YMMV / Camp Camp

• Adorkable
  • David is so ridiculously peppy and upbeat about his love of Camp Campbell that the fandom fell in love with him on sight.
  • Nerris' gaming moniker is "Nerris the Cute", and she geeks out over anything fantasy-related.
  • As a timid, somewhat anxious nerd, Neil definitely has his moments. Particularly during "The Lake Lilac Summer Social" when he becomes extremely flustered around Erin, a girl who he has become infatuated with.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: "Camporee" tries to push the deliberate Spoof Aesop as being "never work together" but in practice it can actually be seen as "everyone has their own strengths", which is a perfectly good Aesop on its own. It's shown that teamwork only helps in those situations that are explicitly designed to include cooperation while conversely the challenges are set up to play to each camp's personal advantages, where skill matters more than synergy.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • David is shown as a Stepford Smiler who's deeply in denial about how bad things are at the camp, but was the moment where he finally broke down and admitted how bad things were a result of him finally accepting reality or dropping his cheerful facade? It could go either way as it's unclear whether David is genuinely tuned out of reality or simply covering his worries with a smile at any given time.
    • Or is David something of an Anti-Nihilist who knows full well that life sucks but is trying to make the best of it regardless? For all the troubles he has at the camp, he truly appears to enjoy being there. He seems to be willing to take the abuse he receives and outright admits to trying to see the good in everything and wanting to encourage that in others. However, he is shown to draw a line when it comes to other people being forced to put up with things that make them unhappy. He supported Gwen's attempts in "Gwen Gets a Job" even though she's trying to find employment elsewhere because he wants her to be happy and do what's best for her. He outright admits to Max in Parent's Day that no one should have to pretend they're happy when they're not, that it's okay to be angry, and that Max deserves to be happy. He fully admits that things suck, but is regularly trying to make things better for other people and enjoy what he can out of life.
  • David mentions in episode 2 that he can only do a few camp activities without Gwen. Does that mean he's not competent enough to run things on his own, the workload is genuinely too much for him alone, or he legally can't do those things without her?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Many people disregarded the series as soon as the first trailer was released, calling it unfunny and poorly animated garbage that was a poor attempt from RT Animation to branch out. After its release, it was heavily applauded for being one of the funniest and most original RT productions out there.
• Anvilicious: An intentional example. The Holiday Special ended with a filibuster about the dangers of climate change, and how ridiculous climate change denial is. As for their opinion on vaccines...
  Max: "Oh, and vaccinate your kids while you're at it! Fucking morons."
  • This was attempted with "Foreign Exchange Campers", which ends with Neil and Nikki remarking that for all their worrying about foreigners, they didn't stop to think that someone from their own country might be a bigger problem. However, this ignores the fact that throughout the episode, A) the campers never showed any real suspicion of the foreign newcomers on the basis of them being foreign, and B) the foreign newcomers were just as dangerous and untrustworthy as the American newcomer and could even still be considered worse due to the fact that they intended to burn down the camp and kill the other campers, leaving the message at the end to feel clouded and out of nowhere.
• Awesome Music:
  • The show's theme song, on top of being outrageously catchy is twice as impressive for Miles Luna turning it into a rapid paced Patter Song towards the end and still being coherent.
  • The ending songs are also obscenely catchy. Sometimes even literally.
    • The Camp Camp Rap Rap from the first episode of the series, on the grounds it's an Affectionate Parody of Gangsta Rap.
  • Better Than You, the duet between David and Daniel in the Season 2 premiere.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Some criticize Dolph for being a one-joke, discomforting character. Others find him hilarious.
    • The implication that he's on the autism spectrum met similar reactions. Some people felt it worked as an explanation for his behavior while others felt this made autistic people look bad and that other characters, like Neil or Max, would have made better examples of the spectrum.
  • After he stopped being a pure Hate Sink, Cameron Campbell fell into this. Many find him hilarious due to how Obviously Evil he is, and find it interesting how he is trying to be a better person, even if he's doing a poor job at it. Others detest how so many atrocious acts he's committed are swept under the rug in the name of comedy, how his comments towards others come across as rude, and that he is a Karma Houdini overall.
