Central Theme / Web Videos

• Atop the Fourth Wall: With great power comes not just great responsibility, but also the need for restraint.
• The Big Picture: There's usually more to the things that you like (or dislike) than you might realize, and it's always a good idea to understand how and why your entertainment takes the form that it does.
• Brony D&D: Your past circumstances and mistakes should not define you.
  • It is better to use your gifts to help the world than to try to warp it to fit your own wants.
• CGP Grey: Human behavior is usually influenced by scientific, social, and/or psychological forces beyond the control of any one person.
• CinemaSins: No movie is without sin.
• Cinema Wins: Because liking things is more fun than not liking things.
  • Also, every movie is at least one person's favorite movie.
• Critical Role
  • The importance and impact of family on a lot of different levels both positive and negative, as well as in terms of blood relations versus or compared with your Family of Choice.
  • A secondary theme on the importance of forgiveness for those who have hurt you and for your own past mistakes has also developed between several of the main characters, particularly as the all-but-stated driving theme of Percy and Vex’ahlia’s romantic subplot.
• Don't Hug Me I'm Scared in general: The media conditions children to think in certain ways that are manipulative and unhealthy. Learn to think for yourself.
  • "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared": Creativity can be a dangerous thing when repressed and then let loose.
  • "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 2 - TIME": Time is an enemy of life, and it will keep ticking no matter how we distract ourselves.
  • "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3": Love is not something that should be forced upon someone.
  • "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 4": Technology can often distract us from its actual purpose and trap us within it.
  • "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 5": Health and fitness experts are often ignorant, self-contradicting and exploit their audiences.
  • Subverted in "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 6," which is initially about Dreams, but quickly shifts clear to focus on the series's general central theme.
• Game Theory and it's spin-off Film Theory have the general theme of thinking deeper about the media we consume and the world around us.
  • The trilogy of videos about Jake Paul and Shane Dawson made on Film Theory after the latter's documentary on the former share the central theme of "manipulation through the media".
• Helluva Boss:
  • Trying to stay sane in a Crapsack World.
  • What it means to be a family, and how those relationships get strained.
• Musical Hell: Musicals are a valid and beloved art form and should not be underestimated or stereotyped.
• The Mysterious Mr. Enter:
  • Animated Atrocities: When done wrong, animation can repulse our emotions in many ways, ruin the industry overall and can be learned from their mistakes.
  • Admirable Animations: When done right, animation can touch our emotions in many ways, inspire us to new heights, give us direction, and give us purpose.
  • Technocracy: The corruption of social media websites and the need to stand up to them.
• The Nostalgia Chick: Flawless Token is more damaging than it seems, and female characters can and should be flawed and interesting.
• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • Actions have consequences and you need to deal with them. Made especially obvious after Ma-Ti's death in Suburban Knights.
  • Many of his videos highlight the dangers of fanaticism and nostalgia. Most things are not perfect and/or not as good as we remember them, and there are more important things in life than what you watched as a kid.
• Petscop: Child abuse, especially in adopted families, and the monstrosity of it. The series primarily depicts those who believe adopting children is the same thing as getting a pet that must obey your every command.
• Ryan Hollinger: The art behind horror movies.
• Regretting the Past: Sometimes audiences embrace works that in hindsight seem like terrible choices. (Luke also finds a central problem with why the album ends up so bad, like the blandness of Nickelback and Theory of a Deadman, and the whiny and childish lyrics of Limp Bizkit and Simple Plan)
• Salad Fingers: Seeing the world Through the Eyes of Madness.
• Satellite City: You can be the most powerful creature to ever exist but does that power replace being able to actually feel?
• The Spoony Experiment: The things you love may not be as perfect as you thought, but that's no reason to not love them anymore.
• Storytime Animations in General (i.e. JaidenAnimations, TheOdd1sOut, and Let Me Explain Studios): The life experiences we go through and how we grow from them.
• Trainwreckords: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, instead the resulting album backfired enough to derail a career.
• Who Killed Markiplier?: The idea of "the ends justify the means" and the consequences of that mindset.