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Funny / Folding Ideas

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  • The extended gag about M. Night Shyamalan at the end of his video on The Last Airbender.
    Header: M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
    Foldy: We're going to play the blame game, and the person to blame is Shyamalan.
    "Foldy": Hey, Foldy?
    Foldy: Yes, fictional viewer being used as a rhetorical device?
    "Foldy": Isn't that a little harsh? Movies are a collaborative effort! How can you say something is entirely one person's fault?
    Foldy: Well, okay. I'll pull my punch a bit. I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure if Shyamalan pulled rank or whatever and wound up pissing in the stewpot, but let's take a moment to look at all the department heads and see if we can identify a weak link.
    Header: M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN IS THE WEAK LINK
    (Dan discusses the cinematographer and editor, pointing out that both have solid pedigrees, one has an Oscar, and they even worked together again on the much better edited Rise of the Planet of the Apes)
    Foldy: Okay, so, the key creative decision-making roles are the cinematographer, the editor, the director, the writer, the producer, and sometimes the lead actors.
    Footnote: Sorry Sound, we love you all but in the end you are our slaves. - Love Picture
    Foldy: This isn't an actor-driven movie, so we can assume that, by and large, the cast showed up, did their jobs and collected a paycheque. We've already eliminated the editor and cinematographer as suspects, so that leaves the writer, director and producer.
    The Last Airbender End Credits: Written, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan
    Foldy: Hey, if you want to take all the credit, you get to take all the blame...
  • From "The Art of Editing and Suicide Squad":
    • Dan explains the film's way of introducing major characters, and posts images of 8 of them (Waller, Deadshot, Harley, Boomerang, Diablo, Croc, Enchantress, and Flagg). As he continues his explanation, an image of Katana barely scoots into frame along with some Caption Humor.
      Katana: What about me?
      Enchantress: lol nobody cares abt u
      Katana: (scrolls away)
    • Dan manages to snark at the film's poor pacing by simply playing Rick Flagg's infamous Katana Infodump and captioning every single word, followed by a still shot of Will Smith giving a very unimpressed and awkward look.
    • Dan's breakdown at some of the film's infamously on-the-nose soundtrack choices, which ends with this, said from a distance from the camera and mic:
      "Baz Luhrmann has more restraint than this!"
    • Dan points out how the main plot of the film is nonsensical due to the Enchantress being too absurdly powerful a villain for the main squad, most of whom don't even have superpowers. To boot, he describes Killer Croc as "a linebacker with a skin condition", Boomerang as "a thief with a gimmick", and Harley as "pure liability."
  • The scene from "Language of Editing: Basic Cuts" regarding Match Cuts where a small devil puppet pops up to remind Dan of the often-discussed example from 2001: A Space Odyssey, slowly getting closer and closer to his head and blank expression (as does the camera).
  • During Dan's review vlog of The Disaster Artist, he shares his own Movie-Making Mess anecdotes, including one time during a very rough day of production he received a lunch so bad that he begins the description with "I don't know where this person learned to make a sandwich, but it was not Earth."
    Dan: When you're already having a stressful day because there is no budget, and the director and the producer don't know what they want, and everybody's kind of already on edge, and no one knows what they're doing... and you go to lunch and somebody hands you a soggy hummus and tomato sandwich... your soul dies. You just want to curl up and end.
  • His entire recollection of The Book of Henry in his "Postmortem Vlog", especially as he goes over some of the film's more ridiculous or So Bad, It's Good elements, he seems to begin losing his composure.
    Dan: The... the visual implication... is that [Peter] has scattered... Henry's ashes over the crowd. (struggles to speak) HE SCATTERS HENRY'S ASHES OVER THE CROWD.
  • In "Weird Kids' Videos and Gaming the Algorithm", Dan shows off his impeccable ability to read off the Word Salad Titles of sketchy kids' videos like "Superheros Pregnant Soccer Balls Fidget Spinner Spiderman Joker Hulk Cartoon Funny Kids Video Pranks" with a completely straight face. It gets even more ridiculous when he gets to the network producing all videos, not missing a single beat as he reads off "3hUOx5ATuSrN6hwhoKzJSQ". Twice.
    Dan: It's case-sensitive, by the way.
    • Earlier in the video, Dan makes a little quip at the idea of "YouTube, but for kids."
      "You know, YouTube. Minus all the cussing."
    • Also, the ending of the same video, after discussing the very shady reasons why these videos are still allowed on YouTube despite being seen by untold amounts of small children:
      Dan: If we're honest, and if we're using the 1980's as an indicator, there's an awful lot of advertisers who are ultimately okay with their ads being bombarded onto toddlers, and plenty of creators willing to churn out low-effort content to facilitate that. (beat) ...man, that's a Downer Ending.