• Bizarro Episode: Even for this show, Squirrel Camp is just weird. The squirrels launch an attack on Camp Campbell and proceed to kick everyone but Cameron Campbell out and attempt to replace them with Squirrel lookalikes and have them live out their lives. They also proceed to maul the Quartermaster to death, only for him to arise from the Lake completely fine and summon his hook back to him a la Thor, then engage in a fight with a Squirrel Combining Mecha. The campers lose however, and decide to just build all of Camp Campbell from scratch and let the squirrels keep the old one. Add on Neil making a functioning robot that sides with the Squirrels, Space Kid being sent in as a spy and the lead Squirrel falling in love with him as he goes native, and the Quartermaster dragging away a mauled body implied to be the ones the squirrels killed sans head, and the episode feels more like a fever dream.
• Crossover Ship:
  • Crossovers with Xray And Vav can feature Gwen/David/Mogar and Hilda/Gwen/David/Mogar.
  • Gwen occasionally gets paired with Reagan from Inside Job (2021), due to their being Birds of a Feather (i.e. the Only Sane Women in their respective worlds of wackiness, forced to work in corrupt organizations alongside clean-cut, Adorkable and cheerfully oblivious male partners). Oddly, Brett and David don't get matched up as often; we have no idea why.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Daniel tends to receive this treatment in some fanfics which usually pair him with David.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Quite a few have emerged already:
  • Billy "Snake" Nikkslip has a lot of fans thanks to his overt stoicness, his obvious resemblance and name similarity to Snake Plissken, and his voice being provided by Dante Basco!
  • Harrison the (Stage) Magic Kid became one due to his (albeit shoddy) command of actual magic.
  • SPACE KID. His determination to achieve space flight any way he can and willingness to go along with whatever Max says made him a quick contender for favorite side camper in the fandom.
  • The Platypus. ...Muack.
  • Daniel is another villainous example. Despite being a psychotic, child-killing cult leader, he's popular precisely because of his genuine creepiness, being David's Palette Swapped Evil Counterpart, and his half of "Better Than You" counting as an impressive Villain Song. Being voiced by Evan Gregory also helps. Needless to say, the fandom was happily surprised when he reappeared in the second Halloween special.
  • Jen from Daniel's debut episode "Cult Camp" is also popular, despite the fact that she only has a few seconds of screen time. She's often paired with the above-mentioned Daniel, due to their shared murderous personalities. Jen also became popular because of her fashion theme and aesthetic combining retro with horror.
  • Jasper has also increasingly reached Ensemble Darkhorse status since his second season reappearance that established his previous friendship with David. Fans also liked to imagine what he would have looked like if he did not die, but grew up together with David.
  • The cute waitress in "Bonjour Bonquisha". Aside from being, well, cute, her character earns points by putting up with rude customers, being unconditionally nice, and showing concern for Tabii even after the latter tries to murder her.
  • The trio of international child spies from "Foreign Exchange Campers", particularly Vera for her adorable design, hilarious accent, and the fact that she's voiced by Sarah Natochenny (best known as the current voice of Ash Ketchum from Pokémon: The Series).
  • Agents Miller and Miller, for being the first confirmed LGBT characters in the series, their sweet relationship with each other and their daughter Ered, as well as frequently putting Cameron Campbell in his place.
• Estrogen Brigade: It's pretty safe to assume that the series has plenty of female fans who fangirl over David.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • The ever popular "David adopts Max" AU, (which is offically dubbed "Dadvid" by fans) born out of the popularity of Dadvid and the fact that Max canonically has Abusive Parents. It's also not unheard of for another camper to be thrown into the mix and also get adopted, becoming siblings with Max in the process. The most popular candidate is Harrison, but Nikki, Nurf, or Dolph being the other camper isn't unheard of.
  • Daniel and David being depicted as twins in order to explain them being Inexplicably Identical Individuals. At least, whenever they aren't shipped together.
