YMMV / HAT Films

For YMMV items relating to the Yogscast, go here.
For YMMV items relating to the Yogscast Minecraft Series, go here.

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Smiffy's Minecraft persona. Some people see him as a griefer, and others as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: During an episode of Grand Theft Auto V, Smith takes a jab at the then-upcoming Ant-Man and Fantastic Four films, saying that the former looks okay but not great and that the second looks terrible. He was right about the Fantastic Four doing poorly (as were many others), but Ant-Man was a surprise critical and commercial success.
• Archive Panic: New to Hat Films? Want to watch every episode? It JUST might have been doable without panic...until you see the Trials playlist. Good luck, Little Hat. As it stands, the channel has nearly eighteen-hundred videos.
• Awesome Music:
  • The guys make their own music for their videos, and some of it is incredible.
  • Their rendition of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" is surprisingly good. Made even better by the fact that the duo randomly launch into it without any instruments or prior warning.
  • Most of the songs from Smiffy's side project, "The Tin Box Boys", plus his own recordings, are surprisingly good.
  • During their second Yogscast Jingle Jam livestream, the trio brought out their guitars and did fantastic renditions of "The Onesie Anthem", "Geoff's Theme", "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", Tribute and to top things off a second rendition of Sweet Dreams, this time with Trott on electric guitar and Smith on acoustic guitar while Ross beatboxed.
  • You want Bee Gees? Hat Films have got you covered!
  • Shortly after the lads released Population: You for the 2015 Jingle Jam, several fans decided to remix it's songs. Most notably, James Dean Death Scene (of Sips Sings fame) chose to remix the One Rash Rap. It is excellent.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • One episode of Skyblock, as the trio continues to build and gather items, a 4th player named Ceji appeared in the game (he is an admin of the Hatventures server the trio has open to the public) without warning and it caused everyone else to be confused by it. Once the player left, the trio resume playing as normal without ever mentioning the incident again.
  • Trials Evolution part 3 causes a lot of these because the party they're in is open to the public and it caused a lot of people to join in then just as quickly leave.
• Broken Base:
  • Really only a slight fracture, but most Hatters, when asked, will admit to being loyal to one particular Sir, whether it be the Bearded One, the Walrus, or the Green Fury. Twitter wars have been played with, and the Hatventure forums have established cults inside the archives. It's not so much the base is broken as it's the lines have been drawn, everyone knows who's standing where, and should the Hat Films ever have a public in-fighting, their Hatters are ready for the war.
  • Their behaviour in Trouble in Terrorist Town, while generally agreed to be funny, has led to some worry in terms of yet another Colbert Bump where people randomly join and begin killing other players for no reason. For context, similar things have happened with SeaNanners and his friends, although the fracture is made significantly smaller by their videos with Sips, where their behaviour is better.
  • While the guys themselves actually get along well with the Yogscast and have done since before they officially joined, a small portion of the fandom is not happy about them having joined. While the majority seem happy, some of them are worried about a perceived change in content as well as an influx of immature fans^Explanation At the time the trio were announced as members, the main channel (plus Rythian) had banned comments due to fandom stupidity en masse, and the fandom has been known to be extremely vocal for better or worse[[/labenote]]. After a long time as members this has died down significantly, and if anything a large number of Yognaughts have jumped ship to join the Hatters.
  • Turps and Sips joining the Sirs for Grand Theft Auto V has split the base a bit. While the latter went down with few complaints and Turps has more fans than detractors, some feel that the group dynamic is being somehow ruined even though the Sirs clearly enjoy their company. Debates largely died down after time passed.
  • While there is understandably a large degree of overlap between Hatters and Yognaughts, there is a split between Hatters that don't like the rest of the Yogscast, Hatters that only like some Yogscast members such as Sips and Turps, and Hatters that are more open to all members. After Lewis and Turps having an outburst during the April 15th Deckrippers stream, a number of blogs have vowed only to do content based on Hat Films due to the lack of drama.