  • From "The Art of Storytelling and The Book of Henry":
    • The video opens with a monologue in which he discusses how he Drowned His Sorrows with cough syrup in the Suicide Squad video. He reveals that his original plan was to parody the trope by using cooking oil, before deciding to go with cough syrup at the last second, realizing too late that cough syrup ruins the joke by still working as a straight example. Going into The Book of Henry, he repeats the trope, this time deliberately, by going through the full sequence of attaching a nitrous oxide canister to a whipped cream dispenser, using it to fill a balloon, then inhaling the gas.
    • After going through a scene where Henry angrily bursts into the school principal's office with "Goddamn it, Janice! How much longer does this have to go on?", Dan proceeds to dryly refer to her as "Goddamnit Janice" for the rest of the video.
    • Dan goes on a mini-rant when Henry's mother playfully flips him off and he criticizes his mother's technique.
      Dan: Now, the middle finger is a gesture with a high degree of plasticity. You have your classic style, the Detroit style, the web shooters, and, of course, the Logan. There is nothing wrong with her form, you're not being accurate, you're just being a dick, and you deserve to get flipped off.
    • Dan's reaction to the behind-the-scenes footage of director Colin Trevorrow's justifications for the film's inconsistent and drastically whiplash-laden tone and writer Gregg Hurwitz's acknowledging that it was a challenge.
      Dan: (rubbing his temples) Oh... Jesus, they think they nailed it.
  • Throughout the Fifty Shades of Grey three-parter:
  • "An American Tail: Fievel Goes to Video Game Hell" begins with a nearly five minute long analysis of the 1986 film covering such serious topics as the history of immigration in the United States, revisionist history, historical constructions of race and ethnicity and how the film both succeeds and fails at depicting all of these things, and then:
    Dan: And twenty-one years later it was made into one of the worst video games ever (title sequence plays, actual video begins)
  • From "Annihilation (2018) and Decoding Metaphor", while discussing the importance of discussing metaphor-heavy media on its actual thematic terms rather than taking everything as a literal puzzle, Dan comes up with this extended digression:
    Dan: ...if you resist a thematic reading, you're just going to get caught up in weird nonsense circles asking if the Shimmer is an alien terraforming device as though the next movie, Annihilation 2, is gonna be a bunch of rainbow aliens coming down in spaceships and getting into gunfights with Aaron Eckhart. (beat) Okay, let's be honest, Gerard Butler.
  • "A Christmas Story: A Tale of Technological Nostalgia" begins with Dan excitedly introducing the topic of the video, slowly becoming more of a ramble as sleigh bells audibly pick up, before ending with "I love Christmas so much" and very messily chugging a carton of eggnog.
  • Dan and Crystal's cameo in Atop the Fourth Wall's "Yet Another 15 Missed Opportunities of AT4W", where Linkara laments the tendency for reviewers like him to end up interrupted by stressful fantasy scenarios, then considers doing video essays because those creators apparently don't.
    Dan: ...as a result, it is the medium itself that has an outsized impact on—
    Crystal: (offscreen) Oh no! Mecha E.L. James is attacking!
    Dan: ...third time this week! (pulls out a knife) Video reviewer, transform! (flashes into suddenly wearing the head of a rabbit costume and runs off)
  • "Glass Isn't a Very Good Movie - A Spoiler-Rich Vlog:
    • Dan mentions that he thinks he likes Unbreakable actually a little less after seeing Glass.
    • After some confusion over whether it was Split or Splice that was in the same continuity, Dan cheerfully says "I just saw Split for the first time last night. Hated it. Awful movie."
    • His description of Lady in the Water as executing its metaphor in "the most head-up-ass way possible".
    • The villain of Unbreakable is a guy who "read Watchmen too many times".
    • Crystal's increasing bewilderment and disbelief at the movie's plot.
      Crystal: I'd ask why they decide to fight [in the parking lot] but it really doesn't matter. Is he sad that they don't go all the way to the towers he picked out to fight? Like, do they decide to fight there to screw with him? Like, 'fine, we'll do your show fight, but we'll just do it here, because our feet are sore, we don't really feel like walking'.
    • "Don't worry, there's - this gets even worse" - Dan Olson, 2019
    • Fifteen minutes in, Dan announces that we're 1% of the way through his notes.
    • The faintly unnerving plush toy ear of corn staring from the corner throughout the video.
    • Dan has trouble keeping a straight face when they do a near-immediate flashback to a line that wasn't even good in the first place.
    • It's a Shyamalan movie.
      Dan: I need to back up one twist.
    • Crystal's response to the Ancient Conspiracy twist is to become so irritated and bewildered that she doesn't even have words.
    • Dan bluntly describes the climactic battle as being security camera footage of two buff guys wrestling in a parking lot (Crystal dubs this "hobo fights") and comments that the powers on display are not going to blow open the masquerade because they're the kind of thing you can see on Spike TV in any given week.
    • "There's a flashback to Unbreakable when Bruce Willis has acting skills again."
