Battle for Dream Island Built Its Rabid Fandom By Using the Best of New and Old Media

One of the first fan meetups for Battle for Dream Island took place in a hotel lobby in 2017 as part of VidCon, a fan convention for digital content creators. 

"Like 10 people came out, and it was such an exciting thing to see," Battle for Dream Island co-creator Cary Huang remembers. "Oh my god, 10 people came to see us. That's crazy!" 

Huang told me this on a gorgeous summer day in 2025 from another lobby, the lobby of Seattle's Downtown SIFF Theater, where he, his twin brother and BFDI co-creator Michael, and BFDI voice actors and animators were hosting their second sold-out fan-centric BFDI screening of the day as part of a two-day stopover in Seattle. Other cities on the national tour included New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago. Huang expected 25,000 fans — mostly tweens accompanied by their parents — to show up this time. 

And now BFDI and its associated offshoot BFDI: The Power of Two are nominated for a trio of Webbys, the long-running awards show that celebrates all things internet, in the categories Social - Family & Kids, Social - Best Use of Video, and, most appropriately, Social - Weird. (Voting is open through April 16.)

The rise in BFDI's popularity underscores a marked shift in typical viewing demographics thanks to Generation Alpha, the generation born between the early 2010s and 2024. BFDI — which got a huge boost during COVID — isn't on Netflix or a major streamer, and it sure as heck isn't on a broadcast dinosaur like CBS. It's on YouTube, the largest video platform in the world. The Huangs' YouTube account has almost three and a half million subscribers, new episodes of BFDI routinely top four million views, and the first episode, which premiered on Jan. 1, 2010, has over 74 million views. 

But unlike most other successful content creators working today, the Huangs live between the world of new and traditional media. Battle for Dream Island is nearly indistinguishable from scripted animated series you would have seen on Cartoon Network 10 years ago, and the Huangs — who found early fame with a Flash animation depicting the size of the universe and attended Stanford (Cary) and UC Berkeley (Michael) — cite the animated classic Total Drama Island, the legendary reality series Survivor, and the early internet Flash animation webtoon Homestar Runner as influences instead of the reaction videos, prank videos, or 30-second clips that pollute our feeds today. BFDI episodes are running longer and longer and looking more and more like traditional television series. A few years ago, episodes hovered around 20 minutes; Episode 23 of Battle for Dream Island Again — the cheeky name for Season 2 of Battle for Dream Island — was 60 minutes long and was shown in theaters around the country at special sold-out screenings just before it premiered on YouTube in early December 2025. Two more theatrical screenings, packed with kids with BFDI plushies and merch, have happened since with extra screenings added to meet demand. New episodes are released monthly, or whenever they can. 

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When Cary and Michael released the first episode of Battle for Dream Island in 2010 at just 13 years old, they inadvertently created an entirely new genre of animation called object shows. For those who don't know about the subculture, object shows feature anthropomorphic characters modeled mostly after everyday objects — Firey, Tennis Ball, and Pencil are just some of the many, many characters in BFDI — usually competing in a game show where contestants are eliminated at the end of each episode until one winner remains. BFDI has increased its connection to fans by giving them the power to decide who stays and who gets eliminated by voting in the comments section on the video. 

"We would not know, as the creators, who was gonna win our own show," Cary said. "So part of me was like, I want to finish the season because I'm curious, is Leafy gonna win? Is Firey gonna win? And they picked Firey, which is like, kind of basic, but you know, I'm still a fan. Firey fans, don't come for me!"

There are hundreds of object shows on the internet now, thanks to the simplistic animation style and rise in video publishing and animation tools. One of those is Inanimate Insanity, which was created by a then-13-year-old Adam Katz in 2011 and co-headlined the national tour with BFDI last summer. As chummy as the two shows are now, things didn't start as friendly, particularly on Cary's side. Cary admits he initially disliked the videos on YouTube, threatened by the idea of someone copying his ideas, but later removed the dislikes and embraced camaraderie. 

"I think that's one of the big differences between YouTube and more traditional media," Cary said. "I think a lot of kids will create their own spin-offs of object shows, and, you know, Disney sees like, someone try to claim they own the Mickey Mouse ears, they'll file a lawsuit. They take it down. But I feel like we want to be very accepting of spin-offs of our content. So if someone makes a game on Roblox that uses the BFDI characters, I'm like, that's amazing. I want to play that."

"So many people come [to the tour] with plushies and shirts of [other object] shows too, and are, like, 'I was a fan of Animatic Battle, and then I found BFDI, or, then I found Inanimate Insanity,'" Katz told me. "We love to embrace all the different object shows and the whole fandom and how crazy it's grown."

Katz, who worked in traditional streaming media on shows like Netflix's Cat Burglar, Centaurworld, and Exploding Kittens, has a unique perspective having been in both worlds. "When you're working for a bigger company, there are so many different voices involved that I feel like sometimes, especially with executives and then all these different notes, the ultimate product is so farther removed from the creator at times that it just becomes something new in itself," Katz said. "And I feel like that's kind of the power of YouTube, is that there really isn't that as much. It's really much more from the creator's vision directly."

So far, object shows remain pure and free of corporate involvement, largely because the community grows itself from within instead of being besieged by larger broadcasters looking to cash in on a trend. 

"I don't know how many other fandoms have this tradition where people, as they get older, learn to recreate the media that they watch," Michael Huang said. "It seems almost like a rite of passage for a lot of the people who are in our community to learn how to animate and then start their own object show. For a lot of the people who are animating, the common question is, 'When are you starting your object show?'"

And that authenticity has fostered a community of fans who are accepting of others, helping many fans who are gender fluid, are neurodivergent, or feel like outsiders find a supportive group with common interests. At these gatherings, bracelets are swapped with strangers, compliments are handed out between people who have never met before ("nice 'fit" was mentioned to my tween daughter at the screening more than once), and thanks for helping fans come out of their shells socially and emotionally are gushed to the creators in Q&A sessions. There's a growing swell of acceptance and positivity coming from this community that's outpacing other fandoms. 

As word spreads about BFDI and object shows, their popularity is bound to grow and enter the mainstream. But it doesn't seem likely they'll sell out, as the DIY ethos of the Huangs remains. 

"I'm not thinking 10 years ahead," Cary said. "I'm only just thinking what next project would be cool, like, what next merch or season? So I have no idea [about the future of BFDI], but I feel like part of the reason I wanted to do this, instead of like a tech job, is because it's kind of like an experiment, or, I don't want to say like a middle finger, but like it's kind of like a throwing a wrench into the system and seeing what happens."

Battle for Dream Island and Inanimate Insanity are streaming on YouTube.