind what he does. So hear me out, he goes to the bathroom to kill himself. And that this was his plan all along. When the game says fuck me also and check your bathroom now, he has planned his death due to the overhanging remorse over his brother’s death and how he should’ve prevented it. The whole scenario with Care only shows how he was trying to be there for him but bc he was locked in a metaphorical closet, he could not “care” for his brother. Or that his “care” only came too late. It left the room
clowninyourcloset Nah lol, I just like to speculate. When ambiguity presents itself in the form of a game or story, it’s really fun to try and pick it apart. I mean back when FNAF wasn’t entirely consumed by it’s awful fan base (around the release of the second/ third game), it was fun to criticise those games too. Although I will say, it’s unfair to link both these subjects as Petscop is far more developed and intricate than the latter, as every detail seems to have meaning
Absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much David. The meta-textual properties of Petscop are truly mind-blowing. This series genuinely puts Neon Genesis Evangelion to shame. Ridiculous amount of care and effort has been put into this work. Also, a point of note from a student of cognitive science here. It's not that the class-differences are being ignored by the perpetrators of Transhumanism, on the contrary. However the general assumption about class-differences and the subsequent class-struggle is that it's based in *resource scarcity.* The technological singularity envisioned by the Transhumanist is the theoretical point at which we eliminate resource scarcity making economy a truly *positive sum equation.* The differences between us as humans, as far as society is concerned boils down to the difference in how much "stuff" we have in relation to each other. These differences exist because "stuff" is simply limited. If you remove the limit, you remove the difference and voila, no class-struggle! Of course the issue here is that until we reach the point of metaphysical death of humanity as we know it and transformation into transhumanity, technology will only exasperate our human flaws (which is not to say that as trnashumans we'd be flawless, perfect beings, we're gonna have flaws of our own, but we can't even speculate on what those will be), the trick is to reach the technological singularity before we reach the point where our flaws become so exasperated that technology halts its own progress. Which, sadly, is very possible. This is the modern re-imagination of the SETI problem of advanced civilizations. Initially the assumption was that advanced civilizations would "blow themselves up". But looking at technological trends it's more likely that it's not gonna be nearly as dramatic. It's entirely possible that advanced civilizations simply reach a point where their technology stops progressing, having turned said civilizations into self-perpetuating, dystopian nightmares. And if that's the case... Let's hope we never get a signal from one of them. Not because they'd be evil or anything. But because they'd be a mirror we very much would not want to look into.
i have some minor comments about your interpretation of the events on screen. they do not affect the spirit of your analysis but i feel they are important distinctions nonetheless. (1) i believe the clock in the driving demo (at 20:30 in the video) is actually rotated to orient the minute hand upwards: the four larger dots that mark the cardinal directions are not in their usual places, and the whole clock face ticks CCW when the second hand passes the upper-left one, which must therefore be the indicator for 12. it follows that the clock reads 5:10-5:11 initially and 6:14-6:15 after the cut. also, in an earlier petscop investigation video, you misread the clock in the mirrored quitter's room: it appears in the mirrored half of the room and hence probably displays a reflected version of the true time. (2) my understanding of the school scenes are that, despite the avatar and brick graphics in the glitchy overlay, the camera is actually first person (and the movement patterns suggest clunky tank controls) and pieces are collected when the camera runs over them.
You're doing a fantastic job with these. By far the most intelligent, logical and insightful Petscop analyses on TH-cam. And thank you for respecting both the source material and your audience by not including unnecessary graphic imagery.
I love your videos, man. These Petscop ones almost act for me as a stepping stone when trying to figure the series out. I spend quite a bit of time initially thinking about the videos and forming my own ideas. I can then watch your videos to see what your ideas are, and then look at both sets of ideas. I can decide which I think has the most compelling evidence, and go from there. Anyways, I think your videos are so well-researched and obviously very thought out, and your findings are presented wonderfully. Thanks!
When you mentioned the idea of the game being a "growing organism," that reminded me of the child library more than anything else. Which certainly has some dark implications. The "family" could be all of those potentially brainwashed by the game or proprietors.
I’ve learned about so many things I’d never even heard of thanks to this channel. I’m grateful for the depth you go into on every topic. TH-cam is so often filled with entertaining but shallow analysis. This channel is a refreshing alternative. I’m definitely down the rabbit hole now.
Things to note about the bathroom scene: Going into the bathtub might refer to one of the early notes about someone thinking in a bathtub When the demo sequence ends, Paul doesn't have the pieces he collected in it, he's still at 365 It seems to me the TV animation plays in reverse the second time it appears Also, moving in and out of the TV seems to collerate with the idea of Paul losing control of himself and his surroundings when in "Demo" mode The flashing 5 on the calendar in the second version of the house = it's June 5th = the day the girl Paul mentions went missing
This is one of the densest and richest deep-dives I've ever encountered on TH-cam. Really, you did a world-class job from top to bottom here, in my opinion. The writing, the voice-over, and the editing are all right in the bullseye.
Wooooooow, I’ve got to say, this is THE most in depth and thoughtful analysis of Petscop that I’ve run into ever. Amazing job dissecting everything from the obvious to the minute, I love how you’ve worked through the thought and art behind the piece. Seriously, no one’s gotten nearly as in depth or researched as much in a video!
You videos analysing Petscop are amazing David! So are your other investigations on multiple webseries including Salad Fingers, and I've just recently watched your analysis on the series Interface, the animation is definitely a masterpiece for the Masterclass to uncover. : )
Every night I find a nice, long video to watch while I have dinner and relax, and this is the one for tonight, just like I had watched every other past episodes Great videos, cant wait to see what happens with the game and this series in the future
Dude I got so stoked when I saw this pop up on my feed. You did an excellent job again! I'm still digesting the video & I finished it hours ago. Also, regarding the demand for vids from you--I know for me, I get excited when you release a new video because your analysis goes so in-depth and actually involves things like rhetoric and how the medium helps service the story itself. I also liked that you flat out call it a work of art, with which I (& probs hella other people) totally agree. That really affects how one looks at Petscop as a whole, I think--seeing it as more than just some digital creepypasta or a "haunted game." I feel like you pay attention to the big picture a lot better than other interpretations I've seen, and that's awesome. I know you work hard on these videos so even if they're not published as often as people want, they still provide a ton of food for thought, which frankly is worth a lot more than a new video every time something changes in the Petscop universe. Anyway tl;dr, great work, & I'm looking forward to the next one, if & when new Petscop videos surface.
Yesssss!!! I've been waiting forever for you to release this David. I've said it before, you're the absolute best at these and Nightmare Masterclass is my favorite analysis channel. Your Wham City breakdowns are unreal and loaded with incredible detail. About to watch this one but wanted to thank you for doing these given how deep this rabbit hole goes
Ooh, I like that alternate mix of the main theme playing during the "final thoughts" segment. Icy, sparse arrangement with that lurching bassline, really suits the creepy atmosphere of the whole thing.