    • When the footage gets posted to Youtube, Dan mentions that he'd like the final scene to be the characters looking at their stats page and seeing that the video had, like, seven hits.
      Crystal: I was going to say fifty-three hits.
    • The entire thing "peaks at Florida Man".
    • Dan compares it to a student film that's managed to snare a couple of big-name actors, prompting a heartfelt "oh dear" from Crystal.
    • Crystal comments that James McAvoy's character's actual superpower is just being an actor.
  • That 2019 Movie Called Serenity About A Fish Called Justice vlog:
    • The opening of the video is Dan deciding that he needs to see "normal movies" again.
    • Serenity (2019) is apparently three different movies, only one of which the poster is connected to.
    • "I need to do something other than compare this to other movies that make you go 'What was that?'"
    • The three movies in question: a man-vs-nature big fish movie, a noir kill-my-husband movie, and a movie like Elephant (2003) or We Need to Talk About Kevin. And also The Truman Show and Dark City because why not.
    • Dan brings up a twist, then clutches his head in pain.
    • "Part of the problem is that nothing about the videogame layer matters? At all?"
    • Dan's rambling parody of how blatant the movie is with its metaphors.
  • During Dan's no-context stream of Kingdom Hearts III, accompanied by Crystal and Superbutterbuns, he found it hilarious that Sora opens treasure chests by hitting them with the Keyblade, even though they have enormous keyholes on the front. Crystal then theorized that this is some kind of metaphor for what a virgin teen boy assumes sex involves.
    Crystal: "You just smack it, right?"
    • During the opening cutscene, Crystal immediately assumed that Terra-Xehanort was Sephiroth, simply based on them both having gray hair. Then when Dan starts talking about Lulu's infamous belt dress, Crystal assumes he's talking about Leeloo.
  • "Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite:
    • Much of the video is spent in the new double digital studio, that being a digital studio that is, itself, digital - or, in other words, Dan's character standing in an empty white room. There's no "talk" emote, or at least if there is one Dan doesn't have it, so his character spends the talky parts waving at the camera and grinning like a loon.
      Dan: It took me like 20 hours to unlock this-
    • The video was originally "Folding Ideas Pivots to Fortnite" as an April Fool's gag. As part of this, Dan engages in some hot player on player action.
      Other Dan: It's player VERSUS player!
      Dan: Wait, what did I say?
    • During the gameplay montage, he guns down "Kitthekat420" and invites you to subscribe to him at "twitch.tv/IKillWeedNames". Even better, it turns out he actually made that account.
      Dan: Because you can enjoy what the Earth Mother gave us, but that isn't the same as having a personality.
    • Also during the montage, his character pauses midcombat to start "talking" while he delivers a lecture, only to be rudely interrupted by a bullet. This happens three times.
    • Various points during the montage have the screen decorated with messages like "WHAT? WHAT?!", "EPIC SITUATIONAL AWARENESS FAIL", and an entire screen full of "#NOSCOPE #NOSCOPE #NOSCOPE".
    • He admits that something is maybe a pointless hair to split, but after all, that's what the Folding Ideas channel is about.
    • When he's discussing the Marshmello concert, a caption pops up:
      I was going to point out the unique assets but the answer is "pretty much all of it"
    • The phrase "LIVE SERVICE" gets big sarcastic caps and quotation marks.
    • When he explains the in-game currency system, which he refers to by several terms, such as "funny money":
      Dan: If you're confused, that's the point.
    • The end of the video:
      Dan: Fortnite is a glimpse of the future: an awful, perpetually monetised, vertically integrated, vaguely hostile future.
      Dan's character is shot
    • The video proved...controversial, put it that way.
      @JackIsSerious: Have you gotten any decent discussion from Fortnite fans?
      @FoldingIdeas: Hmm, let me see...
      [Dan posts a Youtube comment saying "Boo hoo capitalism is bad and we should blame evil corporations for the fact that parents these days don't properly educate their children"]
      @FoldingIdeas: No. No I have not.
      @FoldingIdeas: I've now breeched the realms of "kids who make up elaborate lies to try and discredit what you said"
  • In his review of Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Dan decides to give it an "objective" numerical rating out of 100 based on laughs, adventure, feels, and Haunter (each rated out of 5, respectively weighted by x0.6, x0.6, x0.8, and x18 multipliers). While he gives the first three pretty solid individual ratings and concludes that the film is overall very enjoyable, Haunter's absence from the film causes Dan to consider it mathematically one of the worst he's ever talked about.
    • Extends to its stinger conclusion: He liked the film... but there still wasn't any Haunter.
    • After returning from the film, the very first thing Dan details is what's on everybody's mind: "How much did they pander to the perverts?"
      Dan: And the answer is "very little"! I didn't see a single Gardevoir.
