Trivia / Philosophy Tube

• Actor-Shared Background: The character of "The Firefighter" (played by Abigail before she transitioned) was established fairly early on as a transgender man. After Abigail officially came out as transgender herself, the character's role as an Author Avatar became much more explicit.
• The Cast Showoff: The series is about explaining philosophy, a subject Abigail studied highly in college, but Abigail is also an actor in her "day job". As the series has gotten more popular, she has included more of her acting talents into the show, affecting various voices, costumes, and characters to make the presentation memorable, entertaining, and/or effective.
• Corpsing:
  • As a trained actor Abigail is excellent at performing the most ludicrous lines in a completely serious tone ("The Philosophy of Anime" is full of this), but occasionally corny lines make her break down. She leaves those outtakes in for comedic purposes.
  • When noting how making an official complaint to an institution (and trying to get that complaint resolved) is like having a second job you don't get paid for, Abigail takes a second to plug her Patreon. She can't quite repress a chuckle as she shouts, "I am no longer asking, SIGN THE FUCK UP!"
• Dawson Casting: Natasha says she was embedded in Britain right before the Berlin Wall came down, but is played by Abigail, who was 28 at the time of filming. (The Wall fell in 1989, so even a really precocious spy would be at least in her 40s by now.)
  • Escalated into a Running Gag on Well There's Your Problem and Kill James Bond!, where every time she mentions her age she gets progressively younger.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Quoted verbatim by Abigail in her "Jordan Peterson" video's Hilarious Outtakes, during which the snakes she uses for props ("Tigger" and "Yoshi") keep misbehaving by nesting in her crown, trying to kiss her or by being so adorable she forgets her lines.
  • She did manage to get Amazon the horse to behave for 'Why Does Britain Still Have A Queen?', but accused her of only being nice when the cameras were on.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In "Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story", Abigail's old persona (referred to as "The Man Who Wasn't There") is played by Rhys Tees.
  • In "Jordan Peterson's Philosophy", the Arsonist is played by Ben Mann.
• Real-Life Relative: Abigail and her brother played two siblings in the Shakespeare Stream for As You Like It.
• Shrug of God: In the livestream discussing "Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story", a fan question asked Abigail what spelling she favored for "Abby", the abbreviation she provided for her new name. Abigail's response was that any spelling was fine and that she didn't have an "official" one.
• Troubled Production: Getting the rights to use the title track from ★ by David Bowie for her coming-out-as-trans video was a huge pain in the ass, as detailed here. At one point, both Sony Music (who released Bowie’s albums) and Bowie’s publisher claimed Abigail and her agent would need to contact the other one for permission, making her request to pay them for its use much more complicated than it needed to be. The licence was secured days before filming, after two months and sixty-plus emails.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Abigail mentioned on a livestream that the first draft for "Abortion and Ben Shapiro" called for Lucifer as the character who would torment Tom Gently by putting him in the Sadistic Choice, but practical concerns about filming (and the fact that it would lead the episode to be more Sidetracked by the Analogy) led to The Arsonist taking the role instead.
  • On Twitter she also mentioned that “Charles Darwin vs Karl Marx“ was originally going to be called “What Happened to the New Atheists?”.
  • “Beauty in Ugly Times” was originally going to just be about beauty, with maybe some stuff about separating the art from the artist, but it ended up being more contemporary.
  • "Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story" had several ideas in its development, including more heavy Doctor Who elements and references to the Doctor's regeneration to reveal Abigail, more and earlier interaction between Abigail and The Man Who Wasn't There, and an idea of the Man being bothered by a phone call from Abigail that he didn't want to answer. She said the more elaborate setpieces were cut due to it being irresponsible to do during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and some of the other ideas felt too cliche to her.
  • Adelaide Sweetley-Schmitz was originally going to be more straight-up villainous, but Abigail decided it would be funnier if she was in the dark about her brother being the Arsonist.
  • Abigail stated on Twitter that she'd tried to get a TV personality to guest star in a video as a celebration of reaching 1 million subscribers, but been shot down by their agent. She never confirmed who, but she did have a Nigella Lawson cardboard cutout in her next video.
  • Per a comment on Quinton Reviews' Fallen Titans #3, an application to Channel Awesome was sent back in the day. It's safe to say Abigail considers it a bullet dodged like many others who missed the cut.
• Word of Gay: Downplayed. She jokingly said that she was retroactively calling the fireman trans like she’s JK Rowling without the transphobia, but if you watched “Steve Bannon” and “Charles Darwin vs Karl Marx” you can put it together regardless.

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