I gotta say,it's not only the premise of the Petscop series that haunts me,it's the GODAMN music you have :P I love it!That music theme is etched into my brain as the petscop theme.I cannot undo that correlation,it'll be with me forever...
If we jump on the memory lapse theory, is it at all possible that the demo sequences are footage of Paul playing the game previous to the current recordings? Marvin refers to the demo character as Pall and let's not forget that the game had predicted Paul's movements twice before, earlier in the series. Perhaps Paul's knowledge of certain aspects of the game in later episodes is not necessarily that there's cut footage but, in fact, that he's starting to remember. Also, episode 13 could be an actual recording of Paul from the so-called "previous playthrough" in which his current session ends before the loop repeats itself in episode 1. That's just a thought of mine.
Excellent video in an excellent series of videos. Not only do I get to look forward to Petscop content, but your analysis on it as well. You deserve more subscribers.
This is a very thorough analysis, I've been interested in content of this sort for awhile and I'm impressed that content creators have this level of skill to create something of this magnitude while still telling a story that the viewers have to discern and think about. That level of unfiction is amazing. And the level of analysis that goes into the examination is amaxing. Keep up the good work.
Very interesting. I take things so literally this video is a bit of an eye-opener in terms of the possible themes of petscop. Even if it turns out to be a typical creepypasta it's cool that you can do such a detailed take on its potential themes and messages. I wonder if the creators ever considered any of this and whether they were aiming for anything arty? The cool thing is that it can serve as both and if it makes puzzle hunters and thinkers like yourself both happy then they did a good job! Personally since 14 and 15 just came out, people like me are debating whether the series is going to go down the thematic road with no supernatural elements, or go straight out haunted game. Who knows, looking forward to your next interpretations.
Hey David! I just wanted you to know I really like your videos, and their soundtracks. Even though I don't believe in anything said or done in Petscop, I still love your videos and the way you build your thoughts based on its most unseen details.
I love that the investigations are continuing finally, I really like your analysis on the Petscop series and I personally hope that the Petscop TH-cam channel uploads more videos ever since Paul supposedly was “in danger” at the end of the 13th video. I personally think the next Petscop date would most likely be June 5th, for Petscop 14. It would make sense because supposedly June 5th is the day that Care A was kidnapped, which means it has a big significance in the Petscop series. So expect some big reveals and maybe more of a terrifying episode and creepy images. Maybe perhaps we learn more about Paul and what happened to him after the 13th video. Maybe we will get Care B at the school, or something big. I don’t know. That’s my guess.
@20:29 At the ticking clock sequence, I don't think it actually says 3:00 like you mentioned, but rather 5:10. You can see when the "seconds" hand passes what seems like the 10'o'clock position in the original video, the whole clock shifts, suggesting that position is actually the 12'o'clock position and the whole clock is tilted unconventionally. @20:37 When approaching that large grey building, if you look at the clock paying attention to when the "seconds" hand reaches the 9'o'clock position, the clock tilts again, a minute has passed. The clock is actually oriented 90 degrees counterclockwise, so the time shown then is 6:15. That's the same time Care A gets kidnapped by Marvin a little later in the video. Don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but it's something I've noticed.
rewatching these for the sake of nostalgia and i cannot believe you only have 50k. i really thought you were up there with nexpo and night mind when i was in high school!
23:28 It is also of note that in this room Paul has the exact same inputs now as he did before, even bumping into the tub when he was supposed to go up the ramp fully.
love this video, and where you went with the interpretation. extremely interesting aspect of calling it digital folklore - and I wholeheartedly agree. A piece of art informed and mirroring the zeitgeist and culture of it's creator and key demographic, and in toe informing and shaping that culture through it's effect.
I'm sure someone's noted it somewhere, but I found it interesting that Marvin calls Paul "Pall", too. A "pall" is a cloth used to drape a coffin or a tomb, or a sense of doom (casting a pall.) This is a very interesting analysis, thanks!
Amazing video as always, I am floored at how you are able to deconstruct Petscop and explain it so clearly while making a video this long stay engaging throughout. Thanks for making these videos!
bepis LiteTM dude I fall asleep to David's videos all the time. Dude is like an informational Bob Ross, giving us insight on spooky shit while being easy to listen to.
bepis LiteTM agreed and that's just to help absorb 5% to 10% of all the knowledge being passed along. He forcasted thoughts of what's to come and been pretty good at it. Game Theory made their own thoughts of the future and was so off. I guess it's not as easy as FNAF lore lol
Just a thought but is it possible that the one/ones who created Petscop as means of coping with their memories of abuse or a traumatic childhood? I had that rattling around in my head for the longest.
i think it fits w/ the themes to be honest. there seems to be a really heavy focus on treating kids right also part of a divorce is splitting the time with the kids, and it was weird that some of the calendar days were highlighted. maybe it was scheduling when the Mum/Dad had the kid? it was made clear the wife was afraid of the dad which indicated estrangement, dunno
TheA77Way *GASP* How could we been so blind! It's all makes sense, Marvin, Meachel, Even Care A through nlm. It all makes sense now. IT WAS THE MOST EVIL ENTITY. THE SHOPING LIST FORM SPONGEBOB. *Insert a stupidly amount of shocked emojis*
On the subject of demos being played, or how paul is seemingly playing over the demo footage (!!!): remember that these videos are all in fact edited. It is possible to get video recording form one place and an audio recording from another and then stitch them together. In fact, I have two distinct but interconnected theories on what is exactly happening here: 1) Think about all synchronicty and the weird syncing that keeps happening. I haven't seen anyone bringing it up, but surely the proprietors (or maybe Paul too) would notice these weird things happening. So what do they do with that information? They go through the recordings that they have (which they do have, it was gifted to them), compare it to Paul's recodrings, and in some cases, they could overlay Paul's audio over the old recordings. 2) Conversely, it is possible that the game accepted Paul's input while he was going through all the motions, but instead of showing us the video of him doing it, which could get lost or corrupted or whatever, the proprietors or Paul left the game on in such a way that they were able to get that demo recording which copied the inputs. And do you want to know WHY they showed us the demo instead of the actual recording, even if they (probably) had access to the original recording? Simple: it's to prove a point. At various points in this series we would get clips of gameplay footage but no commentary from Paul whatsoever. It could be that these are the old recordings that the proprietors got. Or, it could be just editing magic where they put certain clips in between other clips to show connections and try to explain something. When you look at it this way, the entire point of Petscop 13 is that the game does indeed remember the input from the players, but that it can also do A LOT with it, including being able to inject that input into "NPCs" that would interact with future players. And you know what? Whoever wanted to get that point across, be it proprietors, Paul, or (actually) the author/s of the entire ARG themselves(in case they were worried we wouldn't get that otherwise), they succeded! As that is the gist that we all got from watching that video! And what makes me personally believe in this theory the most is the ending of that video. It calls to our attention the fact that the game is taking and recording input directly and boldly, and it is presented to the viewer as a sort of an answer to the question of "why is Paul talking over demo footage?", which is the question the viewers would have since the beginning of the video. UPD: Ok so i literally watched Petscop 14 a minute after writing this(im going back and forth between Nightmare Masterclass's videos and Petscop itself), and it turns out that I was right.. So right in fact this comment seems redundant now. I'll keep it just 'cause.