• Fan Nickname: Most of the fandom refers to David as Dadvid. Less common is referring to Max as "anger floof."
  • Gwen Mom or Gwom is slowly picking up amongst the fanbase.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Nikki/Max seems to have the edge over Nikki/Neil, though after Season 3 Max/Neil and Nikki/Max are among the most popular, the latter more so after the Lake Lilac Summer Social.
  • Gwen/David is popular in that Gwen is probably the only person at the whole camp who is nice to David more often then she is mean. The pairing especially started rising in popularity when episodes like "Gwen Gets a Job", "Something Fishy" and "Parents' Day" came out.
  • A lots of fanarts and fanfics tend to ship David with Daniel ever since his debut episode.
  • Nerris/Harrison became a popular ship once their rivalry came to the forefront in Season 2.
• Genius Bonus: Neil hitting Space Kid's helmet with a fork over and over is actually him saying "Fuck off" in Morse code.
• Growing the Beard: Season 1 is still funny, but mostly content to parody stock plots, and as a result the characters (primarily the other Campbell campers) often fluctuated in characterization. The Season 1 finale and Season 2 onward become more original in plotting (though not without parody episodes), take greater advantage of the other castmembers, and downplays the Negative Continuity in favor of being more serialized.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Harrison's failure to bring back the bunny he made disappear and his response of "I don't know how. That's kind of why I'm here." when David asks him to bring it back in "Mascot". "Parents Day" reveals that the reason he was sent to camp to begin with was to learn to control his powers and that he did the same thing to his brother.
  • Jasper being scared by the stuffed bears and flashing lights in "Journey to Spooky Island". He was attacked by those same bears while he was a camper and he died via an explosion.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Foreign Exchange Campers was posted just a few days before the 2018 summit between the United States and North Korea.
  • Neil mentioning Dogecoin in "The Fun-raiser" is this after the Doge meme made a resurgence in early 2019.
  • In "Space Camp was a Hoax," when David asks for Space Kid's gender as part of the paperwork, Space Kid happily proclaims "Earthling!" This becomes more poignant when you realize that Space Kid's VA, Lindsay Jones, came out as nonbinary in 2020.
• Iron Woobie: David is always beaten up, mauled, insulted, and humiliated by everyone and everything at Camp Campbell. Yet even with all the abuse he takes in life, he always stays positive and cares about making sure everyone at camp at least has fun.
• Jerkass Woobie: Max retroactively becomes one following "Parents Day". It was hinted before that his parents were neglectful, but this episode confirms it. He spends most of the day being a brat and acting out of jealousy upon seeing all the other kids hanging out with their parents. Then, not only do his parents never show up, it's revealed they didn't even sign him up for a specific activity. They just didn't want him around. The reminder of this is enough to bring Max to tears.
• Les Yay: Nikki really likes Ered. Read more here.
• Like You Would Really Do It: The season 3 episode "Nikki's Last Day on Earth" opens with the entire camp convinced that Nikki is dying after drinking one of Neil's experimental tonics, but as she's one of the show's leads, it comes across as unlikely from the get-go. Indeed, it turns out she was just having her first period.
• Love to Hate: Daniel is very popular for being such an extreme case of Vile Villain, Saccharine Show and having a good Villain Song.
• Memetic Mutation: Tons. This is a Rooster Teeth product after all.
  • David getting hurt... Also his high pitched scream.
  • The camp’s “campe diem” slogan, and its accompanying salute even moreso.
  • Not one, not three, but two [x] [y]'s.
  • Hooey ^note A word a young David used in a flashback episode, and was treated in-universe with the same gravity of an actual swear. The fandom quickly latched onto this and ran with it.
  • "Camp Camp AU where everything's the same but Max has a red hoodie." ^note The fandom has decided that Max looks better in red than blue for some reason.
  • "Camp Camp AU where it's the plot of [x]." ^note The most common ones being the "Coraline AU" and the "Portal Portal AU"
  • Let David say "fuck." ^note When the series first came out many fans wanted to hear the bubbly David swear. That is until...