    • During his section on "feels", Dan briefly descends into Cuteness Proximity describing the herd of Bulbasaurs before jump-cutting to an abrupt "Yeah, it's a pretty damn cute movie."
  • After the very controversial Series Finale of Game of Thrones, Dan posted a video on his Twitter parodying the ending with a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the style of The Breakfast Club including "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", filled with numerous bouts of Fridge Horror and Sudden Downer Endings.
    The winter was devastating to Sansa's rule.
    Arya found land west of Westeros and named it Westereros. [...] She only baked one more person into a pie.
    After showing up at Storm's End claiming to be Gendry Baratheon [...], Gendry was beaten up by Stannis loyalists and thrown into a ditch.
    Bronn was stabbed and killed in a bar fight three days later.
    Facilitated by the omniscience of the Three-Eyed Raven, King Bran ruled with an iron fist.
    Drogon returned to Essos and burninated the countryside.
    Ghost stayed a good boy and got many more pats.
  • In What Is Vsauce, Dan keeps mimicking Michael Stevens' maneurism, in particular his delivery and habit of popping on screen from odd angles. At the start of the video he also notes the two shares a resemblance (Being balding white men with beards and glasses). Cue this comment:
    "I stand behind the glass. In front of me is a line of famous YouTubers. Each is balder than the last. They all have beards. They all wear glasses. The detective hands me a Kleenex and asks “Alright doll, which one is Vsauce?” I cry into the tissue. I cannot tell. They all look the same."
  • His Gemini Man vlog has a lengthy subsection called "How to Grade like Gemini Man". Needless to say, it's a long, stinging Take That!.
    Dan: (in a vaguely Valley Girl voice) Now, since this is the Gemini Man look we're going for, we will naturally be exhibiting in 3D, which means we need colours that really pop, pop, pop, to make up for the 3D glasses, so, just add a node and crank that saturation right on up. And, y'know what? Let's, ah, do it again - just add another node and just keep on turning it up, just crank it right on up. A good rule of thumb here is that if the audience can look at a colour without experiencing physical discomfort, then you've got some room to turn it up.
  • Dan's vlog on Cats begins with him leaving a seemingly empty theatre with a dead-eyed expression, and the rest of it consists of his deadpan description of the uncanny, sexually Kafkaesque spectacle that is the film.
    Dan: I, for one, am unable to express in words the scream that emanated from deep within my soul when Judi Dench's Old Deuteronomy spreads her legs wide and scissors them in the air to express her approval of another cat's musical number.
  • At the end of The Art of Editing and The Snowman (2017), Dan scribbles his own take on the notes the killer was apparently going to be leaving in the finished version before it ended up being cut:
    MISTER EDITOR
    YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THE FILM
    I GAVE YOU ALL THE SHOTS
    • invoked Dan points out that the film tries to play the inherently silly concept of a serial killer leaving a snowman as a calling card completely seriously, resulting in frequent moments of unintentional comedy. He illustrates this by showing a scene in which a character passes by what appears to be a regular snowman with a carrot nose, only for the camera to swing around and reveal that on the backside, it's actually the killer's trademark, frowning snowman (which doesn't even look particularly scary in and of itself), accompanied by a loud Scare Chord.
    Dan: It's a very, very funny moment, but I'm not sure the movie agrees.
  • "Cooking Food On The Internet For Fun And Profit":
    • Dan's little gag cooking videos, which are about things like microwaving a pizza pop or opening a can of soda.
      Dan: First thing, we need to stress that these are Pillsbury pizza pops, not pizza pockets made by the slatterns over at McCain.
    • During his cut of multiple people talking about their new-agey fad diets, he ends on an English Youtuber named Timothy saying he drank his own urine for two years. Then there's a long, horrified pause before Dan says:
      Dan: Do urine-drinking videos count as cooking videos? Let me know in the comments.
    • He compares making your own cooking show to starting your own restaurant, in that it's a bad idea, everyone knows it's a bad idea, and everyone does it anyway. He even tried his own, focused on weird mid-century party foods.
      Cooking Video!Dan: (wearing a The Noodle Experience shirt) Why would you make that much blue cheese flavoured cream cheese and then mold it into a snowman?
      Dan: It didn't go well.
      [cut to the food being eaten; Dan is on the edge of tears after his first bite]
      Crystal: That mayo does not do it any favours.
      Dan: NO. WHY.
    • Dan sounds legitimately disgusted by the effect of the 8-watt bulb above his oven on the footage he's taking.
    • Dan getting repeatedly sucked into bad lifehack or 5-Minute Craft videos with an air of horrified fascination.
  • "On Context": At the end of a string of Take Thats at the expense of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in which Dan compares it to a "High Mass in which we ritualistically recount the exploits of untouchable demigods"* and "an expertly sculpted puff of air", snarkily informed the audience that the CGI is so well-done that you probably won't notice that there's more live action in WALL•E, and called it a "dour, exhausting 150-minute ode to creative bankruptcy" and "the kind of movie that makes you question your faith in cinema itself", Dan wraps up with this:
    Dan: You may have gathered this already, but I didn't much care for Batman V Superman.