In one of the previous videos, you mentioned that while in the quitters room, there's a song playing that is off key and doesn't really sound like an organized song at all on the left side of the room. The song was coming from the other side of the room, from Tiara playing bad music, as Marvin mentioned. Just something I noticed.
Heyo! Continuing my binging, and my apologies if this has been brought up before in earlier comments or outside discussions. I haven't yet checked out the Petscop subreddit since watching all the currently released videos a few weeks back. re: the note in Petscop 11, the black mark after the "Thank you so so so much" message (approx 24:57 in your video here)--you liken it in your analysis to be like the "large black dot with a hole in the middle" but on the note it looks much too oblong. The large black dot seen before is a perfect circle, with another perfect circle as the hole. Honestly when I had first watched this Petscop video, I had initially interpreted it as a lipstick mark left on the note due to its shape. I still see it as one, too, based upon the angle and shape. I know it's odd because you'd *think* a lipstick mark would be red, and honestly I think if the creator had made the mark red most people would instantly recognize it as a lipstick mark. But lipstick comes in all sorts of colors, including black, which makes me think of what question it may be raising about the personality or character of the (presumably) woman writing the note--who I believe is implied to be Care's mom, or a mother-like figure to her. Wearing black lipstick is more associated with goth or punk subcultures, but also, in my opinion, with adolescence. Once a person is an adult with their own child, they're expected to "grow out" of expressing themselves in counterculture ways in order to be taken seriously by larger society. A married woman with a child who's still using makeup and perhaps even dressing like she did when she was a teen strolling through Hot Topic would be perceived as emotionally immature (whether, in reality, that's accurate or not). Having an emotionally immature parental figure ties into the whole theme of the cycle of abuse within Petscop. In addition, the lipstick mark says a lot about what sort of relationship would be between the note's author and the intended recipient. Leaving a note with a lipstick mark on it is socially understood to be what someone would do for a lover. With that in mind and that the note's author even says "my husband," that suggests that there's infidelity at play here. I think that's especially significant considering the themes of child abuse and neglect in Petscop, because it suggests instability in the relationship of the married adults. I'm going to assume continuing onward, that this note is written by Care's mother. While her mom presumably had rational or valid reasons for being concerned about her husband showing up (perhaps they were in the midst of a messy divorce and custody battle), there's still seems to be an implied half-hearted attitude in telling her lover that her husband might show up and to "please stay the night *if* you can." There's no Plan B, Care's mom is just going through the motions of acting as if she cares and is concerned but with no concrete follow-through. Ultimately, Care seems to be home alone at this time. (Even her mom's new boyfriend isn't willing to step in as a more stable influence to possibly fill the void left by her father.) In the game, perhaps that's the reason for the force-field depicted around Care, and Paul's (initial) inability to interact with her. Mom's boyfriend told Care to "stay where you are, until your mom gets back." We already know that Care's mom doesn't expect to be back until the next day if she's asking her boyfriend to stay the night. Speculating on why Care's mom is absent for the evening, in the end, is irrelevant to the fact that Care is left alone, told to stay inside to stay safe (similarities to Amber, much?), and is ultimately left susceptible to kidnapping. Anyways these videos have been amazing, and definitely help me out when my workplace is just crawling along. Looking forward to watching more of your content!
I'm sure someone has already brought this up? But in regards to the "gifts", I think that's what they are exactly. They are "gifts" for Paul, to groom him?
You keep reading something sinister in that 'I guess this is for all of you' description, but to me that just reads as video 5 being where Paul realized he had a viewership outside of the 'friend' he was originally uploading for. Maybe around 4 is when viewership on the channel picked up? Not a deep take but I definitely feel that the theme of adoption is important to the story. I get the feeling that Paul was in the adoption/foster system, along with kids like Rainer, Michael, and Care -- the 'estranged family' that you theorized about are Paul's fellow system kids. Maybe he hasn't seen them in awhile because he got out of the system and lost touch. There's also the continual themes of child abuse and psychological abuse, and a distinctly cult-y vibe with the 'family' and Belle 'becoming' Tiara. I feel that something bad was done to a couple of the kids, including Michael and Care, by one or more of the adult teachers and/or caretakers (Marvin is an obvious suspect). While Paul was too young to know what was going on, or maybe suppressed the memory, Rainer was old enough to be aware and to feel guilty that he didn't stop it -- and angry that no one else stopped it either. Which also puts the whole rant with the dog in a different perspective. Rainer saw that the dog, although it looked happy, had been in pain after being hurt, and he was the only one who thought it was better to put it out of its misery rather than have to remain in pain. In the same way, Rainer has had to see kids around him getting psychologically damaged and still putting on a smile. Everybody around him sees the kids laughing and playing -- or the dog wagging its tail -- and doesn't recognize that there's trauma there that won't go away. They're seeing the untraumatized A version of the child or the dog, and not the clearly hurting B or NLM versions. (Which... leads me to think that /Rainer/ might have killed Michael, as the best way to prevent his little brother from having to experience any more pain... but I don't really have any evidence for that theory, and I'm not sure how it ties into anything else either.) Obviously there's a lot more going on in the story, what with the Proprieters and all the metaphor and metatextual stuff, but this is my basic interpretation of some of it.
I really enjoy your tangets and you are very intelligently spoken. I think transhumanism is what petscop is all about. "This game really wants me to feel like there is an entity in it." Paul, though silenced by his channel management, never seemed to imply an inate fear of the intelligence of the game. I think that is indicative of social media in many ways, a familiar intelligence in a untraditional medium. We shall see the greater effects of desensitizing and parasocial relationships in the best future.
Damn that's a great analysis. And a thought provoking statement in the end. The petscope creators surely enjoyed your video too :) A small suggestion: when you make a footnote could you also signal the end with the same sound? Sometimes I get a little confused
Honestly, by 0:45 I thought the style of the intro was somehow very reminiscent of Daisy Brown and how she first talked about Alan, which in itself could be a sort of extended reference to AlanTUTORIAL, and... Wow. So many overlapping themes (in my opinion, at least) tied so neatly together simply by the thread of choosing that particular form of presentation. I'm very impressed.
If you like my videos, maybe think about supporting me on a monthly basis at Patreon:
www.patreon.com/NightmareMasterclass
2:36 is finally real
I have no clue if you read these comments, but I wanted to say thanks. This is the best Petscop coverage on the internet that I've been able to find. I had to un-Patreon but just wanted to say thank you for everything and I hope you will make more content about Petscop if it strikes you as interesting/fun. This is more than enough, be assured!