    • "Oh shit, go back."/"We didn't want it to happen like this."^note  The final of season one finally letting him swear during a rather depressing scene.
    • Let Nikki say "fuck." ^note Fans eventually noticed that Nikki frequently gets curse cut shots despite the other characters being able to swear freely and started to rebel.
  • Gwen is my spirit animal!
  • Crank it high, I can handle the g's!!! ^note The first thing we ever hear Space Kid say.
  • "Suck a dick, David!"
  • Trying to sing the theme song and almost dying from a lack of air.
  • Now who wants to go identify every type of flora in the woods! ^note Said by a sick David during the Halloween special.
  • Max is afraid of snow. ^note Even though his reaction to seeing snow was completely justified since it was the middle of summer a lot of fans have jokingly turned said reaction as an example of a phobia. The joke goes so far as to compare it to how cats tend to react to cucumbers suddenly appearing.
  • Wow, I can't believe Dadvid is canon now! ^note Any scene that features David acting like a Team Dad to any of the campers (but especially if it's Max) will get captioned with this.
    • Became an Ascended Meme with the YouTube closed captions of the Parents Day episode.
    Family :D (dadvid confirmed)
  • Daniel just wants some ice cream.^note When "Arrival of the Torso Takers" revealed that Daniel was (apparently) recently afflicted with lactose intolerance, the fandom was quick to snatch it up–especially since one of his lines revealed that, yes, he really misses ice cream.
• Misaimed Fandom: The cast and crew have been rather vocal about their distaste for camper/counselor ships, making it clear that even though this is an adult show, they don't want to see the kids being sexualized. Doesn't seem to stop a lot of people, though.
• Mood Dissonance: The setting and art style would fit right at home on Disney XD. The dialogue and subject matter, on the other hand...
• One True Threesome:
  • Max/Neil/Nikki
  • Max/Preston/Space Kid
  • Nerris/Harrison/Preston
  • Nerris/Ered/Nikki
  • Harrison/Preston/Max
  • Harrison/Neil/Max
  • Snake/Neil/Max
  • Actually pretty much any combination involving Max and at least two other characters...or come to think of it, pretty much any combination of at least 3 campers. To say nothing of the rare but not impossible "all the Camp Campbell campers in a crazy but happy polycule".
  • Tabbi/Erin/Sasha
  • Gwen/David/ Jasper, albeit only possible in AUs.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: For some reason the Max/Preston ship became incredibly popular near the end of season 1 suddenly and without explanation. Those who ship it have admitted it makes little sense, with some even saying they view it as a Crack Ship.
  • There's a smaller part of the fandom that ships Max and Space Kid, due to their VA's being married.
  • The Cute Waitress (that's her official name!) from "Bonjour Bonquisha" doesn't even interact with David, but many fans ship them together.
• Shocking Moments: "Arrival of the Torso Takers" had the fandom freaking out. Why? Because resident Knight of Cerebus and Ensemble Dark Horse Daniel made his return, after it seemed he would be a one-shot character after being poisoned by his own Kool-Aid.
• Spiritual Adaptation: The series overall feels like an R-rated reinterpretation of The Simpsons, due to similar tones, themes, premises, episodes, and some of characters sharing traits with the show's characters:
  • Max lines up with Bart Simpson, or what Bart would be like if created today — a troublemaker with a bad home-life, a prodigious intellect, who's good at manipulating people. Less interested in classical kinds of “stick it to the man” rebellion like skateboarding, and more "fuck the police" kind of antiauthoritarianism.
  • Nikki and Neil are Decomposite Characters of Lisa, as Nikki is the principal female child of the series, while Neil has Lisa's academic mind and Insufferable Genius qualities with some of Milhouse mixed in as the best friend of the lead and the frequent bully-magnet.
  • David takes the place of Homer as the principal adult male lead and multi-talented Manchild, while sharing Bart's blind hero-worship to an older entertainer (Krusty the Clown for Bart, Mr. Campbell for David).
  • Gwen is similar to Edna Krabappel, as a woman who works with children and is completely disinterested in her job.