  • The Yogscast Minecraft Series miniseries Trials of Derpulies has an incredibly divisive reaction amongst Hatters due to the extremely limited screentime of the trio, despite them having committed two days worth of time into the project (which many Hatters are now arguing should have been spent on other projects like Stunt Lads or Rocket League instead). While some are willing to hang around for their limited screentime and will concede that there are many funny moments involving other members such as Sips, an overwhelming number of Hatters have been quick to post about their dislike of the series, accusing the editors of being overwhelmingly biased in favour of Team Sjipos (Lewis, Sips and Sjin) based on that team's absurdly high screen time. It's gotten to the point that even Smith and Ross have tweeted their disapproval◊, although it's unclear whether they're joking. The sequel series, Trials of Skobbels, notably went out of its way to feature their team and Hannah/Kim/Duncan/Simon more.
  • The third episode of Stunt Lads ultimately had a more mixed reception than the first two, as it's seen as good in its own right but not as good as the episodes preceding it. While Crew Member #1 was well-received, some felt it would have been better to use Sips instead of creating a new character for the show. Similarly, some felt that the final stunt was good while others felt it was an anticlimactic finish to the episodes.
  • Smith wading in to the Sjin debate by laughing at Lewis and Sips's mockery of the situation. Some agreed with him, others felt that while it was understandable he'd side with a friend it was unprofessional, and a third group felt he was being unfair.
  • The group's playthrough of Shellshock was initially met with a good response, but the second episode led to a huge divide between those who enjoyed the episode or thought that the guys were too salty about the game and should have left it be.
  • The presence of Cinnamon Toast Ken in TTT has been polarising. Fans of Sips and Turps consider him to be a Replacement Scrappy, whereas others don't mind and like a change in pace. The fact that there were only four players ruined the format for some as well, whereas others found it funnier as it was.
  • The addition of facecams from November 2016 has split fans down the middle. While generally agreed to work for games like Hello Neighbour, some felt it was entirely unnecessary and didn't add for other videos, like the GTA races. Fans are slowly warming up to the concept, having said that.
• Common Knowledge: There is a rumour in certain fan circles that Smiffy is in the Territorial Army (basically the British equivalent of the National Guard). Not only is Smiffy not in the British Army at all (in reality, all the pics of him in camo gear are from him playing Airsoft), but the Territorial Army does not even exist any more, having been replaced by the Army Reserves. He addresses it in this video and on Twitter.
• Continuity Lockout: "Sad For Good" makes a lot more sense if you've seen Feed the Beast #79 (here), in which Smith murders Eric the ostrich. When Lewis Brindley and Duncan saw the music video for the first time, they clearly didn't understand what was happening. To the Sirs' credit, a link to said episode is in the description of the music video.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The Sirs don't go out of their way to use Black Comedy, but it comes up quite often. The trio wouldn't be as funny without it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Geoff in the "Filfy' Animals" series has quite the fan base, most likely because he is glitchy and sets everything on fire wherever he goes. On the public Hatventures server, there's a large statue modelled out of Geoff's likeness.
  • Nigel from Hat Corp has quite a few fans despite not appearing much.
  • Dave from Stunt Lads, mostly because he's a Hypercompetent Sidekick and the Sirs still treat him like crap.
  • The Hand of Truth, despite not even being sentient or alive in-game, has become quite a notable part of the fandom and many Hatters profess to worshipping it. At least two t-shirts of it have been released, with a special "Hand of Freedom" given a limited release to mark the opening of the US Yogscast store.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Fans of Hat Films do not seem to get on well with fans of GameChap and Bertie. This is in part due to the latter's falling out with the Yogscast, which the former are members of, and in part due to Ross openly (and repeatedly) bashing the duo on Twitter.
