About

Soldier, Poet, King is a song by The Oh Hellos, an indie folk rock duo from Texas, from their 2015 album Dear Wormwood. In late 2018, the song became the subject of a short animation by YouTube animator Gothfrog. The format of Gothfrog's original animation proved adaptable and was been subsequently recycled by other animators using different characters.

Origin

The Oh Hellos released their Dear Wormwood album on October 16th, 2015.^[2] The name is a reference to C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, and the album as a whole is inspired by the same.^[3] In particular, the song "Soldier, Poet, King" is an allusion to the Christian belief in the second coming of Jesus Christ. ^[4]

On December 18th, 2018, YouTube user and animator Gothfrog^[1] posted a short, animated music video featuring the three main verses from "Soldier, Poet, King." The animation introduces a new character at the beginning of each verse to correspond with the introduction of the three titular characters in the song. At the end of each verse, the previously added characters are shown walking together until all characters are present together at the end of the video

Spread

Gothfrog's animation provided an adaptable format that was quickly utilized by other animators, who developed similar music videos using original characters or existing characters from other media. Popular examples include a March 25th, 2019 video by VanGuv which gained over 800,000 views (shown below, left) and a January 3rd, 2019 video by Covarche that gained over 1 million views (shown below, right).

Replication Using Gacha Life

Shortly after its inception, the format became particularly popular among the Gacha Life community. Gacha Life is a roleplaying videogame that allows users to create custom characters.^[5] Using apps like KineMaster Video Editor or other video capturing software, Gacha Life users can thus recreate the format with their custom sprites by using in-game mechanics and commands. Gacha Life versions of the "Soldier, Poet, King" format have existed since at least March 7, 2019, when YouTube user ガチャMoonVerse uploaded a video replicating the format using Gacha Life sprites.^[6] Because of the low amount of time an effort required to produce such videos compared to original animation, Gacha Life users can to generate a high volume of videos in a short amount of time (with varying degrees of quality), potentially surpassing the total volume of videos utilizing original animation.

Various Examples

External References