  • Dan follows a long discussion of Shinji's self-loathing, fecklessness and refusal to change in End of Evangelion with "And then everyone melts into Tang."
  • "In Search of a Flat Earth": The intro features him explaining that the video took so long because of the concept of "reviewer dibs" forcing him to delay it until a suitable interval after "known moon criminal Hbomberguy" put up his flat Earth video. For added silliness, Hbomb is brought up with this image.
    • Part 1 ends with Dan noting that Flat Earth has been bleeding support... And then pauses for effect before explaining why. "Because they're all going to QAnon." For anyone familiar with QAnon and has gotten utterly sick of its nonsense, the likely reaction is "oh, goddamn it." While also probably laughing, because the comedic timing is perfect.
  • "That Time Geocentrists Tricked A Bunch Of Physicists":
    • The subsection headings are kind of goofy, especially "The Sun Is Surfing The Einstein Waves Emitted By Ligma."
    • When discussing Robert Sungenis's book, Galileo was Wrong, Dan posits that maybe that was also some provocative marketing.
      Book: Chapter 3: Evidence that Earth is in the Center of the Universe
      Dan: Okay, yeah, that's pretty unambiguous.
    • The conclusion, in which Dan outlines the nature and structure of the filmmakers' beliefs that lead them to support geocentrism, then going for a much blunter resolution:
      Dan: If the Earth is in a fixed position, dominant over the Sun and stars, then God put it there and gave it that prominence — and if God put the Earth in place, God also put the Church in place and likewise gave it position and dominance and authority. But, y'know, they're wrong. They're a bunch of dumbasses with fake degrees they bought from their hypnotherapist friends.
    • The end of it has Dan being served up the names of various planets and serving up their sexualities. Jupiter, supposedly, "says he's straight but sleeps with everyone"note .
  • From "The Nostalgia Critic and the Wall":
  • From "An Exhaustive History of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings":
    • "[Wizards] was moderately successful, enough to keep it from being considered a flop, which is somewhat impressive given that the movie is... quite bad."
    • While detailing the long history leading up to Ralph Bakshi's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, Dan briefly addresses how United Artists (the company Bakshi was attempting to negotiate their rights to The Lord of the Rings from) already had a script written out by John Boorman, which he describes as "absolutely buckwild".
      Dan: There's a Galadriel/Frodo sex scene, Aragorn and Boromir kissing passionately with Arwen's blood on their lips, the history of The Ring presented as a Rock Opera at the Council of Elrons, and Gimli is rebirthed in mud to recall the ancient ancestral password to Moria.
      • Dan would clarify on a stream what in the actual fuck is going on with the Aragorn and Boromir scene. Basically, because John Boorman enjoys playing with films ability to do anything he decided that Arwen was literally the narrator and that her voice, in addition to providing exposition, was guiding Aragorn and Boromir to stop being dicks to each other. During one particuarly heated argument Arwen decides to physically manifest before them and gives them each one half of Narsil. She then, for reasons unknown, kisses the blades in such a way to cut her mouth, kisses both Aragorn and Boromir, and that's when the two kiss each other. You can see why they decided to not make this version.
    • Throughout the video, Dan frequently acknowledges that Ralph Bakshi is an... odd individual. During one bit as he goes over Bakshi's tendency to make wildly exaggerated claims, he pulls up an interview quote saying that he felt the X rating he received on Fritz the Cat was because he was ahead of the curve, and that "now they do as much on The Simpsons as I got an X rating for Fritz the Cat."
      Dan: And like... no? No, Ralph? No they don't! No they don't. What do you think happens on The Simpsons?! [laughs incredulously before sitting forward, dead serious] I am very curious [about] what Ralph Bakshi thinks happens on The Simpsons.
    • Dan eventually collides with the absurdly long-lasting debate on whether the Balrog is supposed to have wings or not, presented as an increasingly frantic rambling of sources sharing certain arguments as a MIDI rendition of "Band On The Run" by Wings plays in the background. Bonus points for depicting the "no-wings" version of Balrog using the Balrog from Street Fighter II and breathlessly referring to the author of The Tolkien Bestiary as "Tolkien hack David Day".
      Dan: And anyway, if the Balrog have wings, why couldn't they just fly the ring into Mordor?!
    • "Of course then, a little over twenty years later, Peter Jackson, that guy who makes perverted puppet movies, would finally get to make a no-holds-barred adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, and it's really good!"
  • From "The Problem with NFTs":
    • As Dan begins the piece, he admits that there's a lot of context required to actually "get" NFTs:
      Dan: [after describing the basic concept of Bitcoin] It's a bit of a hike from here to the "Bored Ape Yacht Club" so... I guess get ready for that! Strap in.
