Pictured going down from left to right: Nazi, Ancom, Ancap, Commie, Political Nihilist, Radical Centrist, Libertarian, Nazi again, and Gregory "Jreg" Guevara.
"Every extreme is on the same team! (x4)
The Ancaps are gonna make us some cash!
The Nazis are gonna bring the fash!
The Ancoms are gonna let us get along!
The Commies are gonna sing sick songs!
It's not about what separates us! (Anarchist, Leftist, Rightist, Statist!)
It's all about what brings us together!
WE ALL WANT A WORLD WITHOUT CENTRISTS FOREVER!
The Ancaps are gonna make us some cash!
The Nazis are gonna bring the fash!
The Ancoms are gonna let us get along!
The Commies are gonna sing sick songs!
It's not about what separates us! (Anarchist, Leftist, Rightist, Statist!)
It's all about what brings us together!
WE ALL WANT A WORLD WITHOUT CENTRISTS FOREVER!
Centricide is a satirical web series created by Jreg.
A Nazi, an authoritarian communist, an anarcho-communist and an anarcho-capitalist are assembled by Jreg under the banner of the newly created "anti-centrism" political ideology, the main tenet of which is the unification of all the most extreme ideologies against centrists. Together, they fight as one against a dastardly league of centrists and moderates.
To me, there is no difference between listing tropes and not listing tropes:
- Anti-Villain: It goes without saying that the Extremists are of the Well-Intentioned Extremist variety type because despite being genocidal or willing to resort to violence really quickly, they do want what's best for a select group of people and are genuine in their beliefs (Except arguably Nazi). Ancap skirts the line more into Noble Demon in Centricide 4 due to acknowledging that his unrestrained capitalist beliefs can kill millions like the authoritarians, but refuses to engage in any further purges or aggressive behaviour outside of his domain.
- Arc Number: 4. 4 quadrants of the political compass, a 4 sided shape. 4 colours are used to colour-code the characters (red, yellow, green and blue. Black and gray are not colours). 4 Extremists representing the 4 corners of the political compass. 4 Moderates representing the 4 corners of the Overton window, also a 4 sided shape. 4 ideologies inhabiting Ancapistan (Ancap, Libertarian, Minarchist, and Hoppean). 4 letters in Greg, Jreg, and Nazi. Jreg is possessed by the ghosts of 4 notable extremists, each representing a different quadrant. 4 ideologies in Centricide 4.5 wear a nice hat (Nazi, Tankie, Ancap and Libertarian).
- Artificial Limbs: Robot arms are portrayed as the goal of transhumanists.
- As Jremself:
- In-universe, Jreg is Greg Guevara with 4 spirits possessing jrem. Jre formally debuts in Centricide in episode 6, "Identity".
Greg Guevara: Hi, Greg Guevara here. I started off by playing Jreg as a character but I can no longer differentiate where [jre] ends and I begin. Soon, Anti-Centrism will be my entire artistic identity. I'll stop making songs and poems and I'll just become an ideolog. Won't that be fun?- This reaches its apex in Centricide 7 "Greg Guevara", where Radical Centrist tears apart the fabric of reality to speak to Greg Guevara the content creator.
- Bittersweet Ending: Centricide 8 ends with Accelerationism and the centrists all dead though quite a few had to perish on the way. The Extremists also decide to get along and not fight as the world is their own to control, though by the band getting back together they've restored their status quo in episode 1, much to their shock.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: Oscillates between this and Evil Versus Evil. Every ideology is deliberately portrayed as either unhinged, lazy or bizarre with their only saving grace being a few good points they raise to show why people follow their ideology.
- Black Dude Dies First: When the Impossible Ideology Monsters attack, Pan Africanism is its first victim. Homofascism feels like he should've seen that coming.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Ancap is the most prone to this since his end goal is money no matter what, but in general the ideologies are either eccentric strawmen or so unhinged that your personal views are the only thing bound to determine who is right. Likely invoked on purpose in order to keep with the satirical spirit of the show.
- All said and done, Nazi and Commie take Ancap's morality to task in the 4th Centricide when they note that despite him not being politically violent, he still advocates for an ideology that kills millions due to the shitty conditions unrestrained capitalism causes. This causes Ancap to have a bit of introspection.
- Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Anarchist Left.
- Break-Up Song: "Leftist Unity", though not officially romantic, between Ancom and Commie.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The distinction between Jreg the YouTuber and Jreg the anti-centrist character is increasingly muddled as the series goes on, culminating in the latter outright arguing with the former during Centricide 6 when the latter begins discussing the underlying logic of the video/setting and promoting the upcoming installments.
- Character Celebrity Endorsement:
- Centricide 2.5 ends with a long sponsored ad, all performed in-character by the four extremists. The jokes and character exploration delivered in this ad section alone are entertaining and interesting enough to keep you watching, though.
- "Print Money" ends with an ad from Raycon and has Ancap and Nazi talking about how much they endorse the earbuds.
- Commie-Nazis: The ideology of National Bolshevism is portrayed like this.
- Countrystan: Ancapistan, which has no government and is completely driven by capitalism. Communist and Nazi have to go through it to reach the Centrist HQ, but Anarcho-Capitalist makes them pay the toll and sings about it with several other inhabitants.
- Death Flight:
- Ancap talks a lot about having statists (particularly communists) thrown out of helicopters to their deaths.
And if you're a commie the NAP cannot stop me
From throwing you out the choppie and then McNuking your body!- Hoppean openly brags that in his territory, anybody he considers degenerate gets "forcibly removed into the ocean". The background of his section in "Ancapistan" is the inside of a helicopter.
- Decon-Recon Switch: The sincere moments of the show deconstruct the foundations of an ideology and highlight their flaws, but also show why they are supported anyway based on the valid points they can raise.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: In Centricide 6, Jreg reveals the true leader of the anti-centrist movement is JReg Gaming, the similarly named Sitcom Arch-Nemesis of the channel. However, it ends up being subverted when Jreg admits jre only used JReg Gaming as a means of delaying Radical Centrist until Tankie can arrive.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the original Political Compass Rap:
- Ancap used to be purple, not yellow tinted.
- They all spoke with Jreg's normal voice as opposed to their signature accents (Tankie being Russian, Nazi with a manipulative tone, Ancap with a flamboyant one and Ancom being whiny and screechy).
- A character just named "Centrist" appears at the end, whose character is based somewhat off of what Moderate Lee would become, although the Centrists are split into multiple entities representing different forms of centrism in Centricide.
- Enemy Mine: A common premise to many of the videos is different extremist political ideologies joining forces to fight centrists.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: In "Anarchist Infighting", the video ends with Queer Anarchism revealing that all of the anarchists are in a polyamorous relationship and they're all definitely having sex. Even the indecisive Post-Left Anarchist is cool with this.
- Evil Versus Evil: Oscillates between this and Black-and-Grey Morality. The 2 ringleaders of the series are objectively both Big Bads in their own ways, with Jreg being a sociopath who cares nothing for his pawns and possessed a teenager in order to sew discord for questionable intent, while Radical Centrist similarly treats his soldiers as having no value, and deliberately murdered one of them in order to spark a war.
- Flat World: Centricide 6.25 reveals that the world of Centricide takes place on a flat Earth. Justified as the whole series technically takes place on the political compass.
- Foe Yay Shipping: In-universe. “lil’ nas(bol)” contains art shipping Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
- Foil: So many examples to count, given that Jreg likes to point out that even enemy ideologies are simply parallels to each other in some way whether it be goals and methods. As for the most recurring use of foils that are based more on personal dynamics than ideology (which are in turn found on the character pages):
- The extremes always bicker but can at least accomplish things over their willingness to use all means given regardless of morality, while the centrists are friendlier to each other but are indecisive.
- Ancom and Authleft tend to be friendly but acknowledge their long term desire to purge each other. Ancap and Authright throw blows at each other but secretly intend to keep the other as an attack dog in the long term. Also, Ancap and Ancom tend to be more chill with each other even if they'll never acknowledge the similarities between them in order to claim the title of "true" anarchist, while Authleft and Authright are willing to begrudgingly agree they can be similar at times even if they constantly bicker.