If they only wanted one person to play this game then they should have made it for the Sega Saturn.
Maybe on mac too
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!!!
hentropy Too soon, dude.
Too soon.
:’(
Decon Theed, I owned a Sega CD, a Saturn, and a Dreamcast. The pain never goes away, my friend. Never.
hentropy Ahhh yes, friend, I know that pain well; I too have owned (and still own) Saturns and Dreamcasts throughout the years.
They tried their best, but they didn't succeed. ;_;7
Fantastic work once again, David. You have this level of critical analysis that surpasses most. Keep it up friend.
Thanks!
Agreed
Yoo nightmare expo..... Reignbot thinks your cute lol
It's quality work. David notices stuff I do not notice myself, as much as I fancy myself an investigator of the strange and unknown works of ergodic and otherwise endlessly allusional pieces of work (such as House of Leaves). He's consistently both surprising and thorough.
COLLOB NOW PLS
Triangle face is mike.
As it says in his tomb stone, “mike was a gift”
Paul censored one of the things that came out of a present early on in the series. If you look closely, you can see a spinning red pointy thing, similar to the guys head.
(Also, the red triangle is used as an instrument, but I don’t know about that.
Idk, mic?
*Intro ****0:00*
• New channel description + "the proprietors" 7:34
*Petscop 11 ****10:55*
• Paul's Room 11:15
• The "frozen house" 14:39
• The calenders 17:07
• The demo 20:15
• Back to the house 23:12
• The bedroom 25:59
• Care A 28:17
• Back to the demo 29:22
*Petscop 12 **30:38*
• Belle 31:38
• 153822 hours 32:03
• "Happy birthday Belle" 33:16
*Petscop 13 **34:02*
• The blue tool 34:36
• Back to the gift plane 35:24
• Roneth 36:02
• Congratulations 37:02
• The knocks 37:20
*Final thoughts **38:34*
(Note: these are estimated times and may be off by a few seconds)
Thanks for taking the time to do this!
Fookie Bookie Bless you for taking this time.
Sabine Tronco I'mma be honest I was just bored
Also the Care turning blue reminds me of a Scientology Documentary i once saw in which an Ex member describes something line of: "we put the guy directly under the air conditioner and set it on full until he turned almost blue" ... maybe she is being tortured by the air conditioner in some way?
*clap*
*F O O T N O T E*
👏
🦶🗒
Iconic
clap
*FOOTNOTE REVIEW*
Hands note? Lol
At 16:40 you refer to the "murmur", it happens when Paul comes in contact with the shadowy figures. It's my belief that the shadowy figures are adults in the home. Notice that they are larger than Paul? The murmuring, like the vague shadows themselves, are meant to represent a memory of the adults and their conversations from the perspective of a now adult Paul and his fading memories of that day. Just my interpretation anyway.
I think people increased the volume of that "Murmur" and it went alone the lines of this:
"So you are here to tell me that that's Tiara and That's Paul" I don't know about the beginning, but at the end you could clearly hear Tiara and Paul. Tiara was the original form of Belle, Belle is a "reborn" Tiara, just like Paul is a reborn Care(unconfirmed)
It might not have been intended the way I see it but I think Marvin said “Funny, ha ha” in reaction to Paul’s first attempt at saying hello (Hell), take what you will from that.
Late as fuck with this reply but we have to remember paul isnt real. All the gameplay is planned out, and things that arent going to be shown in the video, i assume, at least, wont be programmed in. This explanation makes a lot of sense with that in mind, id say.
I'm going to bet that the censored object in Paul's room is something used to represent his disability. That could be a unique identifier.
I also have noticed allusions to machine learning, which I think is worth a further look. Great video, as always!
Regarding the demo sequences: many Playstation games had demos in them, if you simply waited at the title screen, a demo would play. They often had a flashing "demo" text on them. I remember waiting on the title screen of the game Hercules and sure enough, a demo of the game would play. But, if you waited long enough you would get to see a small excerpt of the movie nowhere to be seen in the actual game.
What I think is happening is that Paul is recording himself waiting at the "press start" screen, the same way he recorded himself waiting for something to happen while observing the windmill. Maybe some uninteresting demos would play at first, but maybe if you wait long enough, you'll get to see the demos shown in Petscop 11. That would explain why is there no talking, he's doing something else. Now, I have no idea why they play after he enters the bathroom, maybe it's the proprietors editing the footage?
The way these demos are made is simple, the developers record their keystrokes while playing the game. When they want to play the demo they put the game in a special state where the input is disabled, a flashing "demo" text is shown on screen, and let the recorded keystrokes control the game. There is a glitch in Crash Bandicoot 3 letting you control the game while in the demo mode. (crashbandicoot.wikia.com/wiki/Bye_Bye_Blimps_Demo_Easter_Egg) Maybe when he talks over the "demo" footage it's simply a glitch, the game keeps thinking it's in the demo mode?
If you ever thought about it, the Petscop logo is pink, and the tool that changes from the base color, to pink, could be the game itself talking, pleading to be turned off for being on for so long.
I personally don't think it's something as ominous as that, but I think the pink logo and the tool changing pink are definitely the interesting parts. It's the same as when Paul enters the school with Marvin, where did Marvin go? Maybe he's the green tool while Paul leads around. Marvin's head is green and Paul followed Marvin into the school, which is the only thing I'm basing it off of. The tools themselves might be their own entities instead of "Ghosts".
A few other people probably already pointed it out - but the loading screen displays a chair... in front of a piano.
And man, you left a lot out of this... Rainer's implied fate, the probability that Marvin is the mentioned brother of Rainer (implying that Michael A was deceased after his disappearance), the nature of "the needles piano"...
tarkovskijnoir i dont understand! What piano?
@@sofiemagko5911 the needles piano is the pointy "instrument" that Marvin asks the player to play in the school, telling them to stop after the notes fall out of tune
I think when I first watched Petscop I immediately thought of abusive cycles. But I couldn't really place it, except the fact that I have dealt with them.
I'm glad there is some evidence for it now.
Incredibly insanely late reply- sorry you had to go through that. Hope your doing alright now.
When they're about to reveal Paul's identity..
"Hey Vsauce, Michael here!"
Where are your hands?
You covered everything (and more!) But I’d like to add something: the bathroom scene, 19:59 and then 23:40, Paul made THE SAME movements and says the same things..is in sync. But there’s not the block on the top of the tub, of course. And he says ‘it’s like a deja vu ‘. It looks like he doesn’t know what happened. Love everything, thanks! Keep it up with the good work.
i always thought it was weird that paul doesnt seem to know what christmas is in 11. he questions why the 25th is highlighted on both calendars. i always found it weird that no one brings it up.
Maybe he assumed it was a special day for another reason?