  • A really bizarre and one-sided case relates to Funhaus (of Rooster Teeth). While there is some fan overlap, some Hatters are extremely hostile towards Funhaus on the subreddit, for reasons that are unclear. Many fans still like both, however.
  • Much like most of the Yogfandom, fans of Hat Films do not get along with fans of Pixels due to their incredibly dodgy business moves which made it look like the group were involved when they weren't, as well as Ross bashing the decision.
  • Whereas some Hatters did not mind the React series beforehand despite Smith and Trott lightly bashing it in Cornerstone, the backlash has since become genuine after Ross openly criticised the Fine Brothers over their "React World" decision.
  • As of Lewis having an outburst during the Deckrippers stream, some Hat Films fans have disavowed the Yogscast permanently and declared their intent to only pay attention to Hat Films.
• Fan Nickname: Any time they team up with Sips (and Turps), someone in the comments will refer to the group as "Team SHAT(T)" or some variation thereupon.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Even before Hat Films joined the Yogscast, their fandoms got on extremely well. The news that they were joining was greeted (mostly) positively. Since then, their fans and Sips' have developed a good rapport, in no small part due to the latter and former appearing with each other all the time.
  • Also with Area 11, due to the two groups being good friends and Hat Films having a brilliant cameo in their "Monopoly" sketch.
  • Thanks to CaptainSparklez guest starring in one of their Yogscast charity livestreams, their fandoms have developed a reasonably good friendship.
  • There's a surprising degree of overlap between the Hat Films fandom and the Rooster Teeth fandom, due to Ashley from Rooster Teeth praising the Sirs in the comments of one of their videos and Burnie being quite complimentary of them. They even joined Rooster Teeth at E3 2015. This applies to a lesser extent with Funhaus.
  • Despite little interaction beyond Trott exchanging the odd tweet, they have a notable number of shared fans with TotalBiscuit due to their being very upfront with any sponsored content (TB's subreddit is staunchly pro-consumer and pro-disclosure).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Despite (or perhaps due to) their being based in England and being almost stereotypically British, the trio have a large number of American fans.
• Growing the Beard: The early sketch and Let's Plays that the trio did are fairly good in their own right, but the content put out by the trio is generally agreed to have improved when they upgraded their microphones and used footage from all three viewpoints, as opposed to mostly Ross's viewpoint.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Possibly Hilarious in Hindsight in a Black Comedy way as well. Episode #32 of Hat Chat, entitled Gecko Sporgy, was named after (and had a long segment related to) a Russian space experiment on the impact of zero-gravity on geckos having sex. During the segment, they joked the geckos would probably all die horribly. The satellite eventually returned with all occupants having frozen to death.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: From Hat Chat #32, entitled Gecko Sporgy, the trio do a long segment about a Russian satellite filled with geckos having sex. This is quite sweet now that Smith owns three geckos and seems to love them quite dearly.
• Ho Yay / Faux Yay: If this isn't somehow (jokingly) apparent, you're not watching Hat Films.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • When the trio first joined the Yogscast in 2013, there were fears that the fanbase would somehow be "corrupted" by the Yogscast due to excessive Pandering to the Base. The inverse has happened; Hat Films are perhaps one of the fastest-growing channels in the network and a growing number of Yognau(gh)ts are switching simply to Hat Films-related content.
  • From Hat Chat #32, entitled Gecko Sporgy, the trio do a long segment about a Russian satellite filled with geckos having sex. This becomes hilarious now that Smith owns two geckos and may be expecting them to have babies.
• It Was His Sled: The death of Eric in Hat Pack isn't much of a spoiler any more thanks to "Sad for Good".
• Magnificent Bastard: The end of Hat Corp turns the Sirs into this. While they lost the war with Kim Richards and Duncan Jones, they were able to claim on the insurance for their base to get a fantastic new one elsewhere. All this was done by scamming some builders out of their money, meaning that the Sirs are able to resume their efforts for world domination later.