- Foreshadowing: The early Anti-Centrist theory videos such as "Know Your Enemy" contain multiple pieces of foreshadowing for the Centricide series.
- When talking about centrists who believe in horseshoe theory, Jreg says, "keep them away from the Nazbols". The Nazbol kills Horseshoe Centrist.
- After mockingly saying that Dead Centrists just so happen to believe that the answer to all political issues lies in the exact center every single time, Jreg says they die first. This is exactly what happens in Centricide 1.
- Many plot points in Centricide 6 were foreshadowed in earlier videos.
- The DNA test Transhumanist mentions providing for one of the moderates was a test of Nazi for Conservative which reveals Nazi is actually of Jewish descent.
- The various mentions of JReg Gaming lead up to him actually cameoing as the true mastermind of the anti-centrist movement...except not really.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In “Anti-Centrism: Know Your Enemy”, one of the lyrics of the end credits asks the viewer to type what kind of centrist they are in the comments so they know who to kill first.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Nazi is this for most of the Centricide series, as the other Extremists hate his genocidal political views. However, once Ancom leaves the Extremist cause and Commie and Nazi strike up an Odd Friendship, Ancap ends up taking this role as Commie and Nazi tear into him for commodifying people's lives and accuse capitalism of killing millions more than their regimes did.
- Nazbol exaggerates this. His social and economic views make Authleft and Authright dislike him, he's not a centrist since he embodies extremist viewpoints and he's technically a coherent ideology even if strange, so he rejects the Wacky Ideologies. Probably for the better though, as a future where he was chosen as world leader due to Jreg enabling anti-centrism too much has him create an omnipresent totalitarian state. He does join up everyone for the final fight though, where it's hinted one of the reasons the ideologies fear him is that he'll make sense as indicated in a Bad Future episode where he took over.
- Fusion Dance: In Centricide 5, Commie and Nazi perform one of these to form Nazbol and defeat the Horseshoe Centrist.
- God Needs Prayer Badly: The characters are all embodiments of political ideologies, empowered by the beliefs of their followers. The Centrists are under threat by the Extremists radicalizing people away from their beliefs.
- Gold Is Yellow: While the color associated with right-wing libertarianism on the political compass is usually purple, in Centricide it is colored yellow because "it definitely works better aesthetically." Various ideologies that fall within this section of the compass are tinted varying shades of yellow (Anarcho-Capitalist, Libertarian, Minarchist, Hoppean, etc.) and considering they are defined by their greed and wealth, this was the intention.
- Golden Mean Fallacy: Centrists are portrayed as falling victim to this.
- Grand Theft Me: Jreg is canonically the result of the real-life creator of the channel being possessed simultaneously by the ghosts of Kim Il-sung (Juche), Ayn Rand, Julius Evola, and Che Guevara.
- Greedy Jew: Nazi, naturally, buys into this stereotpe and hates capitalism in part because he thinks it's being controlled by Jews. Ironically, after the revelation that he's half ethnic Jew, he starts acting like one himself. When Conservative gives some entirely justified criticism of his decision to continue his racism (albeit as a Jewish supremacist rather than a white supremacist), he accuses him of anti-Semitism and demands "reparations".
- Historical Badass Upgrade: After they died, Kim Il Sung, Che Guevara, Julius Evola, and Ayn Rand went on to possess Greg Guevara and became the embodiment of anti-centrism, forming Jreg. Together, they led the Extremists in their quest to eradicate centrism in the Centricide.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Used symbolically in the music video of Agree With Me, with each of the Extremists being represented with one of them:
- Communist is Famine.
- Nazi is War.
- Anarcho-Communist is Death.
- Anarcho-Capitalist is Conquest.
- The Horseshoe Effect: In the Political Compass RapTotalitarian Left: That's right! Wait why am I agreeing with you (Totalitarian Right)?Your ideology's killed millions! (Nazi gives Commie a Disapproving Look) Okay, true.
- Horseshoe Centrist takes this position to its extreme.
’’The way I see it, there was no difference between them having Civil Rights and not having Civil Rights’’ - Hypocritical Humor: In Centricide 6, Nazi insists that the centrists are all Jews because of their hair and noses. Since he's played by the same actor as all of them, he shares their "Jewish" features. Then Christian Conservative reveals Nazi's of Jewish descent, driving the point home.
