YMMV / Michael Rosen

• Accidental Innuendo: This line from "Fridge" is probably the most obvious one.
  "Lift the jug and fill my mouth with that thick sweet juice!"
• Crosses the Line Twice: Strict is filled with this, as a Sadist Teacher gives crazy punishments to kids for breathing.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: "Fast Food", a silly story about an anthromorphized hamburger running away, has been interpreted as having a pro-vegetarian message just because of its mantra "Eating me is cruel, eating me is murder".
• Memetic Mutation: As previously mentioned on the Main Page, Rosen's videos are frequently used as source material by YouTube Poopers, and as such, he has become something of a celebrity figure within the YTP community, if not for his actual work.
  • YouTube Poops involving Rosen typically contain a few Running Gags that have become central to his meme status:
    • "Bag of plums"/"Plums", to the point that several Rosen poopers have "Plums" or some variation thereof in their usernames.
    • "The Michael Rosen Rap" or sentence-mixed versions thereof
    • "KWAP... (tongue click) ...nice!"
    • "Really good."
    • “And actually, um... that wasn’t very nice. Uh, actually, um… it was horrible.”
    • "Harrybo's Granddad".
    • "Windmills". You can thank RootNegativeSixteen for that one.
    • "Oh no! The moment I dread: when..."
    • "NOOOOO BREATHING!"
    • "Keel over and DIE."
    • "Thick! Cooking oil!"
    • “GET OFF ME!”
    • "SNATCH"
    • For the "Older Rosen" videos, "Chocolate Cake" is the big one, while his "drilling for oil" routine, "Solomon the Cat", "Mum's Dead (Coat)" and "CLEAR THE FLUFF OUT FROM UNDER YOUR BED" are also popular.
    • "Bendy bendy bendy!"
    • "Faster than an electronic rabbit."
    • "Oh no, this is horrible!"
    • "And he beats me!"
    • "TOENAILS!"
    • "I could kill you in five seconds with me bare hands!"
  • Videos of him describing various things (typically media like shows, movie franchises, music albums, etc.) using the aforementioned clips of him have become very popular on YouTube in early 2020s.
• Nausea Fuel: The revelation of what exactly goes into the Yum-Yum Burgers in "Custard's Last Stand". The description of how badly the meat has gone off is also rather stomach-churning.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • "Headache" is a surprisingly morbid description of...well...a headache.
  It's a lump...in your head.
  It's the blade...of a knife in there.
  It's your veins...bursting.
  It's your skull...squeezing your brains.
  ...It's a headache.

  • Even scarier is the video, mostly because Michael is whispering this poem while giving the camera a Death Glare.
  • The first part of "No One In" is downright terrifying.
  Sometimes you come home...and there's no one in.
  There are no lights on.
  No food ready.
  No telly.
  No one laughing.
  No jokes.
  Just you, on your own.
  ...That's when my brain starts doing things.
  Y'know...murderers and mad dog stuff.
  • In "The Bakerloo Flea", the sound effects that Michael makes for the titular flea are highly disturbing. It's also not fun for anyone who doesn't like creepy-crawlies in general, what with titular flea being the size of a large dog or bigger.
  • "A Plague of Wasps in Winter" is skin-crawling for anyone who has an intense fear/hatred for wasps. Especially gruesome is what the swarm is implied to do to an unfortunate tanker truck driver who gets covered in golden syrup:
    "Did he live?" I said.
    "Yes and no," she said. "What was left of him lived."
  • Whatever it is Maeve spots through the warehouse window in "Custard's Last Stand" causes her to go white with shock. We never learn what it is.
• Quirky Work: "Fast Food" is about a sentient hamburger being speedy and fleeing for a plane trip to Jamaica. Bizarre compared to his standards which are ofteh exaggerations of down-to-earth themes.
• Sacred Cow: Amongst YouTube Poop makers, he’s commonly seen as one of the kindest and coolest people associated with the community, to the point where some take offense to those who genuinely hate him or his work.
• Squick: Invoked in "Horrible". While rather tame in comparison to other examples of this trope, "Horrible" is about the narrator buying a cheap pizza in a paper bag, which he splatters all over his face and knuckles, breathes in through his nose, whilst he dribbles everywhere licks his tongue over his knuckles and gets bits of bag stuck in his mouth. No wonder the woman sitting opposite him on the train was horrified.
• Tear Jerker:
  • For someone best known for memes and humor, Michael Rosen's Sad Book is a rather deep and tragic description on his grief over the death of his son.
    "Sometimes sad is very big. It's everywhere, all over me... what makes me most sad is when I think about my son Eddie. He died. I loved him very, very much but he died anyway."
  • "Going Through the Old Photos" hits us with the revelation that there was a third Rosen child - Alan, the middle child between Brian and Michael. Alan died of whooping cough while his father Harold was away, dying in his mother's arms - and they only have the one photo of him to prove he ever existed. Harold (from Rosen's POV) summarizes the tragedy of it:
    "The terrible thing is, it wouldn't happen today. But it was during the war, you see, and they didn't have the medicines."
  • Michael's video about his COVID-19 survival story, where he goes in-depth about his experience being bedridden in the hospital and opens up about him contemplating the idea of succumbing to the illness.
  • Some of the stories in "Nasty!" deal with very realistic and heart-breaking scenarios that can resonate with older readers.
    • "Lollipop Lady" features the shocking and tragic deaths of several children on the road, run down by vehicles far too large and dangerous to be travelling down it, as well as the growing frustrations of the community as their efforts to resolve it are stonewalled by an apathetic council.
    • "Custard's Last Stand" has a homeless old woman dying from food poisoning caused by the rotten meat of Yum-Yum Burger Bar's food. The narrator, who gave the burgers to her, admits to feeling ashamed by her act of generosity, believing she essentially "killed her with kindness".

---