YMMV / American Vandal

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Given the ambiguities that the show leaves in, especially in season 1, these can be plentiful.
  • Is Peter a Well-Intentioned Extremist who made American Vandal out of true passion to prove Dylan's innocence, or is he a straight up Villain Protagonist who is willing to expose people's secrets, including his own and his best friends, for the sake of making a good documentary?
  • Mackenzie:
    • Is she a normal teenage girl who's going through the pains of her parents divorce and happens to take it out in unhealthy ways, or is she a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who not only cheated on Dylan but was willing to let him be tried as a criminal for the sake of not having to admit that she did.
    • Was she right in Calling Peter out for how his documentary affected people? Or was she upset that he was accusing her of being the Vandal and the only way to prove her innocence was show him the video of her strip-teasing her Twitch boyfriend, a video which she could have used to prove Dylan's innocence.
    • The interpretation her break-ups with Dylan are deliberate ploys for his attention noticeably comes from his - decidedly unsympathetic toward her - friends. Hence it's easy to think she really does mean to call it quits with him, but keeps being pressured into taking him back by his Grand Romantic Gestures (and in the final episode, she makes it clear she no longer wants to be with him). This makes her cheating, if not sympathetic, more understandable.
  • Coach Rafferty: Is he a statutory and/or date-rapist? Kraz flippantly claims Rafferty “roofies people,” he gives Sam some unsolicited advice that women like it when boys act "assertive," and his office was trashed with the words "stick your dick somewhere else" written in it— which is never definitively explained and is cast in a suspicious light by his quickly cleaning it up. Christa’s behavior when asked by Peter what Coach Rafferty said to her strikes a lot of viewers as reminiscent of a victim of sexual harassment or abuse, made more notable by the fact that the usually very outspoke Christa refuses to repeat it.
  • Kraz's animosity toward Coach Rafferty. He storms off after losing out to him for teacher of the year and says that he roofies people. Does he make the accusation because he's jealous and spiteful over losing out to Rafferty for the award, or was he so upset to lose the award because he lost to someone he considered to be a sexual predator?
  • Assuming that Christa really did draw the dicks or convinced her boyfriend Van to draw them, were her acts of protesting on Dylan’s behalf (the “Free Dylan” shirts, leading the other students in chanting “I drew the dicks,” starting a fundraiser, and speaking in support of Peter’s documentary after the school shuts it down) efforts to assuage her feelings of guilt over watching someone she knows is innocent have their live ruined for something she did, or was she just eager to jump on any chance to protest something and get media attention?
    • Additionally, if Christa did draw the dicks or convinced Van or someone else to do it, was her outburst at the assembly- “I drew the dicks!”- a successful attempt at sparking an I Am Spartacus style protest, or was it a spur of the moment effort to genuinely confess?
  • Is Christa sympathetic, assuming she drew the dicks to get back at Coach Rafferty? Is Christa a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who holds petty grudges and is happy to throw anyone under the bus? Or did she react fairly, given how completely unfairly she was treated by Rafferty?
  • Is Kevin on the autism spectrum? Another student dismisses the diagnosis, though he's not an expert and doesn't even know Kevin very well. Kevin himself explains his behavior as leaning into his problems with social isolation, but this could just be a self-perpetuating cycle, since something about Kevin's behavior was already making it difficult for him to connect to others.
  • Further on Kevin: is he a victim or a co conspirator? Unlike Grayson's other catfish victims, Kevin willingly does the Brownout and its even implied he and Grayson/Brooke came up with the plan together to target it to his own past victimisation and resentments. While he is probably sincere in that he didn't expect it to become as much of a scene as it did, this was mostly based on his own feelings towards the lemonade - surely he would have observed how popular it was with the rest of the students. That being said, he was as much under the influence of Brooke as any of the other catfish victims - in his own words he did it to try and impress her - and there's almost no chance he would have ever thought to pull a similar stunt on his own.

• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Mr. Kraz running a Twitter poll on how quickly a student couple in his class will break up.
  • Everything regarding the Turd Burglar's crimes in season 2, most notably the school-wide Potty Failure that was the Brownout.

• Diagnosed by the Audience: Kevin's awkward mannerisms, smug persona and elaborately anal-retentive methods of "properly" enjoying tea can all be indicators that he is on the autism spectrum somewhere, and it is discussed in-universe by one of his classmates, but dismissed just as quickly. Though said classmate doesn't know Kevin very well, and certainly isn't qualified to make or dismiss a diagnosis.

• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Season Two’s Hot Janitor, for being, well, hot and an all-around decent-seeming guy.
  • Minor character Drew from Season Two has a similar following due to showing an admirable amount of integrity when he reveals that he too was threatened by Grayson with having his private images posted publicly, and he refused. Made especially awesome by the fact that his pictures were definitely the most humiliating of the bunch.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Drew's pictures, and later video, are initially more comic relief amidst the more dramatic moments, until the circumstances are revealed in the final episode. He was pressured/influenced into filming it by a catfish who intended to blackmail him and they were only released when he refused to become an accomplice. Worse, he couldn't even tell anyone the truth of the first pictures, lest the video leak too. The ending really hits hard that him and everyone else who had pictures leaked are just lonely, desperate kids.
• Ho Yay:
  • Sam thinks there's a connection between Morning Show crew members Randall and Phil both getting Mono (aka "the kissing disease") at the same time is a little suspect.
  • There’s also Scott who unabashedly drops his pants to show Peter his penis, without absolutely no reluctance or hesitation.
  • Despite his statements of only wanting to get to the truth and not even liking Dylan, Peter's interest in proving Dylan's innocence rapidly starts coming across as decidedly personal, especially when he believes Dylan and Mackenzie were responsible for the dicks together, and he absolutely unleashes on Dylan for "lying" to him, while acknowledging in voiceover how he may have been swayed by his own biases.
  • Definitely also (or more so) qualifies as No Yay, but in Season Two Grayson doesn’t expose Kevin as his willing co-conspirator in his “Big Dump,” instead seemingly making it look like Drew was the fourth blackmail victim coerced into committing the pranks- with Kevin’s involvement only revealed by both Kevin himself (to Peter and his documentary) and by the texts and conversations Kevin and “Brooke” had that the prosecution had obtained despite Grayson wiping his phone clean. When Grayson, as “Brooke,” sends Kevin his last message before ghosting him, he calls Kevin out on being “fake and full of shit,” just as he did his other cat-fishing victims, but admits that he -Grayson- is too, something that he notably didn’t do with his other “breakup” texts, and before The Reveal, Grayson also defends Kevin in a way that implies a similar feeling of homogeneity. The fact that Kevin and Grayson are childhood friends adds yet another creepy layer of subtext to the manipulation and fall out.
  • Sam and Peter, owing to their status as Platonic Life-Partners.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Dylan, big time. Sure he's an unpleasant jerk who tends to treat people like crap and engage in childish, mean-spirited pranks. And he really did torture Mrs. Shapiro for years. However, he isn't a bad person deep down but rather pretty dumb. He ends up being blamed for something he didn't do and isn't allowed to say his side of the story due to how the school board views him. And even though he's eventually proven innocent, is reinstated back to Hanover and finally graduates, life becomes worse for him (mostly due to the documentary) as he finds out his girlfriend Mackenzie cheated on him before breaking up with her for good, spends his prom night home alone drinking, gets his college application to Boulder denied and when he finally does watch the documentary on the dick vandalism he looks utterly broken to find out that most of the school population viewed him as an idiot which then drives him to actually vandalize Mrs. Shapiro's driveway. This gets him arrested and therefore destroys whatever future he had left. Moreover, it's heavily implied that two other people were behind the dick vandalism the whole time presumably after he goes to jail. Poor guy needs a hug.
  • Arguably, Peter as well. Sure he is a jerk for exploiting all the secrets of multiple Hanover high school students in his documentary but it's hard not to feel sorry for him when both Sarah and Mackenzie give him well deserved (yet still brutal) speeches. On top of that he ends up being alienated by most of the students he included in his own documentary.
  • The same could be said for Mackenzie as well. While lying to and manipulating Dylan throughout their entire relationship was wrong, and while cheating on him was an even worse thing for her to do, it becomes clear that she faced many issues and has been through a lot. Not to mention that she's on the verge of breaking down when being interviewed in the documentary.
  • An argument could also be made for Christa. She gets cruelly humiliated and physically injured by Rafferty, who may also be a sexual predator. It doesn't justify her {maybe) letting Dylan take the fall, but it's possible to feel some sympathy for her.
  • In Season 2, it's Kevin. Despite being brutally ostracized by his best friends and treated like a living joke by the rest, he does end up being responsible for The Brownout. Like the other characters he was catfished. Unlike the others, he wasn't blackmailed into doing the Lemonade attack.
• Nausea Fuel: Season 2’s whole poop theme, which includes shots of students spoiling themselves in the halls, and another incident involving a piñata full of excrement being broken in a classroom.
• Paranoia Fuel: Imagine that you break your phone and take it to a local kiosk to get it repaired, and do not become aware until months later that the person tasked with fixing your phone not only extensively went through your private videos and pictures and conversations, saving them for their own nefarious purposes, but that they also used your pictures- yes, even the racy ones you sent only for your significant other to see- to catfish people you have never met and blackmail them into committing a crime. Also qualifies as Nightmare Fuel.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Season 2 is almost entirely disconnected from the first. The drama with Dylan is mentioned in the opening prologue, but that's about it. Thus, we miss any interactions between Sam and Gabi, any further fallout as a result of the documentary spreading people's secrets, and any type of clue as to whether Christa did the dicks or not.
• The Woobie:
  • Sarah Pearson a popular student who is decent enough to care about others and doesn't care about popularity or reputation is this due to the fact that it's implied that she's been a victim of slut shaming (due to a text conversation she had with her friend about her hookup list being included in the documentary) and states that her dad found out about it which may get her into trouble. In all honesty, it's hard not to feel sorry for her.
  • Dylan's mother and stepfather due to how Dylan is and their insistence that he is innocent. One can only imagine their reactions when they find out that Dylan got arrested.
  • Everyone (except maybe the teacher, for obvious reasons) that the “Turd Burglar” catfished and -under the threat of publicizing the nude photos and private conversations they’ve had, effectively ruining their lives- coerced into doing the dirty work for the poop “pranks.” Magnified by the fact that it’s made clear that they were specifically targeted because they were vulnerable and felt alone and were desperate to connect to someone, making them easier to manipulate. Made worse when Grayson releases the pictures and conversations anyway.
    • Special mention should go to poor, poor 'Diapey' Drew Pankratz, who was the Turd Burglar's first victim. Absolutely mortifying photos of him were leaked even before the Brownout, leading to bullying and isolation, and it turns out that Grayson leaked them because Drew refused to do what he wanted.
  • Paige Burton who was made the victim of a year long sexual harassment and cyber bullying campaign and received No Sympathy from either her fellow students (who joined in on it and mocked her for it) or the school administration (who dismissed her complaints simply because the most likely culprit was a star athlete). Unlike most of the other victims of cruelty or neglectful authority, Paige receives absolutely no justice for what was done to her.