- "I Am" Song:
- "Political Compass Rap" for totalitarian right (what will turn into Nazi in Centricide), totalitarian left (what will be Commie), anarchist left (what will be Ancom), and anarchist right (what will be Ancap).
- "Ancapistan" for Minarchist, Hoppean, and Libertarian.
- "All The Same To Me" for Horseshoe Centrist and Nazbol.
- "Lil' Nas(bol)" (a parody of "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X) for Nazbol.
- Ironic Echo: In Centricide 5, the titular line of the song "Every Extreme is on the Same Team" is quoted by Horseshoe Centrist to show how the extremists have proved his point for him.
- "Just Joking" Justification: In Centricide 7, "A Joke", Jreg explains that all of jris videos are just a joke, as it's funny to image a capitalist teaming up with a communist, or to have people guess what jre is and getting it wrong. It's all just one big, very serious, joke.
- Loose Canon: Centricide 7 is described as "dubiously canon" by Jreg In-Universe.
- Lucky Charms Title: One of the videos is called "🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡NOW ENTERING THE CLOWN ZONE🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡". Flowcharts for Centricide 7 usually simplify the emojis to "[CLOWNS]".
- Mind Screw: Centricide 7 starts as a confrontation between the Radical Centrist and Jreg, but breaks out into this as Radical Centrist confronts Greg Guevara who gives a tutorial to follow the video through the youtube annotation system. From there, the viewer is sent down a rabbit hole of more than forty short videos. It only avoids Gainax Ending because it isn't the ending and Centricide 8 features the Extremists vs Accelerationism.
- Multi-Part Episode: Centricide 8 is split into 3 parts.
- Multiple Endings: While there is only one ending for Centricide, the Loose Canon Story Branching Centricide 7 contains several endings, some good and bad.
- No Fourth Wall: A lot of the videos have a pretty thin fourth wall, but Centricide 7 ends up being this completely, with the rabbit hole of videos largely being Greg Guevara musing on jris overall creative process and jris relationship with jris audience and the work jre has created.
- No Song for the Wicked:
- Despite being the main antagonist, Radical Centrist never gets his own song. The only proper centrist song is "All The Same To Me" sung by Horseshoe Centrist.
- To a lesser degree, Nazi. Although he sings his part in "The Centrists Gotta Go" and in the proto-Centricide "Political Compass Rap". However, he is the only extremist who doesn't get a song focused primarily around him. Ancom and Commie get "Leftist Unity" and Ancap gets "Ancapistan".
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- "Political Compass Rap" includes a line where Nazi tells Tankie there are many they agree on. Sure enough, after Ancom becomes Post-Left Anarchist and leaves the Anti-Centrists, the two end up bonding due to their ideologies holding a lot of common ground.
- In Centricide 6, Radical Centrist invokes this on Anti-Centrist while channeling the powers of the horseshoe, noting how both of them hold wildly incongruent beliefs and are willing to sacrifice their pawns for slight advantages.
- Nuke 'Em: Ancapistan's response to violation of the Non-Aggression Principle is a "recreational" nuclear bomb. The Posadist believes in using nuclear war to cleanse the world of capitalism. He's shown making an offer to Ancapistan for their nuke in Centricide 4.5.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Centricide 8 ends this way with the four extremists bickering among each other as they walk into the horizon.
- One-Word Title: The "Centricide" is the extermination of the centrists, led by the Extremists.
- Our Spirits Are Different: Usually, when a human dies, their soul passes on. But when their will is strong enough, their spirit lingers around. Spirits are also able to combine into "mega-spirits." Ghosts can only possess blood relatives, which is how Che Guevara was able to possess Greg Guevara, also allowing Kim Il Sung, Julius Evola, and Ayn Rand to possess jrem too by combining into one mega-spirit.
- Paying for Air: "Centricide 4.5: Ancapistan" has the Capitalists mention that in the episode's titular city, they pay 12 bucks each breath of air, but everyone's a billionaire (except for the cripplingly poor).