SüccoJones Christmas isn't celebrated the exact same way around the world. For example: I live in Austria where "Christmas day" simply doesn't exist. The american Christmas Eve is our entire christmas. We have a nice lunch and dinner with family and exchange gifts in the evening. By December 25th Christmas is officially over.
It didn't seem odd to me since I'm just used to it that way (I was so confused when I found out about Americans stretching Christmas out into two days, to be honest :'D)
but I get that it would seem weird to people in the US.
"Dissociative amnesia occurs when a person blocks out certain information, usually associated with a stressful or traumatic event, leaving him or her unable to remember important personal information."
Fuchsfarben There’re actually 12 days of Christmas in America btw
@@evershadowvii7848 As an American, there's really not. Maybe in some sects of Christianity, but not as a whole. It's mostly just Christmas and Christmas Eve for the main celebrations, with general "holiday festiveness" for the month of December (ie decorations, stores playing Christmas music, etc).
I've seen all your vids on petscop, but this one, I couldn't avoid leaving you some long-deserved praise. That abuse, PTSD, & categorical discussion was beyond brilliant. You really know your stuff, & it's exactly what I've needed to hear for a very long time. Thank you for being so dedicated to explaining Petscop. Every minute of this hour & 6 minutes was well worth the listen, & to anyone reading the comments who is wondering if they should listen to the whole thing--please do.
"The game has desensitized paul to certain morally dubious actions, and now it's blurring the line between the game and reality itself." Yeah, this is actually terrifying.
I just finished watching the video and I appreciate how different a perspective and conclusion you came to, in contrast to game theory, who in a way, turned the story into a black and white narrative. While I still enjoyed MatPat's video, your videos on Petscop are much more philosophical and intellectually mature, in a way.
Thank you for the time you put not only into Petscop analysis series, but also all the other analysis videos you have uploaded, which I also thoroughly enjoy.
When MatPat concludes that Paul is a rogue AI. 🤣🤣🤣
I love how you aren't afraid to make long discussion videos. These are awesome to listen to while painting.
Thanks for the in-depth analysis!
The "Chair Room" also has a piano behind the chair.
Pen's room puzzle is piano themed. Just sayin'.
Yeah, I noticed that, too
What if the pet that correlated with belle is pen since she’s deaf, and belle plays bad music.
I believe this is actually Paul's room, as revealed in later Petscop videos when Paul interacts with Marvin
This consistent idea of the game having to consistently run made me think about how the series may end up in. It makes me think that at some point in the series Paul's save may be deleted at somepoint. Also, Paul says that his mother owned the game before, did she play the game just like how paul is playing it, leaving it on.
Righty tighty lefty loosy alongside not opening doors could imply breaking and entry, removing screws from another entrance rather than going through a door. It would make sense alongside other theories that suggest Paul is being conditioned to become Marvin’s successor. That he had to perform the rotation, using his FULL CONCENTRATION to do so, which allowed him to open the door and progress, a detachment of emotion to the task he was just doing to reach further into the game, the next step of conditioning
Rainer, like you said, also seems to share symptoms of mental disarray. When Paul is in the house and the repeated references to the bathroom occur, it could be like the following.
Rainer gives the gift of the game as he is the creator. He may possibly want to alert other family members.
He asks for the bathroom (stretch here) and when they say yes, it’s clear that they don’t mind what he does. So hear me out, he goes to the bathroom to kill himself. And that this was his plan all along. When the game says fuck me also and check your bathroom now, he has planned his death due to the overhanging remorse over his brother’s death and how he should’ve prevented it. The whole scenario with Care only shows how he was trying to be there for him but bc he was locked in a metaphorical closet, he could not “care” for his brother. Or that his “care” only came too late. It left the room
iNotStudying \/ Wow,you're a genius
clowninyourcloset Nah lol, I just like to speculate. When ambiguity presents itself in the form of a game or story, it’s really fun to try and pick it apart. I mean back when FNAF wasn’t entirely consumed by it’s awful fan base (around the release of the second/ third game), it was fun to criticise those games too. Although I will say, it’s unfair to link both these subjects as Petscop is far more developed and intricate than the latter, as every detail seems to have meaning
Absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much David.
The meta-textual properties of Petscop are truly mind-blowing. This series genuinely puts Neon Genesis Evangelion to shame. Ridiculous amount of care and effort has been put into this work.
Also, a point of note from a student of cognitive science here. It's not that the class-differences are being ignored by the perpetrators of Transhumanism, on the contrary. However the general assumption about class-differences and the subsequent class-struggle is that it's based in *resource scarcity.* The technological singularity envisioned by the Transhumanist is the theoretical point at which we eliminate resource scarcity making economy a truly *positive sum equation.* The differences between us as humans, as far as society is concerned boils down to the difference in how much "stuff" we have in relation to each other. These differences exist because "stuff" is simply limited. If you remove the limit, you remove the difference and voila, no class-struggle!
Of course the issue here is that until we reach the point of metaphysical death of humanity as we know it and transformation into transhumanity, technology will only exasperate our human flaws (which is not to say that as trnashumans we'd be flawless, perfect beings, we're gonna have flaws of our own, but we can't even speculate on what those will be), the trick is to reach the technological singularity before we reach the point where our flaws become so exasperated that technology halts its own progress.
Which, sadly, is very possible. This is the modern re-imagination of the SETI problem of advanced civilizations. Initially the assumption was that advanced civilizations would "blow themselves up". But looking at technological trends it's more likely that it's not gonna be nearly as dramatic. It's entirely possible that advanced civilizations simply reach a point where their technology stops progressing, having turned said civilizations into self-perpetuating, dystopian nightmares. And if that's the case... Let's hope we never get a signal from one of them. Not because they'd be evil or anything. But because they'd be a mirror we very much would not want to look into.
i have some minor comments about your interpretation of the events on screen. they do not affect the spirit of your analysis but i feel they are important distinctions nonetheless.
(1) i believe the clock in the driving demo (at 20:30 in the video) is actually rotated to orient the minute hand upwards: the four larger dots that mark the cardinal directions are not in their usual places, and the whole clock face ticks CCW when the second hand passes the upper-left one, which must therefore be the indicator for 12. it follows that the clock reads 5:10-5:11 initially and 6:14-6:15 after the cut. also, in an earlier petscop investigation video, you misread the clock in the mirrored quitter's room: it appears in the mirrored half of the room and hence probably displays a reflected version of the true time.
(2) my understanding of the school scenes are that, despite the avatar and brick graphics in the glitchy overlay, the camera is actually first person (and the movement patterns suggest clunky tank controls) and pieces are collected when the camera runs over them.
You're doing a fantastic job with these. By far the most intelligent, logical and insightful Petscop analyses on TH-cam.
And thank you for respecting both the source material and your audience by not including unnecessary graphic imagery.
But how does he take his tea?!?!! HOW DOES HE TAKE HIS TEA I MUST KNOW!!!!!!
