ACTUALLY HAPPENED / Fake Animated Stories

Submission 12,696

About

Fake Animated Stories refers to a genre of YouTube videos that publishes animated stories that are claimed to be submitted by kids. They have become infamous online due to them stealing stories or making up provably false stories and claiming they are real. They often use clickbait topics, like teen pregnancy and homelessness. One of the most popular channels is ACTUALLY HAPPENED, a channel that generated over 3.8 million subscribers before their videos were deleted. It has become popular to react to these channels and criticize them.

Origin

On April 5, 2015, a YouTube channel named storybooth (stylized in all lowercases) was launched, priding itself on animating stories that are submitted by teenagers.^[1] Its first video, "First Kiss", was posted on YouTube on May 6th, 2015.^[2] Unlike most other Storytime Animation channels, Storybooth does actually use real stories submitted by teenagers. This can be proven by the fact that stories can be recorded on their website,^[3] and if the teenager has a YouTube channel, they will get featured.^[4] As of August 2020, they have garnered 4.57 million subscribers and 1.67 trillion views.

Spread

On June 1st, 2018, an infamous Cypriot internet network company named The Soul Publishing, infamous for 5-Minute Hacks and Bright Side,^[5] launched a channel called "ACTUALLY HAPPENED,"^[6] stylized in all capitals. Their first video is currently not known. They claim that they animate stories submitted by kids.^[6] This is not true due to many of their videos being provably false due to some stories using phrases such as, "The event was spread all over the news," though this was never verifiable. Some other stories are also stolen from sites like Reddit. As of August 2020, this channel has garnered 3.45 million subscribers (example below).

On January 13th, 2019, an Israel app developer, Zvoid, launched a channel called "My Story Animated."^[7] Their first video, "I Can't Stop Stealing From My Friends and Family" was posted on the same day.^[8] As with "Actually Happened," their videos are usually not verifiably true, including the use of fake police reports. As of August 2020, My Story Animated has 4.07 million subscribers and 1.15 trillion views.

Reactions

On January 1st, 2019, YouTuber Jarvis Johnson uploaded the video, "Why Is YouTube Trending This Fake Channel? (Actually Happened)."^[9] In the video, Jarvis Johnson reacts to three videos from Actually Happened. He found proof that the videos were indeed fake as the first story (the story about a guy breaking up with his fiancé because of a joke about potatoes) was taken from the TIFU subreddit from Reddit, and the third one mentions how a massive school ban of bananas and water bottles was mentioned all over the news even though in real life, only one news article was ever published of a massive school ban of this nature. He also discovered that if you sign up for hire as a writer for The Soul Publishing, they will send you an email confirming that these stories are written up by employees. As of August 2020, the video has 2.69 million views.

On January 14th, 2019, YouTuber Slazo posted a video named "ACTUALLY HAPPENED is an Awful channel," as part of a series on The Soul Publishing.^[10] Like Jarvis, Slazo reacted to three videos from Actually Happened, including one Jarvis reacted to in his video. A notable video that Slazo reacted to was about a girl's fiance claiming to be a drummer of a band and the band is later revealed to be Daft Punk, a famous electronic duo. As of August 2020, Slazo's video has garnered over 856,000.

On April 11th, 2019, Jarvis Johnson uploaded another video, "The Worst Animated Stories On YouTube (My Story Animated)."^[11] In the video, he reacts to four videos and talks about how the clipart and animation kits used in My Story Animated's tend to clash with each other and how My Story Animated and ACTUALLY HAPPENED attempt, but fail, at trying to teach a moral. At the end, Jarvis promotes a parody channel he made called, "They Actually Animated My Story" and shows off two videos, one to show how a lot of times, there is no conflict in these videos, and the other to show how easily stories can be stolen. As of August 2020, the video has 2.62 million views.

Various Examples

Duplicate Channels

After the YouTube channels began drawing criticism from prominent YouTubers, many duplicate channels started to appear. They were mentioned by Jarvis Johnson in multiple videos (examples shown below).

Various Examples of Duplicates

Share My Story
Teen Stories
My Story
Share Story
Animate My Story
Clip Story
Dear Diary
Dory Story
My Story
My Crazy Story
True Stories
Real Amazing Stories

Animated Story Title Generator

On April 19th, 2019,^[12] Jarvis Johnson made a tweet about a program that he was working that would automatically create "Actually Happened" scripts. Though the results were amusing, Jarvis eventually gave up the project (examples shown below).

On May 1st, 2019, Jarvis posted "Fake Animated Stories Are Getting Worse (Actually Happened)."^[13] Near the 14-minute mark, Jarvis shows off another program that generates "Actually Happened" titles instead of scripts. Due to it being successful, he turned it into a website^[14] and linked to it in the description.

Soon enough, Jarvis's initial tweet became a thread for posting interesting titles generated from the website.^[12]

ACTUALLY HAPPENED Deletion

On June 8th, 2020, all of Actually Happened's videos were made private, losing 1.5 trillion views^[15] and all mentions of the channel were removed from The Soul Publishing's website. Their last video was posted on May 31st, 2020 and was called, "I Sent My Girl To The Asylum Because I Was Tired Of Her."^[16] It was first mentioned on June 9th, 2020 by Kenlimepie Plus, who came to the conclusion that YouTube likely didn't terminate the channel as it does somewhat follow the terms of service.^[17] As of August 2020, the video has garnered 81,000 views.

On June 20th, 2020, Jarvis Johnson posted a video called, "What Happened To Actually Happened?"^[18] in which Jarvis, with a voice meant to imitate Vsauce, looked into the details surrounding Actually Happened's videos and comes up with a few theories, including that The Soul Publishing is planning on making another fake animated story channel, or the channel was taken down by YouTube, or being merged with My Story Animated. As of August 2020, it has garnered 821,000 views.