- Pocket Protector: In Centricide 6, it's revealed that Conservative survived being shot twice by Nazi thanks to two books he had on him at the time. One was a copy of The Bible, and the other was 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan Peterson
- Privately Owned Society: Anarchist Right wants this and forms this in Ancapistan, which even gets its own song.
- Putting the Band Back Together: By episode 8 the extremes unite again, including an Ancom that Took a Level in Badass, and defeat Accelerationism. They decide to subvert the expected ending of turning against each other and decide to hang with all the centrists now dead as per their objective, though they realize to their horror that getting back together means they've restored the status quo....of their friendship.
- Recap Episode: Centricide 7.05 recaps the entire series up to that point within a minute. It is not listed on the official Jreg channel, but it gets linked to in the middle of Centricide 7.
- Rejected Marriage Proposal: If you go to Centricide 7.4, Jreg will ask you if you'd marry jrem. Centricide 7.4B is called "No", selecting it makes jrem start talking about how this was not intended to be this long, then start saying jre doesn't want to do this anymore repeatedly.
- Rewatch Bonus: Radical Centrist explicitly describes the Jreg channel as "pure unchecked accelerationism" in the first episode. This sentence seems innocuous until The Reveal when Jreg's Evil All Along intentions are to form Accelerationism with Radical Centrist.
- Riding the Bomb: Posadist in the final part of Centricide 8.
- Royal Inbreeding: Monarchists are on the receiving end of jokes about being incestuous whenever they’re mentioned.“The monarchists will kiss their sis”
- Especially with Absolutists (aka Absolute Monarchists).
If monarchists are inbred, absolutists died in the womb. - Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Ancom abandons the anti-centrist cause after being converted to a post-leftist. Ancap and Libertarian do the same to the anti-centrist and centrist cause respectively after the former is pushed away from the extremists by the united authoritarians and the latter is nearly converted to Neoliberal by the Centrists. Nazi gathers up a few other ideologies to form his own team.
- Series Continuity Error: Centricide 6.25 shows the Wacky reinforcement going up against Radical Centrist. But at the beginning of Centricide 6.5, Anmon and Anprim appear in the anarchist commune before leaving to join the battle. It'd be more accurate to describe Centricide 6.25 as Centricide 6.75.
- Sex Is Evil: Subverted. Post-Left seems initially taken aback by the revelation that all the leftist Anarchist ideologies are also a polycule, complete with ominous music, only to reveal that qui is totally okay with it, and the resulting off-screen orgy helping to stabilize quis physical and mental state and reassume quis original form as Ancom for the finale and the battle against Accelerationism.
- Singing Voice Dissonance: Horseshoe Centrist's southern accent is dropped completely when he sings in Centricide 5. When Nazbol joins the fight and begins singing, his staple wacky voice isn't present as well.
- Strawman Political: Literally every character is some form of strawman.
- The extremists are all ideological caricatures-Authoritarian Left is a Husky Russkie who threatens his opponents with the gulag, Authoritarian Right is A Nazi by Any Other Name who gleefully supports genocide, Libertarian Left is a Straw Loser who alternates between doing large quantities of drugs and assaulting opponents while screeching that they are Nazis and Libertarian Right wants to privatize all government functions, own private nukes and has several child sex slaves.
- The centrists are likewise all strawmen (save for Radical Centrist and the Posthumous Character Dead Centrist). Political Nihilist regards all politics as stupid and is apathetic about practically everything, Horseshoe Centrist does not see any differences between any two positions whatsoever, Anti-Radical reacts to the words 'extreme' with anger and Ape-Political will beat up anyone who expresses any form of political belief. Nazbol, meanwhile, is a Commie Nazi, but that is Truth in Television.
