"Casually Explained is a series of art vlogs portraying a large-eyed smiling stick figure ironically symbolizing the creator's internal despair and quarter-Japanese genetics. Many of his videos are presented in a deadpan style with little change in expression or tone. While not considered to be terribly intellectual, he dryly reminded us that the only test he failed was the Turing."
Casually Explained (Real name Jamie) is a Canadian Youtuber and streamer who uploads short monologues on various topics such as comedy, relationship advice, and how he used to be one of the top StarCraft II players in the world, where he makes heavy use of flat delivery on even the most offensive of jokes and bait and switches.
He began uploading to his YouTube channel in 2016, and uploads new videos anywhere from 5 days to 3 months apart, leaning heavily on the latter. His YouTube channel can be found here
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Tropes:
- Americans Are Cowboys: In The English Language, he draws America and Alaska with cowboy hats in one sequence.
- Ambiguously Bi: While he talks a lot about getting girls (and his lack thereof), he also describes r/Bodybuilding by saying, "Finally some good content".
- Appeal to Nature: Deconstructed in Being Healthy, where he goes into depth on how a lot of foods commonly labeled as being healthy or are labeled as superfoods happen to grow in nature.
- Art-Style Dissonance: Downplayed. One would likely expect a more lighthearted tone from a series of poorly drawn stick figures.
- Banana Republic: Jamie discusses the Logical Extreme in Elon Musk, presenting the idea of a literal Disneyworld.
- Brand Names Are Better: Discussed in Men's Fashion in relation to how Supreme-stamped bricks were sold out.
- But Not Too Foreign: Jamie's a quarter Japanese.
- Censor Box: Put between the legs in scenes in which Jamie isn't wearing any pants, despite his art style not depicting clothes.
- City People Eat Sushi: In The Food of the World, Jamie says that Japanese food is some of his favorite.
- The Cynic: Jamie often borders on downright pessimistic, such as how he describes his current situation as the worst possible outcome in The Fear of Missing Out.
- Deadpan Snarker: Jamie almost never changes his flat delivery.
- Despair Event Horizon: Moving Out tells of the failure of attempting to have a disciplined lifestyle. After some time, you’ll be reduced to lying on an uncovered mattress, listening to your neighbors trying to save their marriage and wondering how long it would take for someone to notice if you didn’t wake up.
- Double Entendre: All over the place in French.
- Exact Words: One sequence in America shows both the North and the South during the Civil War saying slaves should be free.note
- Insane Troll Logic: In Elon Musk, he says the Tesla Roadster 2020 has the highest safety rating on account of there being no way to enter the vehicle.
- Insistent Terminology: He goes to great lengths to differentiate between the Commuter and the Cyclist in Cycling.
- Monochrome Past: Inverted inBack In My Day. When speaking to the dog, Jamie’s dad’s flashbacks are in color, given how dogs don’t see color.
- Oblivious to Love: Is She Into You? has Jamie make assessments of a variety of scenarios with women potentially flirting with you which has him consistently declare that you can't really tell with this situation every time. It culminates with a scenario of a woman who has gone on multiple dates with you (saying that "...she thought those hangouts were actually dates..."), invites you over to her house at night, pushes you onto her bed, dims off the lights, takes off her clothes and has sex with you which he still declares as a circumstance where you can't really tell since "Maybe she's from Canada and was just being polite".
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Used in videos talking about biology, in a similar fashion to TierZoo.
- Self-Deprecation: In Guide to College and University, his list of fact/fiction includes “You’ll have a lot of sex: True. I’ll have a lot of sex: False”.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In Being Healthy, he says that people take him more seriously when he skips breakfast if he says he's doing intermittent fasting.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: In Men's Fashion, he remarks on how the business suit hasn't changed in over a hundred years because there hasn't been a need to change it.
- Shout-Out:
- In the segment on exercise in Being Healthy, there's a brief Art Shift in which Jamie's face looks like that of Saitama's serious face.
- In video thumbnails:
- Sports has Jamie Naruto-running in an Olympic track event
- People Who Are Into the Stock Market has a banner giving the title as The Wolf of Robin Hood.
- Dangerous Australian Wildlife Tier List shows Jamie fighting a wombat in an interface resembling that of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.
- The Stinger:
- After the ending jingle in The Food of the World, Jamie lists some of the cuisines he forgot.
- In The English Language, Jamie says, "Subscribe to Casually Explained".
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Twitch Streamers includes the line, while discussing justifications for watching more sexual streamers that Jamie is a tier 3 sub to Hassan Piker. Hassan reacted to the video, not only did he find out that Jamie was indeed a tier 3 sub, but when he unpaused the video afterwards, he was greeted with the line, “And we’re back. Thanks for unpausing the video Hassan”.
- Tone Shift: About midway through The Ageing Process, the tone of the video switches from an informative talk on physical and mental development to a rather depressing talk on how adulthood sucks.
- When I Was Your Age...: Parodied in Back In My Day. According to Jamie’s dad, he had to fend off lava sharks after the earth split in two in front of him in order to get his education. Never did he receive praise, only detention.
- Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb: In The Spectrum of Intelligence, he says that elephants have been shown to be as smart as an 8 year old kid. In other words, they’re very stupid.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Jamie isn't older than his thirties, yet as Podcast Update: What I’ve Been up to the Last 2 Years + Plans reveals, he's reached a state resembling enlightenment.