    • Dan's discussion about the realities of what happened to Bitcoin ended with its only realistic application in the market being used to buy drugs, where the headache of the processing fees, transaction times, and price fluctuations were mitigated by the fact that you received LSD in the mail.
    • Dan introduces the founder and developer of Ethereum; Vitalik Buterin, as both a Crypto-Enthusiast and "Butthurt Warlock Main", highlighting a passage from his website where he explains his hatred of centralized services apparently coming from the Warlock skill Life Siphon losing its damage component.
    • In a Call-Back, his explanation of one concept involves a comparison to his copy of Grey, which has some unique traits, such as the damage of having been glued shut and thrown into the river during his Fifty Shades retrospective (complete with clip). Then, when he's finished with the comparison, he tosses the book aside... and plays the clip of it landing in the river again.
    • A Rewatch Bonus/inverted Brick Joke: When he discusses what can exist on the Ethereum blockchain, including computer programs, the on-screen graphic depicts a "Hello World" program. When he discusses the difficulty of fixing programming errors in these programs, the on-screen graphic involves trying and failing to substitute a corrected program for a misprinted version which prints "Hello Word". If you go back and watch the earlier segment, it has the misprinted version of the program.
    • People who buy NFTs at high prices need to hype them up as the next big thing to sell them at even higher prices. As just one example, Dan shows a tweet from someone disparaging his old profile pic (based on his real face) and claiming that his new NFT profile is "identity by choice". Dan points out that he was simply describing a non-representational image as a profile pic, and he himself once surfed the Dungeons and Dragons forums with a cabbage as his profile pic.
      ...So... not really breaking new ground here.
    • When Dan notes that it's hard to take anything said by NFT advocates seriously because it comes across like they're desperately trying to convince themselves their NFTs were not bad financial decisions, he aptly compares them to the people who bought Juiceros.
    • Dan uses a surprising, but amusingly apropos, pop culture reference to describe the mindset of NFT advocates:
      Dan: I think the thing that normies don't "get" about NFT bros is their dedication, the staggering volume of capital they already control, and how deeply rooted they are in the culture of the people who operate the platforms we all use every day, and that alone is a good reason for people to pay attention. They have a lot of money and a lot of clout that they can use to try and make Fetch happen.
  • From "Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins"
    • The video-wide Running Gag of Dan answering any ambiguity regarding the true worth of the Mikkelsens' nebulous advice by declaring himself a "Certified Worth Decider" before abruptly cutting to a certificate while "Aggressive Dubstep" plays. Looking closer at the certificate reveals multiple gags, including the awarding body being the "Brad Default Presidential Accademy" of "University in Delaware", "Given under the Seal of the University at Newark, Vanuatu", being given on October 32nd, and bearing the signature of Ted Kaczynski.
    • At the beginning, Dan introduces the general family of "hustle culture guru nonsense" the video is about by doing a quick series of rapid fire parodies of their Youtube ads: Standing outside "his garage" (obviously just a car dealership) to show of his Lamborghini, speaking in a soft, kindergarten teacher tone while green screened in front of some rubber duckies explaining that the best way to earn a big income online is "to make a lot of small incomes. Online.", "I'm here within 400 feet of an elementary school to PROVE THE HATERS WRONG!", and claiming he can use his magic powers to guarantee 500% APY if you give him your money while shirtless for no reason.
    • When introducing the twins, Dan blurs out one of their faces and makes a big show of struggling to remember their name before eventually caving and just looking it up.
      Dan: They're twins, I don't even know if I blurred the right one for this joke.
    • This bit:
      Dan: Grift B is called "Made For You Audiobooks".
      Christian Mikkelsen: Done For You Audiobooks.
      Dan: Done For You Audiobooks.
    • Dan explains how the Mikkelsens' low-quality pitches self-select for ignorant people by pointing out that they call Audible "Amazon's best kept secret", followed by a montage of other YouTubers reading "Sponsored by Audible" messages. It's... a long montage.
      Dan: Basically that one line is going to filter out so... (corpses) SO many people, because the only people who are going to hear that and just accept it at face value are people who just aren't that familiar with... y'know... a lot of things.
    • Dan highlights the twins' use of testimonials in their workshops as being a bit too defensive with the quantity provided, and then presents a montage of over forty testimonials.
    • One example of "something fishy" Dan finds in the presentation: The twins claim that they've worked with an actress named Kelly Rhodes, and offer some samples of her work. The problem? Well, even though the profile, the image, and the name "Kelly" all agree that the actress is female, the sample offered is listed as male, "Kelly"'s profile picture is actually Christina Delaine, the voice actress who played Valiona in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm *, and the "sample" linked is the least convincing (male) text-to-speech program in the world. Said TTS is used by Dan to read out every single instance of the Mikkelsens' and their associates' writing in the episode, both before and after the section with Kelly.
