Hi, I’ma Draw Ya! became my most popular series of comedy videos, starting with this simple improvised format and later evolving into a single-camera sitcom with the help of friends at the YouTube Space London. It follows Harry (although he didn’t really have a name yet at this point), a deluded ‘artist’ who thinks he’s making really helpful art tutorials.
HIDY was born from my love of sad clown archetypes in media: deeply troubled but ultimately sincere people who bring other people joy at great expense to their own wellbeing. I think what I just wrote could describe basically any YouTuber I ever met, and at the time I was surrounded by them every day.
It was also inspired by some of my earliest favourite web content that completely broke the genre mould, in particular You Suck At Photoshop. Here was this thing that was never intended to tell a story—an online tutorial video—but hey, we’re using it to tell a story. We’re getting a fictional character teaching us things. Another great example of this is Red Letter Media’s Plinkett Reviews.