• Memetic Molester: Colin from Hat Pack 2015, due to his constant Double Entendres and creepy attitude towards Ross.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "EAT SHIT", or any variation, since Ross shouts it in Garry's Mod.
  • "IT'S NOT ME!" [[labelnote:Explanation]]The quote comes from a memorable episode of Sips' TTT playthrough, in which Ross blatantly tries to shoot Smith and murders Trott, while constantly screaming that he is supposedly innocent. The quote has become memorable amongst many TTT players and Ross has done this again on a few occasions.
  • "Smith's Shit Selfie", a trend on Tumblr that mocks Smiffy's habits of taking bad photos of himself. Within hours, the Tumblr fandom had photoshopped him into more or less anything imaginable, with Trott signal boosting the trend extensively.
  • All of the Sirs have a "sexy hashtag" from the large fandom that find them attractive. Smith has #StiffyForSmiffy, Trott has #HotForTrott and Ross has #HornyForHornby.
  • "[Insert word here] BOOOY!"^Explanation This is just something that Smith and Ross shout. It was initially in reference to Trott supposedly being a salmon.
  • #VACTROTT, referring to vacuuming Trott's mouth, spawned from this GTA V episode. It's logical conclusion was for them to actually do it (very NSFW)
• Memetic Psychopath: Ross is this for Gmod and TTT due to his Axe-Crazy nature in those games, whereas Smith is this for Minecraft as a result of his Pyromaniac tendencies. Trott mostly averts this by virtue of being the most normal member.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • A few fans don't get that when Smith and Ross insult Trott, they're doing it as a joke, and the trio have claimed that at conventions people insult Trott without realising that it isn't quite the same thing between strangers. They do understand it's not done out of malice, but they did seem slightly annoyed by it.
  • Similarly, the fandom has sexualised the trio to the point that Trott's real-life girlfriend pointed out on Tumblr that this sort of behaviour made her uncomfortable. Some "fans" promptly sent her abuse. The abuse eventually got so bad that when an infamous Tumblr blog sided with the people harassing her, she snapped and for a few hours, fans thought she'd deleted her page.
• Misattributed Song: Some fans have mistakenly claimed that all the songs made by either the Tin Box Boys (Smiffy's old band) or Smith himself were done by the Sirs. In reality, Smith was a member of TBB before he joined Hat Films, and was even with them for a while after.
• Mis-blamed: A few social-justice themed blogs have bashed the trio for playing Trouble in Terrorist Town, particularly for their use of the "jihad bomb"^Explanation the Suicide Attack's standard name for default TTT matches, changed on some servers to prevent offence, accusing them of constantly milking the game on their channel with offensive content. While the trio have played a lot of it, the actual amount of it on their channel is much smaller and not recurring content in any way (with at least a few episodes obviously taken from the main Yogscast channel as filler), with the last episode that they did being from December 2014. Even on Sips' channel, the last episode of TTT was in April, making the accusations fall flat. On top of that, Ross explicitly acknowledges the potentially controversial aspects of the weapon in multiple videos. Curiously, said blogs ignore the fact that Zoey Proasheck and Kim have used the weapon many times.
• Never Live It Down:
  • There are still many haters of Smiffy that argue that he ghosts all the time in Garry's Mod. This really isn't true, though it happens on occasion.
  • Contrary to what some blogs would have you believe, the trio are not the only ones in the Yogscast to use the so-called "jihad bomb" in Trouble in Terrorist Town.
• Older Than They Think: While "It's Not Me" is a hilarious moment on Ross' behalf, he's had cases of Implausible Deniability in TTT before.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Sirs appear in the Area 11 video "Monopoly", where they behave like prima donna versions of themselves. It's not a long cameo, but it's a funny one.
• Periphery Demographic:
  • Despite mostly having an older audience than most of the Yogscast, the trio do have some younger fans. The fanbase and the trio themselves have been welcome for the most part, if wary.