Four sugars and goats milk.
Through feet
I love your videos, man. These Petscop ones almost act for me as a stepping stone when trying to figure the series out. I spend quite a bit of time initially thinking about the videos and forming my own ideas. I can then watch your videos to see what your ideas are, and then look at both sets of ideas. I can decide which I think has the most compelling evidence, and go from there.
Anyways, I think your videos are so well-researched and obviously very thought out, and your findings are presented wonderfully. Thanks!
I read "stepping stone" as "stripping stone"
I was pretty lost tbh, this breakdown helps so much
55:13 actual correct use of the phrase "beg the question"?! nightmare masterclass is the hero we all need
When you mentioned the idea of the game being a "growing organism," that reminded me of the child library more than anything else. Which certainly has some dark implications. The "family" could be all of those potentially brainwashed by the game or proprietors.
I can't believe it's been 4+ years. These videos were great.
37:20
I thought it was also important to mention that Paul whispers something that sounds like 'What was that?' before these knocks.
I’ve learned about so many things I’d never even heard of thanks to this channel. I’m grateful for the depth you go into on every topic. TH-cam is so often filled with entertaining but shallow analysis. This channel is a refreshing alternative. I’m definitely down the rabbit hole now.
Things to note about the bathroom scene:
Going into the bathtub might refer to one of the early notes about someone thinking in a bathtub
When the demo sequence ends, Paul doesn't have the pieces he collected in it, he's still at 365
It seems to me the TV animation plays in reverse the second time it appears
Also, moving in and out of the TV seems to collerate with the idea of Paul losing control of himself and his surroundings when in "Demo" mode
The flashing 5 on the calendar in the second version of the house = it's June 5th = the day the girl Paul mentions went missing
I waited to watch this video for my exams to be over because I knew your creepy theories would keep me from sleeping for a while :') great as usual !!
This is one of the densest and richest deep-dives I've ever encountered on TH-cam. Really, you did a world-class job from top to bottom here, in my opinion. The writing, the voice-over, and the editing are all right in the bullseye.
Wooooooow, I’ve got to say, this is THE most in depth and thoughtful analysis of Petscop that I’ve run into ever. Amazing job dissecting everything from the obvious to the minute, I love how you’ve worked through the thought and art behind the piece. Seriously, no one’s gotten nearly as in depth or researched as much in a video!
Good work David, I wouldn't have been able to understand Petscop in this way without your 5 investigation videos.
i just wanna day that i love your videos on petscop! they’re so well done! great work!
You videos analysing Petscop are amazing David! So are your other investigations on multiple webseries including Salad Fingers, and I've just recently watched your analysis on the series Interface, the animation is definitely a masterpiece for the Masterclass to uncover. : )
I was binge watching your videos again then my dreams come true.
Rin Lockhart same, dude.
Every night I find a nice, long video to watch while I have dinner and relax, and this is the one for tonight, just like I had watched every other past episodes
Great videos, cant wait to see what happens with the game and this series in the future
Dude I got so stoked when I saw this pop up on my feed. You did an excellent job again! I'm still digesting the video & I finished it hours ago.
Also, regarding the demand for vids from you--I know for me, I get excited when you release a new video because your analysis goes so in-depth and actually involves things like rhetoric and how the medium helps service the story itself. I also liked that you flat out call it a work of art, with which I (& probs hella other people) totally agree. That really affects how one looks at Petscop as a whole, I think--seeing it as more than just some digital creepypasta or a "haunted game." I feel like you pay attention to the big picture a lot better than other interpretations I've seen, and that's awesome. I know you work hard on these videos so even if they're not published as often as people want, they still provide a ton of food for thought, which frankly is worth a lot more than a new video every time something changes in the Petscop universe.
Anyway tl;dr, great work, & I'm looking forward to the next one, if & when new Petscop videos surface.
Yesssss!!! I've been waiting forever for you to release this David. I've said it before, you're the absolute best at these and Nightmare Masterclass is my favorite analysis channel. Your Wham City breakdowns are unreal and loaded with incredible detail. About to watch this one but wanted to thank you for doing these given how deep this rabbit hole goes
Ooh, I like that alternate mix of the main theme playing during the "final thoughts" segment. Icy, sparse arrangement with that lurching bassline, really suits the creepy atmosphere of the whole thing.
I gotta say,it's not only the premise of the Petscop series that haunts me,it's the GODAMN music you have :P I love it!That music theme is etched into my brain as the petscop theme.I cannot undo that correlation,it'll be with me forever...
If we jump on the memory lapse theory, is it at all possible that the demo sequences are footage of Paul playing the game previous to the current recordings? Marvin refers to the demo character as Pall and let's not forget that the game had predicted Paul's movements twice before, earlier in the series. Perhaps Paul's knowledge of certain aspects of the game in later episodes is not necessarily that there's cut footage but, in fact, that he's starting to remember. Also, episode 13 could be an actual recording of Paul from the so-called "previous playthrough" in which his current session ends before the loop repeats itself in episode 1. That's just a thought of mine.
Excellent video in an excellent series of videos. Not only do I get to look forward to Petscop content, but your analysis on it as well. You deserve more subscribers.
Perfect release time. I'm literally snowed in right now so long videos are exactly what I want.
This is a very thorough analysis, I've been interested in content of this sort for awhile and I'm impressed that content creators have this level of skill to create something of this magnitude while still telling a story that the viewers have to discern and think about. That level of unfiction is amazing. And the level of analysis that goes into the examination is amaxing. Keep up the good work.
I'm so glad... I've been watching the previous parts repeatedly. Thank you for this!
Someone was analyzing the background noises in one of the later petscop videos and one could hear chains rattling while David was playing.
"Has Paul experienced something traumatic in his life?" You mean outside of being forced to play this game?
Very interesting. I take things so literally this video is a bit of an eye-opener in terms of the possible themes of petscop. Even if it turns out to be a typical creepypasta it's cool that you can do such a detailed take on its potential themes and messages. I wonder if the creators ever considered any of this and whether they were aiming for anything arty? The cool thing is that it can serve as both and if it makes puzzle hunters and thinkers like yourself both happy then they did a good job! Personally since 14 and 15 just came out, people like me are debating whether the series is going to go down the thematic road with no supernatural elements, or go straight out haunted game. Who knows, looking forward to your next interpretations.
i was waiting on YOU!!! you are pretty much the only person whose ideas and analysis on this thing i care to follow...you da mans bruh
Hey David! I just wanted you to know I really like your videos, and their soundtracks. Even though I don't believe in anything said or done in Petscop, I still love your videos and the way you build your thoughts based on its most unseen details.