  • Quartermaster is Groundskeeper Willie, Lunchlady Doris, and Otto Mann, with some Cthulhu Mythos thrown in.
  • Cameron Campbell is a mix of Krusty the Clown and Mr. Burns, being a sleazy children's entertainer who owns a sub-par camp, while also making all kinds of unethical and immoral business and political deals in the name of the opportunistic buck.
  • Space Kid is Ralph Wiggum as the resident lovable ditz.
  • Nurf is Nelson Muntz meets Eric Cartman.
  • Preston is analogous to Mr. Largo as the Ambiguously Gay Large Ham involved in the performing arts.
  • Dolph matches up with Üter as the Funny Foreigner, though Dolph is legally American rather than an exchange student.
  • Erid is basically a genderbent Otto Mann that's more interested in extreme sports than heavy metal.
  • Nerris is a more modern take on Comic-Book Guy, in that she's not as smug or gatekeeping as he is (in keeping with how nerd culture has become more mainstream), and prefers LARPing over solely comic books.
  • Even Daniel functions as a stand-in for Sideshow Bob as a Vile Villain, Saccharine Show that is constantly outsmarted by the leads.
  • The setting is also similar to the Kamp Krusty episode of Season 4.
  • In general, the whole series could be seen as some sort of Spiritual Successor of the early seasons of South Park, as the plot features potty-mouthed kids being involved in adult situations and the Crosses the Line Twice jokes, not to mention the many Spoof Aesop elements of some episodes.
• Squick:
  • Everything about Jermy Fartz.
  • The Quartermaster's... messed up relationship with his sister. As if that wasn't enough, said sister looks exactly like him, minus the moustache.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The ending song from the first episode, Camp Camp Rap Rap sounds similar to DMX's "X Gonna Give It To Ya"
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The idea of Max constantly trying to escape from the camp and having to get around David to do so is rather intriguing but only gets brought up once after the first episode and never shows up again in favor of showing the general hijinks at the camp.
  • The Noodle Incident jokes - the Misfits starting an underground craps ring, how Max escaped from the Woods Scouts camp, whatever happened to them during Cookin' Cookies - by themselves could be fertile ground for episodes, but they're mainly used simply for the sake of comedy.
  • Given their rivalry over food sales and the fact that they serve as foils for each other, it would be fun to see the Wood Scouts and Flower Scouts interact more, but we’ve only seen them interact twice in the series.
• Ugly Cute: Pikeman is seen as this by some fans.
• Unexpected Character: Though a few savvy viewers were able to figure it out, Daniel's return in "Arrival of the Torso Takers" took the fandom by surprise.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Due to not having any lines and only appearing on the side of the cast lineup, most people assumed Nerris was a young boy with the original trailer.
  • Played for Laughs when Campbell couldn't figure out what gender she was when they first met.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: If you aren't aware of Rooster Teeth's usual output and content, one could be forgiven for thinking this is a fun, family-friendly web show or even a cartoon airing on Disney XD or Nickelodeon about a bunch of kids getting into mischief and hijinks at camp. Then Max drops his first F-bomb not one minute into episode one and it only gets worse from there. The only family-friendly character in the series is David, and even he drops an F-bomb in the season one finale.
  • Currently it’s airing on the Film Rise Kids Channel on the Roku Channel’s Live TV Station, albeit with a TV 14 rating
• The Woobie:
  • Gwen. Unlike David who at least loves Camp Campbell even though he's subjected to frequent pain and abuse, Gwen's not only humiliated by the campers, but she hates being a counselor and has very real anxiety issues from her inability to find another job and the supposed uselessness of her degrees. In "Gwen Gets a Job", it shows just how many rejection letters she's gotten, and when Max finds out, he blackmails her with the threat of getting her fired. She even breaks down crying at the end of the episode because of what her life's been reduced to, and even though David's able to build her confidence back up, she still fails at getting another job at her most recent interview (because she's too qualified no less).
  • Poor Jasper died while he was at camp and can never leave Spooky Island until his body is put to rest, which probably means his parents never knew what happened to him.

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