    • The twins' presentation includes a large wall of books they've "made". Most of the books shown are repeated multiple times to pad out the image. That's not the funny part. The funny part is that the three specific books Dan chooses to single out all have their titles—either parts or the entirety—blurred out, which Dan "pronounces" by dubbing the sound of a dial-up modem over his "reading" them. He then announces that he has no way of knowing what the titles originally were or why they were blurred... before walking off, returning after a few seconds, and announcing that they were two sex manuals and a book called "Stoicism For Pussies".
    • Dan gives his author persona the pen name "Brad Default" (pronounced De-faux).
    • This little bit of Black Comedy:
      Dan: I said one of my goals in this was to test the ethical boundaries of the system, but—shockingly—the system doesn't have any.
    • After Dan finishes writing his book, he attempts to break down the per-word salary he would've been paid if he had been working for the ghostwriting company... only for the poster board he puts up over his grift map to fall down. He spends several seconds getting it into place, but the breakdown is done digitally, with the text edited in later.
  • In The Future is A Dead Mall:
    • Dan has multiple slides. One features an extract from Ryan K Bolger explaining how he sees AirBnb as an example of the Metaverse:
      Bolger: "AirBnb is similar to a hotel that hosts unlimited rooms for 2 million people a night — In reality it is a digital twin of what a physical Hotel might be."
      Dan's comment: "I'm sorry WHAT does he think an AirBnb is?"
    • In reading off a fashion company's statement on fashion in the metaverse, Dan finds a particularly shady comment:
      "We strongly believe that the amount of clothing produced today is way greater than humanity needs. But don't shop less. Shop digital fashion. Don't shop less. Don't shop less. Don't, don't you, don't you dare, don't you (static noise) dare shop less. DON'T YOU—"
    • Speaking of slides: Dan's description of the current internet ends with him proclaiming:
      "...and even virtual strip clubs where you can hang out in chat with five hundred strangers, and watch someone just absolutely-" [static noise, Smash Cut to a slide quoting YouTube rules on pornographic content not being allowed].
    • There's an extended skit when discussing "Eashoo Law", a 'law office' in Decentraland that isn't staffed and never will be, where Dan portrays the lawyer in question dealing with a nightmare client:
      Dan!Eashoo: While it was unfortunate that you tripped and dropped the urn that contained your grandmother's ashes because you tripped over a rake that your roommate left out, unfortunately when you attacked him with that rake it was uhm, a crime, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to refer you to a criminal defence lawyer...I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your grandmother and the death of your roommate, but I can't assist you any further in this matter.
    • A particularly dark gag happens when Dan goes to show that not all of the properties in Decentraland are centered around business or crypto. He demonstrates this with a memorial of supposedly someone's deceased child...that's right next to one of the Mario houses.
    • As Dan discusses the limits of VR and Metaverse pundits insisting on the importance of VR, he plays footage of himself going through his life with a VR headset constantly on, doing various tasks that require sight, like cooking, taking pictures, using his smartphone and driving. The latter ends with black and white footage of an antique car driving off a cliff.
    • While a The Decentraland Report reporter is trying to pretend to be wowed by a placeholder sound effect, one background character is in a kitchen sponge costume and named "Motherscrubber".
    • In the pie chart of what happens to the revenue from The Decentraland Report:
      $12 Grant repayment
      (that's not a grant, you dinguses, that's a loan)
    • Describing how the Decentraland DAO could vote for anything, only for the Foundation to ignore it, Dan picks this colorful example:
      "If the DAO were to vote for the project to become a 2D Metroidvania set in a hypothetical fourth Punic War, in the visual style of NHL ‘94 — Sorry, this ain't happening."
    • Because Dan is filming the video in his house, his cat Amy is sitting on the couch with him, and she occasionally reacts to things that Dan is doing.
      Dan: Not to get distracted, but World of Warcraft did this exact promotion in 2010. This plush Wind Rider Cub came with an in-game pet. It's not a new thing. [tosses the plush aside, Amy heads over to investigate it]
    • Dan brings up the topic of a Decentraland election on Discord, where someone asks "What are each candidate's stance on bringing physical world ideologies into our decentralized world?" Most candidates say they would support politics being patched in... only if it got majority support in an official vote.
      Candidate: This is like a grand experiment, however there's a lot at stake, so I think any ideology that we're considering bringing it it would be best handled on a side project.
      Dan: My dudes... the ideology is coming from inside the house.
    • When discussing Casa Voltaire, the hacker house which the creators of Decentraland originated, Dan talks about how the media treated them as enigmatic, contemplative geniuses, weighing in on "complex" technological philosophy such as, "How should autonomous cars act in a situation that would save the driver but kill a pedestrian?", "Who is liable if a bot malfunctions and causes harm?", and "What kind of neuro-security should we develop to protect users of brain-to-brain interfaces?"
