YMMV / JaidenAnimations

• Abandon Shipping: People used to ship Jaiden with a handful of other people from most of the YouTube animation community, most notably James, since they were both animators who live in Arizona. But it has since been laid to rest — each of them said they're just friends, and it's out of respect for Jaiden revealing she's asexual & aromantic, and James already being in a relationship with someone else.
• Accidental Innuendo: When first introducing her VTuber model, Jaiden tested out the emote settings at her disposal. In her excitement, she enabled both the "love heart eyes" and "blushing" expressions simultaneously, causing her avatar to look flustered. The implications of this were completely unintentional and she switched back to the default expression as quickly as possible.
• Awesome Art:
  • Jaiden's animation quality is noticeably improving, even without the help of other animators. Her recent videos are also becoming more and more elaborate with their visual humor.
  • Some of the Pokémon battles in the Ruby Nuzlocke video are quite fluid for their budget, and the mons themselves are drawn accurately, yet simply and expressively.
• Awesome Moments:
  • Her face reveal at the end of "Why I Don't Have a Face Reveal" for what it symbolizes. At that point in time, she didn't ever show herself to the world because her eating disorder had convinced her that she wasn't living up to nonexistent expectations, and following her spirit-breaking experience at VidCon 2016, she practically lost all reason for living. However, instead of crossing the Despair Event Horizon, she turned back at the last second, opened herself up to the world, and through the support of everyone around her she had been neglecting to pay any attention to, she made a swift recovery and was able to move on from her lowest emotional rut. Jaiden showing off her face for the first time is indicative of her showing that she's no longer afraid of being open.
  • On April 7, 2020, Jaiden held a livestream benefitting coronavirus research. The goal of $30,000 was met nine minutes after starting. Even when she resorted to Moving the Goalposts to prolong the stream, said goals were still met very quickly. When the livestream finally ended about four hours later, the final total exceeded $250,000.
  • Jaiden has had a shockingly good track record when it comes to competitions hosted by other YouTubers. Her team managed to win the first round of Mr Beast's Airsoft Battle Royale despite not expecting to win at all, and she also won Jacksfilm's second Kidzbop Quiz against 28 other participants.
  • After being on the platform for seven years, on June 1, 2021, Jaiden has finally reached 10 million subscribers on YouTube.
  • During Day 15 of her Subathon, Jaiden revealed her model as a Virtual YouTuber, complete with Visual Effects of Awesome around this model.
• Awesome Music: Empty, not just the music itself, but the context; it's Jaiden's since-victorious battle against an eating disorder adapted to a song.
• Broken Base:
  • The thumbnail and title rebranding starting with "Being Not Straight", which also ended up affecting every video released between it and "I played weird virtual pet games" (with the exceptions of "JaidenAnimations the Anime" and "I Attempted a Two Player Nuzlocke"). Is it a concise, fitting change that doesn't alienate people with intricacies, or is it a cheap, clickbaity way to garner more attention?
  • The shift towards more video game-centered videos starting in 2020 has garnered split opinions. One one hand, some consider it a good change of pace that still keeps Jaiden's signature art style and humor intact, but on the other hand, some consider the concept to have grown stale after a while and lament that Jaiden's content has been slowly drifting away from the storytime aspect that caused her to become big in the first place. These concerns were eventually alleviated as, starting with "The Time When Psychics Read my Future", Jaiden's videos slowly but surely ended up shifting back into storytime animations, whereas most of her video game content ended up being shifted over to WILD/CARD.
  • In late December of 2023, a civil war broke out in Jaiden's fandom over Alpharad accidentally referring to Jaiden as a girlfriend in a livestream, and later a story on one of their Instagrams of the two of them huddled close together with text simply reading "oh well". This has sparked mass debate between sides of people who wish to respect Jaiden being aroace (which Jacob also happens to be as well) and people who ship the two. Several images in later months of the two, often in contexts that could seem intimate depending on how they're viewed, only served to add fuel to the fire.
• Crosses the Line Twice: One part in the video for Ari's third birthday has Jaiden moving his travel cage around like he was playing in the park... and pushing it down a slide. However, closer examination reveals that it was actually an Ari plush inside the cage when it went down the slide, not the real Ari.
• Designated Hero: From her Dungeons & Dragons session, Tholomew. While Paul has understandable reasons for wanting to take out Mark Thompson, and Zoot is meant to be a Nominal Hero, Tholomew is The Paranoiac who sees Mark as their Arch-Enemy, despite Mark saying that Tholomew ruined his life by spreading false rumors that caused his wife to divorce him. Despite this, Tholomew is still portrayed as the Big Good in spite of not being substantially heroic.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Her bird, Ari. Jaiden seems acutely aware of his, since a poll she took showed Ari was more popular than Jaiden herself.