  • There are plenty of their fans that like them, but dislike the rest of the Yogscast bar Sips and maybe Turps.
• Squick: Some of the scenarios the guys come up with (and end up in) can be weird at best:
  • Smith usually feeds his pet geckos locusts. He accidentally put one in his drink.
  • Hat Chat 32 features a scenario in which a man enters a bank, then poops in a banker's office. Not too bad on its own, but the clip then moves on to him continually shitting everywhere and one of the assistants eating it and joining in. A fanimation is available but suffice it to say NSFW.
  • Hat Chat 32 also features a segment in which a journalist is sent into space to interview a satellite full of geckos, which are supposedly meant to show scientists the effect of zero gravity on breeding. The geckos start ejaculating everywhere, even into his helmet. Suffice it to say that this one did not get animated.
  • The birthday challenges for the trio's birthdays mostly consist of making the victim eat a horrible mix of foods, such as donuts and mayonnaise. You'll be forgiven if you want to throw up.
  • In Hat Chat #38, Trott's "funny news" story ends up being this because he didn't read beyond the headline. The article turns out to be about (spoiler because it's really NSFW and gross) a man capturing an alligator that tried to kill him and then sexually assaulting it repeatedly in "revenge", which causes Trott to have a My God, What Have I Done? moment and the others to ask what he's thinking.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: While the Sirs are mostly competent, albeit with their own quirks, they do have complaints about this from time to time:
  • On Sips' channel, Smith ghosted once, during an episode of Murder, and for humour. Immediately, a stupidly vocal part of Sips' fandom starts calling Smiffy an asshole and cheater, calling for him to be removed from the videos. Never mind that they usually follow the rules and are playing on their own server. Then he got complaints about taking the game too seriously!
  • During SHATBlock, Sips got this in turn when he nerdpoled (read: kept jumping and placing dirt below him to make a quick platform) to get past a jumping puzzle. The fandom again started calling Sips an asshole.
• Tear Jerker:
  • For many fans, the ending of the USA vlogs, particularly the end caption:
  The end. Thank you for watching.
  • Trott's real-life girlfriend Katie vowing to never moderate the trio's chat due to rampant harassment.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: When Sips and Turpster joined the Sirs for their Grand Theft Auto V, fan reaction was a little mixed. The former mostly went down okay despite some grumbling, but the latter has caused the most complaints. Hat Films did acknowledge this in their September edition of Hat Chat and basically told the fandom to calm down, saying that just because the formula changes, it isn't a good reason to be mean.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The general consensus of the ending of their Slender's Forest playthrough.
  • The trio make absolutely masterful use of the Rockstar Editor in Grand Theft Auto V.
• Vocal Minority:
  • The Yogscast subreddit has unfortunately had small, but fairly vocal, groups of Hatters that downvote the content of anything not related to Hat Films and upvote anything Hat Films related. While their having opinions is understandable, this has screwed over smaller creators and made it harder for some of the bigger creators to get noticed.
  • While people writing more graphic "Hat Ships" are in the minority, they have unfortunately earned the ire of the community and Trott's real-life girlfriend has been harassed on a regular basis, to the point that she had to turn off anonymous asks for a while on her Tumblr page.
  • The GTA V video "Swamp Monster" saw a small, but vocal group of right-wing and far-right viewers calling Smith a "left-wing moron" and vowing to boycott Hat Films... for simply making jokes about UKIP and pointing out that the English flag is often seen at many nationalist demonstrations. Many left-wingers have pointed out how some people have taken the video way too seriously.
• The Woobie:
  • Played up with Trott's walrus persona in "Public Server... Walrus Appeal!", which uses somber music in the background and describes him as sad, with "no one to play with him, to chase him, to blow him up". The video then desperately appeals for people to join him and make him feel happy.
  • Eric from Feed the Beast is considered quite a sad character by Hatters due to his untimely demise and Trott's grief.