      Dan: So, like, a high school introduction to ethics. One of those is literally the trolley problem.
    • Through the video Dan includes segments of Decentraland shills being excited and hyped about things that are obviously, terribly implemented. Like being excited about a broken sound check, to touting the poor draw distance as a feature to emphasize the focus on the end user. The opening itself is people on Reddit being excited about a "movie theater" whose concession stand is a grainy JPEG and whose one theater has no seat. Yet posters act like this is a revolutionary leap in technology.
      • A particular example features a streamer hyping up Hershey's arrival to Decentraland, acting like it's world shattering news, despite the fact he's not even sure if the company is called Hershey or Hershey's.
  • This Is Financial Advice
    • "They are shadowboxing the random noise of the market... (Beat) and losing."
    • Dan's summation of the Apes: "They don't hate Wall Street, they are tsundere for Wall Street".
    • Dan notes the final form of any Reddit user or DD poster is "u/[deleted]".
    • Throughout the video, Dan has been structuring it through the usage of chapters and chapter titles. What's the chapter in which he discusses Bed Bath and Beyond's bankruptcy and the Apes' reactions to it? Chapter 11: BBBankruptcy.
    • The "heat lamp" metaphor, involving Computershare as a heat lamp in a diner filled with hamburgers for Wall Street customers who are all vegetarians so that "the DTCC can borrow the hamburgers to use them to create synthetic hamburgers which can be used to cover Citadel's illegal hamburger sales, and then return the counterfeit hamburgers to the diner as if they were the originals".
      Dan: The perfect crime!
    • Dan keeps using the phrase 'wife-changing money' without explaining it, and right when it seems he'll address it he instead says this:
      Dan: Sharp eared listeners may have noticed I said dividend.
    • Dan keeps cutting to himself playing the role of an Ape all too eager to preach his beliefs, often in insane, illogical ways or with baffling, rambling arguments. The end credits reveal that all along he's been quoting actual posts on Reddit and YouTube from actual Apes...although the post responsible for "infinite risk means infinite reward" had a screencap put up while Dan was saying it, presumably as a kind of "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer.
  • About That Idris Elba Gold Documentary
    • The Cold Open is timestamped in the description as "Gold Open".
    • "The World Gold Council... whoever they are. I'm assuming they were the villains from Captain Planet."
    • During the segment on Colonialism, discussing the history of Gold Mining and Apartheid in South Africa, Dan notes that the documentary being made by gold mining companies sort of blunts their exploration of the topic.
      Idris Elba: There's no hiding from the fact—
      Dan: No hiding, yeah.
      Idris Elba: —that gold mining played a major part—
      Dan: Uh-huh.
      Idris Elba: —in shaping South African society during the Apartheid years.
      Dan: Yeah?!
      Idris Elba: But with gold—
      [Giant "BUT..." appears on screen with airhorns blaring and smaller "BUT..."s raining down, Dan leans back, arms outstretched victoriously]
      • Dan then notes the documentary ends up giving the credit for ending Apartheid not to labor movements, but to gold itself.
        "An inert mineral is stealing the valor of labor movements. It's really weird."
    • As an example of interesting facts about gold the documentary could have talked about, Dan mentions that it is extremely durable yet malleable, noting that the Golden Crown of England was once melted down to a 2.4 kilograms ingot, and then forged into a crown again, and the gold itself has not lost any of its properties.
    Dan: We did it once, Charles, we can do it again!
    • Dan discusses how the part of the video covering Reefton Mine, and how the documentary skips over the astounding advances done to restore the site after the mine was closed, something you might think the industry would want to brag about. But as Dan explains, to explain why this site is a breakthrough and achievement would require also mentioning how the site is an outlier, and that usually closed open pit mines become giant lakes of ultra toxic water. Cue the following:
      Dan 1, at his desk, as if he was on the documentary: "These guys have cracked the toxic pit problem!"
      Dan 2, laying on his couch, acting like a viewer of the documentary: "Wait, what toxic pit problem?"
      • The latter line is replayed later to emphasize how the documentary constantly stops itself from being interesting because doing so might raise questions the World Gold Council doesn't want the audience to have.
    • Earlier in the same segment, while explaining the aforementioned toxic pit problem, Dan uses a montage of Tom Scott visiting various such sites. He later explains that the problem is widespread and that "there are thousands of pit lakes out each with their own risk factors. Believe it or not, Tom Scott hasn't even visited half of them!"
      • Tom Scott is given a special thanks in the credits.
    • Dan refers to the toxic chemicals in pit lakes as "Forbidden Gatorade"
    • As the documentary reaches its end, Idris Elba closes by saying their exploration of gold had "ups and downs" despite the documentary skirting around any touchy, political or controversial issues about gold mining. Dan sits up.
      Dan: "Oh, what downs? What do you think the downs might be? I got my notes ready. I can make a list. What are the downs?"

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