  • Among shipping circles, the 13-year old boy from "My Childhood Stories" who suavely asked Jaiden to hold his hand has a very strong following, with him being designated the nickname "Scarf Boy".
  • Even though she doesn't appear for very long, Jaiden's "very Italian" babysitter from "Things that Happened While I Grew up" is beloved by fans for her cute appearance, her competence as a babysitter, and allegedly being a Funny Foreigner.
  • In her Pokémon Ruby Nuzlocke video, Zipzapzop the Magneton quickly became the fan favorite among her team, no doubt due to his epic tanking of a 4x effective Earthquake attack when facing That One Boss, Winona's Altaria. His death elicited sympathy, as well.
  • In her Platinum Nuzlocke streams, Dwayne the Onix was initially just selected to be death fodder, but he rapidly became a favourite when he tanked a huge hit from Mars' Purugly and survived on 1 HP.
  • From "The worst thing that's ever happened to me", the Uber driver and Dr. Cruz are very well-liked in the community, the former for being a Nice Guy who actually complies with what Jaiden says (unlike Rajesh and the second Uber driver from "Locked out of my House"), and the latter for his background of being a family friend and effectively saving Jaiden in her Darkest Hour.
  • The neighborhood rival character from the HeartGold/SoulSilver SoulLink Nuzlocke gained a large fan following for their design being a cute and effective Composite Character of Ethan and Lyra, with many also interpreting them as nonbinary.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Because of his popularity, the flirtatious 13-year old boy from "My Childhood Stories" has been nicknamed "Scarf Boy" by fans whenever they wish to talk about him.
  • The collective of YouTube animators that Jaiden is part of, including TheOdd1sOut, TimTom, Domics, CypherDen, Let Me Explain Studios, and It's Alex Clark, is affectionately known as the "Animation Squad".
• Friendly Fandoms: Since they've collaborated on multiple occasions, either by themselves or with other people, many viewers of Jaiden also happen to be viewers of Alpharad.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: A lot of it stems from her upload of "What my trip to Japan was like", but Jaiden has a sizable amount of Japanese fans who love her content both for their Slice of Life nature and Super-Deformed art style.
• Growing the Beard: "Why I Don't Have a Face Reveal" is the point where her old art style is left behind, with "My Strange Trip to Europe w/ TimTom" being the first video to feature her signature, more well-known art style.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In her 2016 VidCon video, it's hard not to feel sad at her denying pizza and saying "I already ate" after "Why I Don't Have a Face Reveal", in which she reveals she was still struggling with an eating disorder at the time.
  • In "I Attempted my First Pokemon Nuzlocke", Jaiden discusses Winona's Altaria and its capability of sweeping entire teams with Earthquake, using Team Four Star's team, who were infamously wiped in their first attempt at fighting her during their Emerald Nuzlocke, as an example. Fast forward to "I Attempted a Pokemon Platinum Nuzlocke" and Jaiden herself is defeated in her first attempt at fighting the Elite Four. Moreover, the explanation she went with for her successful second attempt — that her first attempt was that of a Jaiden from an Alternate Timeline — was joked about by TFS in their Nuzlocke as a means of Leaning on the Fourth Wall, but here, it's Played for Drama.
    Lanipator: In an alternate reality, we might have been swept.
    Jaiden: What happened in the other timeline where I saw glimpses of what happened parallel to this world... that was me too. Those things happened. Was that the ending I'm destined to have?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In her very first YouTube community post, Jaiden states that she will never use the feature because she thought it was annoying. Nowadays, the idea of her not posting a community post about a new video, livestream, or merchandise is basically unheard of.
  • In her first "Random Thoughts" video, she joked about the possibility of a horror movie soundtrack using an Otamatone. Two years later, Child's Play (2019) would have the soundtrack feature mostly toys as instruments, including Otamatones.
  • In "The Weirdest Dating Simulators I could find", Jaiden claims that she plays Dating Sims as a substitute for dating in real life, which she dislikes. She shows a clear disinterest in romance throughout the video, such leaving the speed dating event in Speed Dating for Ghosts in favor of helping some of the candidates rob a bank, and ending up "dating" the Galaga spaceship in Namco High. Four months later, she released "Being Not Straight", in which she comes out as aromantic and asexual, explaining her distaste for real-life romance.
  • In Japan, a popular superstition is that if a pet is named after food, they'll end up having a longer lifespan. In "I Attempted my First Pokemon Nuzlocke", Jaiden named her Torchic "Teriyaki", a type of chicken, and it ended up being one of her only two Pokémon to end up surviving the Elite Four and win her the Nuzlocke.
  • When introducing Alpharad as her Player 2 in "I Attempted a Two Player Nuzlocke", she casually mentions that he has a 50% Nuzlocke win ratio on his own channel. Already amusing due to Jaiden having that exact success rate, but then Alpharad admitted that he won his supposedly failed Emerald Nuzlocke, and his "defeat" against Juan's Groudon was just him going back and Throwing the Fight for the sake of comedy.