- This is Downplayed with the more moderate members of each quadrant-Socialist and Progressive are depicted as fairly reasonable and mostly realistically. However, Conservative mixes more realistic espousement of conservative positions with strawman elements such as praying to Jordan Peterson and saying he hates black people but 'not enough to do anything about it.' Libertarian, meanwhile, is an absolute Straw Hypocrite who espouses anti-government beliefs but makes most of his money selling weapons to foreign governments.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The four political extremists don’t get along with each other, especially Authoritarian Right. That is unless they're fighting centrists, in which they're united.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Downplayed, but in Centricide 4 Ancap realizes he doesn't want to be a purge-happy fanatic and realizes his ideology unintentionally kills more than what Authleft and Authright could ever hope to do. After leaving the Extremists and rescuing Libertarian, however, the two still decide to come up with various illicit ways to get money. By Centricide 4.5 he's acted on this by founding Ancapistan which while a hellhole, doesn't wish to attack anyone that avoids crossing it.
- Token Evil Teammate: Multiple
- For the Extremists: Authoritarian right/Nazi/White Identitarian is the most blatantly evil extremist and is the only one depicted as having no valid points whatsoever, with anything that does come off as positive being a smokescreen for a bad idea or already being said by Authoritarian Left or Ancap.
- For the Centrists: It's Anti-Extremist/Anti-Radical, who is notably more violent and bloodthirsty than the other centrists, who are usually too apathetic/confused/contradictory to do anything and don't have particularly violent instincts.
- For Ancapistan: Hoppean who is such an elitist that he has genocidal views on race and wants to exterminate poor people as well who are no better than queer and POC in his eyes.
- For the Anarchists: Insurrectionary Anarchism is only in it for toppling whatever he sees as a hierarchy without something to replace it given that he's just a Blood Knight. He mocks the idea of a better world while Anfash is at least capable of conceptualizing an ethno commune where people get along. Not that Anfash didn't try to be this as he believes the state is the only thing preventing him from committing genocide.
- For the Moderates: Averted with Conservative, who highlights the positive aspects of traditionalist thought and unlike Socialist and Progressive, isn't idle and tries to reform his extremist counterpart. Though it's a bit downplayed with Libertarian, who isn't totally evil as well, is a Corrupt Corporate Executive just like AnCap and gives into his greedy urges in Ancapistan.
- For the Wackies: Also averted with Nazbol given that his ideology technically makes sense despite having both totalitarian economic and social policy and won't leave humanity in a contradictory mess, hence him getting kicked out of the Wackies. He's also ironically less unhinged than Nazi and Commie so far in the series.
- Token Good Teammate: Depending on the definition, Ancom or Ancap could qualify. Ancom's positions are depicted as being the most reasonable of the four extremists and while the other extremists favor genocide, gulags and child sex slaves, quer most unreasonable position is giving children drugs. On the other hand, Ancom is eager to assault anyone que thinks is a Nazi (which happens to be essentially everyone who isn't quem). Ancap, meanwhile, while endorsing a number of morally dubious policies, is the least violent extremist , lets his more moderate purple quadrant colleague Libertarian escape unharmed rather than kill him as ordered and displays far more angst over whether or not he's a good person than the rest of the extremists do.
- Transhumanism qualifies as this for the Wackies, as while the other ones want societies that are dysfunctional and likely hellish to live in (or bring about in the case of Posadism), Transhumanism just wants to get 'that robot dick' which is far less objectionable. Ironically, he is the only one who betrays all the others once Accelerationism manifests, since he wants to exist in a post-human world.
- Transhumanism: An extremist ideology occasionally mentioned. Portrayed as wanting robot arms.
- Underestimating Badassery: Nazi and Commie think the Horseshoe Centrist poses no threat to them, especially since they have him outnumbered 2-to-1. But their teamwork only proves his point for him, allowing him to use his abilities to put them both on the ropes.
- Villain Team-Up: From the centrist perspective, this happens whenever the 4 extremes hang out to oppose centrism. The ideologies that get along better end up with Villainous Friendship.
- Villainous BSoD: Nazi suffers one in Centricide 6 when he is informed he has Jewish ancestry. It hits him so hard he stumbles backwards taking his greenscreen down with him. He recovers by becoming a Zionist, reasoning that it means that "his people" are the smartest and richest as well as secretly in control of the world with their own ethnostate.
- Wham Line: In "Centricide 6"Conservative: (to Nazi) I confirmed my suspicions. You're a Jew.
- Every extreme is on the same team! (x4)
Except in the way that proves Horseshoe Theory...