I love that the investigations are continuing finally, I really like your analysis on the Petscop series and I personally hope that the Petscop TH-cam channel uploads more videos ever since Paul supposedly was “in danger” at the end of the 13th video. I personally think the next Petscop date would most likely be June 5th, for Petscop 14. It would make sense because supposedly June 5th is the day that Care A was kidnapped, which means it has a big significance in the Petscop series. So expect some big reveals and maybe more of a terrifying episode and creepy images. Maybe perhaps we learn more about Paul and what happened to him after the 13th video. Maybe we will get Care B at the school, or something big. I don’t know. That’s my guess.
@20:29 At the ticking clock sequence, I don't think it actually says 3:00 like you mentioned, but rather 5:10. You can see when the "seconds" hand passes what seems like the 10'o'clock position in the original video, the whole clock shifts, suggesting that position is actually the 12'o'clock position and the whole clock is tilted unconventionally.
@20:37 When approaching that large grey building, if you look at the clock paying attention to when the "seconds" hand reaches the 9'o'clock position, the clock tilts again, a minute has passed. The clock is actually oriented 90 degrees counterclockwise, so the time shown then is 6:15. That's the same time Care A gets kidnapped by Marvin a little later in the video.
Don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but it's something I've noticed.
rewatching these for the sake of nostalgia and i cannot believe you only have 50k. i really thought you were up there with nexpo and night mind when i was in high school!
Love this!...the last 3 episodes are by far the most confusing. This helped to make at least some sense of them. Thanks :)
God I missed the footnotes
F O O T N O T E
O
O
T
N
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T
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NuMbEr fIfTEen
BUrGeR kIng FOoT LetTUcE
Kirbysaas Paul stfu
Kirbysaas Paul No, I agree with him. STFU.
Isawa De La Pradera king burger footnote
Good work as always! I heard music from the game NO THING at 53:02 ! Gotta love some vaporwave lol
I've been so excited for this, I absolutely love your videos!
Alright once I again I don't understand a single thing in the video, that's how you know it's good
@22:18--I’m pretty sure that’s because this game mode is actually first-person with the avatar place to make it look like second-person.
Oh thank God. I've been on an all-nighter and was running out of things to watch. Really glad this video isn't a trick from my sleep-deprived brain!
If it is, it's just as well
0:57
now I imagine that Ted (my nickname for the triagle headed guy?) just opens up 3 sides (like a roe blooming) and it's like a piranha plant.
23:28 It is also of note that in this room Paul has the exact same inputs now as he did before, even bumping into the tub when he was supposed to go up the ramp fully.
27:10 If im not mistaken, this picture appears eerily similar to the piano shown at 29:33
love this video, and where you went with the interpretation.
extremely interesting aspect of calling it digital folklore - and I wholeheartedly agree.
A piece of art informed and mirroring the zeitgeist and culture of it's creator and key demographic, and in toe informing and shaping that culture through it's effect.
Watching the intro: Oh god he’s lost his mind
I'm sure someone's noted it somewhere, but I found it interesting that Marvin calls Paul "Pall", too. A "pall" is a cloth used to drape a coffin or a tomb, or a sense of doom (casting a pall.)
This is a very interesting analysis, thanks!
This series is amazing! Hope you know how incredible this channel is.
Amazing video as always, I am floored at how you are able to deconstruct Petscop and explain it so clearly while making a video this long stay engaging throughout. Thanks for making these videos!
*Time to watch this 5 times over*
bepis LiteTM dude I fall asleep to David's videos all the time. Dude is like an informational Bob Ross, giving us insight on spooky shit while being easy to listen to.
bepis LiteTM agreed and that's just to help absorb 5% to 10% of all the knowledge being passed along. He forcasted thoughts of what's to come and been pretty good at it. Game Theory made their own thoughts of the future and was so off. I guess it's not as easy as FNAF lore lol
Just a thought but is it possible that the one/ones who created Petscop as means of coping with their memories of abuse or a traumatic childhood?
I had that rattling around in my head for the longest.
i think it fits w/ the themes to be honest. there seems to be a really heavy focus on treating kids right
also part of a divorce is splitting the time with the kids, and it was weird that some of the calendar days were highlighted. maybe it was scheduling when the Mum/Dad had the kid? it was made clear the wife was afraid of the dad which indicated estrangement, dunno
Tokuijin I’m thinking it’s about the word scop, pronounces shope which was a ye olde story teller
Never have I clicked so quickly on a 1 hour long video. :D
I was really looking forward to this video. Awesome!
Pfffffft, wrong. Obviously the game is haunted by spook ghosts
TheA77Way *GASP* How could we been so blind! It's all makes sense, Marvin, Meachel, Even Care A through nlm. It all makes sense now. IT WAS THE MOST EVIL ENTITY. THE SHOPING LIST FORM SPONGEBOB. *Insert a stupidly amount of shocked emojis*
someone: plays bad music
marv: tiara sux at this as well
someone: ):
marv: ok pall
petscop is so stupid sometimes and i love it
marvin: Tiara plays bad music too.
???: sad
marvin: ok pall
this is even better than "that's a dead kid"
Honestly the only person I’m willing to listen to for over an hour.
On the subject of demos being played, or how paul is seemingly playing over the demo footage (!!!):
remember that these videos are all in fact edited. It is possible to get video recording form one place and an audio recording from another and then stitch them together. In fact, I have two distinct but interconnected theories on what is exactly happening here:
1) Think about all synchronicty and the weird syncing that keeps happening. I haven't seen anyone bringing it up, but surely the proprietors (or maybe Paul too) would notice these weird things happening. So what do they do with that information? They go through the recordings that they have (which they do have, it was gifted to them), compare it to Paul's recodrings, and in some cases, they could overlay Paul's audio over the old recordings.
2) Conversely, it is possible that the game accepted Paul's input while he was going through all the motions, but instead of showing us the video of him doing it, which could get lost or corrupted or whatever, the proprietors or Paul left the game on in such a way that they were able to get that demo recording which copied the inputs.
And do you want to know WHY they showed us the demo instead of the actual recording, even if they (probably) had access to the original recording? Simple: it's to prove a point. At various points in this series we would get clips of gameplay footage but no commentary from Paul whatsoever. It could be that these are the old recordings that the proprietors got. Or, it could be just editing magic where they put certain clips in between other clips to show connections and try to explain something.
When you look at it this way, the entire point of Petscop 13 is that the game does indeed remember the input from the players, but that it can also do A LOT with it, including being able to inject that input into "NPCs" that would interact with future players. And you know what? Whoever wanted to get that point across, be it proprietors, Paul, or (actually) the author/s of the entire ARG themselves(in case they were worried we wouldn't get that otherwise), they succeded! As that is the gist that we all got from watching that video!
And what makes me personally believe in this theory the most is the ending of that video. It calls to our attention the fact that the game is taking and recording input directly and boldly, and it is presented to the viewer as a sort of an answer to the question of "why is Paul talking over demo footage?", which is the question the viewers would have since the beginning of the video.
UPD: Ok so i literally watched Petscop 14 a minute after writing this(im going back and forth between Nightmare Masterclass's videos and Petscop itself), and it turns out that I was right.. So right in fact this comment seems redundant now. I'll keep it just 'cause.