  • Her disbelief at Pokémon XD starting with the death of two people and stating that recent Pokémon games would never do such a thing became this after the reveal in Scarlet and Violet that the professors in those game were Dead All Along.
  • In "The Time When Psychics Read my Future", she is constantly told by psychics that she will have 3 children. Well as it turns out 3 videos later, she has grandchildren in the form of her bird Tofu laying eggs. Well, would have, as she decided to not let them hatch due to not thinking she can handle raising them.
• Iron Woobie: Jaiden herself is very pitiable thanks to how many awful things have happened to her, yet she tends to take it all in stride. Of note are her bursts of anxiety which pop up at the most inopportune occasions, having to cope with the rampant Rule 34 made of her, her irrational fear of the dentist which was worsened by going to a quack dentistry as an adult, her eating disorder which had devastating effects on her body and mental health, and her outbreak of hives that caused her to briefly become a Death Seeker due to how painful it was. And despite all of these misfortunes, she's still willing to convert them into silly, charming animations as a way to get them off of her chest.
• Jossed: Some concerned fans started overthinking a little and wondered why Jaiden's dad had never shown up in her videos, with theories ranging from a death to estrangement. In "Winter & My Traumatic Skiing Trip," Jaiden reveals that she just hadn't animated anything involving him yet, he was alive, and that their relationship is just fine.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Jaiden with a gun.
  • Commenters on her Nuzlocke video declaring it to be their "favorite anime."
  • "One day, I finished reading one of my favorite books..."^ExplanationThe starting line to an infamous Rule 34 animation of Jaiden (and Shgurr) that's animated and voice acted in her own style, which is commonly used as Schmuck Bait on YouTube to fool people unaware of it into believing it's an animation of hers they haven't seen.
• Moe: Jaiden is pretty Adorkable in real life. So is Ari.
• Narm: Invoked for her Pokémon SoulSilver SoulLink Nuzlocke with Alpharad, which is completely randomized to take full comedic advantage of having random Pokémon appear even in scripted encounters. As Jaiden herself notes, it can be hilarious knowing you can run into a legendary in areas you normally only find Com Mons, and also have scripted Gym Leader fights, Elite Four battles, and scripted Legendary Pokémon encounters turn out to be against Com Mons.
  Jan: You're only trying to catch Suicune to make yourselves look stronger than you actually are!
  Jaiden: ...Nah, we killed him a while ago.^note Jaiden and Jacob had a randomized encounter with a wild Suicune earlier that game, but Jacob made it faint before he could catch it.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • In "Injuries and Being Sick," Jaiden relates a chin injury she had as a child that was so bad that it was blood pouring out of it constantly. Jaiden's mom, Lynn, described it as a "second mouth."
  • In "The worst thing that's ever happened to me", she describes her experience with a nasty bout of hives, including dark red patches of skin all across her body. Though the cutesy art style makes this easier to handle, the way Jaiden goes into detail about it can be pretty gross.
  • The end of "I Attempted a Speedrun (and got a world record)" has Jaiden saying she, "finally did something with her life after all," and the visual accompanying it is gross incarnate. She has grease stains and crumbs all over her face, a bedhead, trash covering her whole room, and Ari is seen pooping on her desktop, with more poop stains on the back of it.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Along with other animators such as TheOdd1sOut and Let Me Explain Studios that appeared in it, Jaiden was considered the best part of Youtube Rewind 2017 (or in some people's minds, the only good part in the whole video).
  • Jaiden managed to create one for Rewind 2018 by sneaking in PewDiePie's chair in her contribution, most likely in retaliation for Youtube's increasing attempts to distance themselves from him.
• Squick:
  • Whenever Jaiden's anxiety kicks in during a story, her character tends to break out into an Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat, which usually drips down her clothes and onto the floor.
  • A good chunk of "Ari's Birthday! (Again)" due to talking in length about bird crap. Including one moment where Jaiden describes Ari's "Morning Poops" as being spoonfuls and pleading with her viewers not to picture it.
  • "The worst thing that's ever happened to me" is also primarily driven by this, largely due to the vivid detail with which Jaiden describes the experience of suffering from severe hives, complete with detailed illustrations.
  • In "Pokemon Fan plays Digimon and hated it", Jaiden's Imagine Spot of the members of Light Fang being transformed into Digi-Eggs is not only disturbing, but also disgusting, as they're only partially transformed while the Digi-Egg shells are made of their flesh.
• Stoic Woobie: From her Dungeons & Dragons session, Paul. His life is the very definition of miserable, with his wife leaving him, his son going missing at age 6, and his manager preventing any and all upward mobility, yet despite how depressed he is from the hardships, Paul never complains and maintains a cold, emotionless complexion.

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