The Mandela Catalogue

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About

The Mandela Catalogue is an analog horror YouTube series created by Alex Kister. The episodes are divided into instructional videos for citizens of Mandela County warning them of supernatural organisms known as "alternates" and found footage videos of encounters with said entities. The series premiered in August 2021 and gathered an online following in the following months and became a subject of references in memes.

History

On June 9th, 2021, Alex Kister launched Mandela Catalogue analog horror series, posting the first video "The Mandela Catalogue – Overthrone" to YouTube.^[1] The video (shown below) received over 597,900 views in five months. On June 19th, 2021, the second video in the series, "The Mandela Catalogue – The THINK Principle," was posted (shown below, right),^[2] launching the narrative and receiving over 383,000 views in the same period.

The video is presented instructional video for citizens of Mandela County warning them of an "unforeseen threat:" hostile organisms known as "alternates" who are able to assume appearance of one's friends and relatives.

Further videos within the series reveal that the "alternates" have been kidnapping children in the county. While creatures are unable to hurt people directly, they are able to use "psychological warfare," saying things that cause people to hurt themselves and obey them.

As of November 10th, 2021, a total of six videos were posted by the channel with the most popular installation, "The Mandela Catalogue Vol. 1,"^[3] accumulating over 1.6 million views since August 9th (shown below, left).

According to series creator, The Mandela Catalogue was inspired by Kris Straub's LOCAL58TV analog horror series.^[4]

Reception

The series was met with overwhelmingly positive response, with the most popular video gaining over 121,000 likes to 1,000 dislikes on YouTube^[5] in three months.

On YouTube, the series became a popular subject of analysis videos. On October 12th, 2021, YouTuber^[6] Wowman posted breakdown and analysis video about the series that gained over 221,000 views in one month (shown below, left). On October 17th, YouTuber^[7] Wendigoon posted a video about the series that gained over 1.7 million views in the same period (shown below, right).

Fandom

The series rapidly climbed to popularity in October 2021, with users starting to post fan art and memes about the series on social media such as Twitter and Tumblr. For example, on October 10th, Twitter^[8] user @IamLevil posted a fan art of an Alternate which accumulated 90 retweets and 420 likes in one month (shown below, left). On October 23rd, 2021, gimmick Twitter^[9] account @NightmarePetrol posted a still image from the series that gained over 2,300 retweets and 24,000 likes in three weeks (shown below, right).

Character known as "An Intruder," based on a popular police sketch, who briefly appears in episode "The Mandela Catalogue Vol. 1" of the series, gained particular popularity within the fandom, becoming a subject of fan art, fancams and memes.

An Intruder

Creepy Hooded Guy, also known as An Intruder and The Albanian, refers to a police sketch of a large-eyed man wearing a black hood. The image achieved prominence online several times, first shared on 4chan's /tg/ board in 2010, and later gaining meme usage on 4chan and then in on the Russian 2ch imageboard in December 2015. The image again became popularized in 2021 after appearing as "An intruder" in "The Mandela Catalogue" analog horror YouTube series.