In one of the previous videos, you mentioned that while in the quitters room, there's a song playing that is off key and doesn't really sound like an organized song at all on the left side of the room. The song was coming from the other side of the room, from Tiara playing bad music, as Marvin mentioned. Just something I noticed.
Damn dude, you never cease to impress. Kudos on another great analysis. ^.^
Worth the wait! Really love your investigation vids.
I've been waiting for someone to continue the petscop investigation
Heyo! Continuing my binging, and my apologies if this has been brought up before in earlier comments or outside discussions. I haven't yet checked out the Petscop subreddit since watching all the currently released videos a few weeks back.
re: the note in Petscop 11, the black mark after the "Thank you so so so much" message (approx 24:57 in your video here)--you liken it in your analysis to be like the "large black dot with a hole in the middle" but on the note it looks much too oblong. The large black dot seen before is a perfect circle, with another perfect circle as the hole. Honestly when I had first watched this Petscop video, I had initially interpreted it as a lipstick mark left on the note due to its shape. I still see it as one, too, based upon the angle and shape. I know it's odd because you'd *think* a lipstick mark would be red, and honestly I think if the creator had made the mark red most people would instantly recognize it as a lipstick mark. But lipstick comes in all sorts of colors, including black, which makes me think of what question it may be raising about the personality or character of the (presumably) woman writing the note--who I believe is implied to be Care's mom, or a mother-like figure to her. Wearing black lipstick is more associated with goth or punk subcultures, but also, in my opinion, with adolescence. Once a person is an adult with their own child, they're expected to "grow out" of expressing themselves in counterculture ways in order to be taken seriously by larger society. A married woman with a child who's still using makeup and perhaps even dressing like she did when she was a teen strolling through Hot Topic would be perceived as emotionally immature (whether, in reality, that's accurate or not). Having an emotionally immature parental figure ties into the whole theme of the cycle of abuse within Petscop.
In addition, the lipstick mark says a lot about what sort of relationship would be between the note's author and the intended recipient. Leaving a note with a lipstick mark on it is socially understood to be what someone would do for a lover. With that in mind and that the note's author even says "my husband," that suggests that there's infidelity at play here. I think that's especially significant considering the themes of child abuse and neglect in Petscop, because it suggests instability in the relationship of the married adults. I'm going to assume continuing onward, that this note is written by Care's mother. While her mom presumably had rational or valid reasons for being concerned about her husband showing up (perhaps they were in the midst of a messy divorce and custody battle), there's still seems to be an implied half-hearted attitude in telling her lover that her husband might show up and to "please stay the night *if* you can." There's no Plan B, Care's mom is just going through the motions of acting as if she cares and is concerned but with no concrete follow-through. Ultimately, Care seems to be home alone at this time. (Even her mom's new boyfriend isn't willing to step in as a more stable influence to possibly fill the void left by her father.) In the game, perhaps that's the reason for the force-field depicted around Care, and Paul's (initial) inability to interact with her. Mom's boyfriend told Care to "stay where you are, until your mom gets back." We already know that Care's mom doesn't expect to be back until the next day if she's asking her boyfriend to stay the night. Speculating on why Care's mom is absent for the evening, in the end, is irrelevant to the fact that Care is left alone, told to stay inside to stay safe (similarities to Amber, much?), and is ultimately left susceptible to kidnapping.
Anyways these videos have been amazing, and definitely help me out when my workplace is just crawling along. Looking forward to watching more of your content!
I love that one of the game theory videos on petscop is in the recommended tab at 42:59
I'm sure someone has already brought this up? But in regards to the "gifts", I think that's what they are exactly. They are "gifts" for Paul, to groom him?
Thanks for making another one, man. Really like hearing you.
best analysis series on youtube. endlessly entertaining. bravo.
just found your channel through autoplay, love your content keep up the good work and thank you!
You keep reading something sinister in that 'I guess this is for all of you' description, but to me that just reads as video 5 being where Paul realized he had a viewership outside of the 'friend' he was originally uploading for. Maybe around 4 is when viewership on the channel picked up?
Not a deep take but I definitely feel that the theme of adoption is important to the story. I get the feeling that Paul was in the adoption/foster system, along with kids like Rainer, Michael, and Care -- the 'estranged family' that you theorized about are Paul's fellow system kids. Maybe he hasn't seen them in awhile because he got out of the system and lost touch.
There's also the continual themes of child abuse and psychological abuse, and a distinctly cult-y vibe with the 'family' and Belle 'becoming' Tiara. I feel that something bad was done to a couple of the kids, including Michael and Care, by one or more of the adult teachers and/or caretakers (Marvin is an obvious suspect). While Paul was too young to know what was going on, or maybe suppressed the memory, Rainer was old enough to be aware and to feel guilty that he didn't stop it -- and angry that no one else stopped it either.
Which also puts the whole rant with the dog in a different perspective. Rainer saw that the dog, although it looked happy, had been in pain after being hurt, and he was the only one who thought it was better to put it out of its misery rather than have to remain in pain. In the same way, Rainer has had to see kids around him getting psychologically damaged and still putting on a smile. Everybody around him sees the kids laughing and playing -- or the dog wagging its tail -- and doesn't recognize that there's trauma there that won't go away. They're seeing the untraumatized A version of the child or the dog, and not the clearly hurting B or NLM versions.
(Which... leads me to think that /Rainer/ might have killed Michael, as the best way to prevent his little brother from having to experience any more pain... but I don't really have any evidence for that theory, and I'm not sure how it ties into anything else either.)
Obviously there's a lot more going on in the story, what with the Proprieters and all the metaphor and metatextual stuff, but this is my basic interpretation of some of it.
I really enjoy your tangets and you are very intelligently spoken. I think transhumanism is what petscop is all about. "This game really wants me to feel like there is an entity in it." Paul, though silenced by his channel management, never seemed to imply an inate fear of the intelligence of the game. I think that is indicative of social media in many ways, a familiar intelligence in a untraditional medium. We shall see the greater effects of desensitizing and parasocial relationships in the best future.
I’ve been waiting forever for your interpretation of the newer videos!!
"WAY TO GO, PAUL"
Damn that's a great analysis. And a thought provoking statement in the end. The petscope creators surely enjoyed your video too :)
A small suggestion: when you make a footnote could you also signal the end with the same sound? Sometimes I get a little confused
Honestly, by 0:45 I thought the style of the intro was somehow very reminiscent of Daisy Brown and how she first talked about Alan, which in itself could be a sort of extended reference to AlanTUTORIAL, and... Wow. So many overlapping themes (in my opinion, at least) tied so neatly together simply by the thread of choosing that particular form of presentation. I'm very impressed.
Amazing. I agree whole-heartedly and you explained it so much better than I ever could have. Subbed
thanks so much for your hard work, you do an incredible job on all your videos :)