Generation Loss is a comedic tragedy in every sense of the word. Every character we see exemplifies this fact, but no one other than The Austin Show proves its truth.
We begin at the carousel. Austin, Gay, takes his turn by pleading for himself to live because he has a wife and children back home. The rest of the cast interrogates him about his “wife and kids,” clearly suspicious of his truthfulness without even knowing his dubbed “title.” Everyone in the room treats Austin like a joke.
In turn, so do we.
Next, we reach the closet and shortly after the failed drag show, Austin remarks, “Look, I uh… I didn’t expect to die here.” It’s a moment of pure honesty, whether we like it or not. It happens again when the Puzzler tries to party with them, and Austin has to angrily remind him that they are his captives and are actively trying to kill them.
Austin: “What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? We're trying to get out of here. I have children and wives— wife. One wife! What is this some sort of game? I’ve been stuck in hear for hours it seems. We’re trying to get out. Why is nobody else freaking out? We’ve got C4 strapped to our neck…”
It isn’t until Ethan’s death, his blood pooling out from underneath the door, Austin screaming at the others, begging them to have a reaction, to care about their circumstances, to care about death, that we finally understand Austin’s role in Generation Loss.
After all, in every great comedy, someone always has to play the straight man.
I would like to bring up this post I saw a few minutes ago btw
This made me think about how every actors/streamers introduced themselves the way the viewers consider them outside of the show
They were emphasizing on things that people attribute to them or talk about a lot like Austin being gay but kept saying repetitive stuff about children and wives and h*terosexuality and how sneeg was just "idk man I just got here" kinda vibes
The role they were playing all along was the one they've been automatically attributed by viewers and people on social medias throughout their entire career online...
I just wanted to call to attention the board games in the final puzzle room, bc I haven't really seen anyone talk about them all that much.
I genuinely can't tell if they were all deliberately chosen for what they are, or if instead it was a case of what the set designers (of Genloss, not Showfall) could get their hands on, but the relative obscurity/odd choice of games makes me think that for the most part it was deliberate.
Lemme explain, starting with the most interesting one first.
Game One: My 2 Homes
This game is most notable because it's the one boardgame that Ranboo actually calls out by name, and one of two (if i remember right) that they ever interact with. What's clever though is how it could easily be written off -- Jerma asks the three of them for examples of things in the room, and he provides one. End of story right?
But consider first that the mind control over them has been getting stronger and stronger, and the past few rooms we've been seeing them become more NPC-like, interacting with things less and less, taking less of an interest in other things.
What makes it more interesting in my opinion though, is the fact that the game is meant to help children "communicate and process their feelings about divorce".
What does this mean though?
Well, looking at the verb definitions of divorce, there's two ways it can be taken:
You could make an argument for the first definition, sure. But just look at that second definition. Separate or dissociate something from something else. Aka Ranboo and reality.
Suddenly Ranboo's calling out of the game looks more like a call for help. To use the game for its intended purpose and say "I'm still here, please help me. I don't want this to continue."
I could be stretching here. But the subtly of it is really good, and imo wouldn't be out of place.
Game Two: Maul of America
The pun in this one is actually what made me notice the oddity of some of the choices of these board games. For those who mightn't know, the Mall of America is one of the largest malls in the United States.
The premise of this game is simple: You're in a mall during the zombie apocalypse, and have to fight your way out. One player controls all of the zombies, and each other player controls themselves, obviously.
The parallels here alone are honestly astounding lol
But wait, there's more!! Upon rewatching this entire section, I believe this is the only other board game that Ranboo ever interacts with. Even more interestingly, I believe this might be the only game in the room that has its pieces outside of the box and partially set up.
For reference:
Here's an image of the board + some of the pieces, courtesy of boardgamegeek.com
And here's the closest, best shot I could get of the board:
Notice the standing pieces, the flipped over ones, and their positions relative to one another. Red is flipped, blue and orange are standing up. One zombie is standing, the rest are flipped. Blue is by red, and orange is by a zombie.
Now I'm sure you know, but for Dramatic Effect ™ I'd like to point out the primary colours of each person's outfit in this room:
Red
Blue
Orange
So then, Ranboo, Sneeg, and Austin are obviously intended to be the players here, with either Showfall (or the founder) controlling the zombies. Sneeg's blue token is likely closer to Ran's red one to indicate that they know each other, which supports some of the other theories around that.
But then why's Ranboo's token flipped? And what's with the zombie?
Well this is where we pull into Speculation Station, because I'm honestly not too sure. I'd like to say that the flipped token indicates Ranboo's mind controlled state, but then why isn't Sneeg's flipped too? After all, we all saw him get forcefully controlled by the Showfall Crew. My only other guess is that it hints at the ending, where somehow Austin and Sneeg survive and escape Showfall where Ranboo doesn't, but I feel like that's shaky at best so idrk.
Similar problems occur with the zombie, too. You could say it's Ranboo being mind controlled by the zombie player, but then Sneeg should have one too if that's the case. It can't really be Jerma bc he's well, dead by this point. It could maybe be the camera operator? But we also see the rats behind the curtain so wouldn't they have one too?
I really don't know honestly. But I've been going on about this one for a while lol so I should probably move on.
Game Three: Anti-Monopoly
This one is basically what it says on the tin: Anti-Monopoly, or a trust busting game where players have to go around dismantling large corporations. Depending on the size of the company, (oligopoly, trust, or monopoly) you need one to three tokens respectively to take them down.
I'd imagine that Showfall is a pretty large corporation, so my guess is that the symbolism here is meant to be Hetch's (or even Ranboo's) intention to dismantle the company. If the former, it could maybe mean that Hetch isn't here to actually help Ranboo, but is instead using him for in order to dismantle Showfall, which would be a twist for sure.
Game Four: Twister Moves
This seems like a version of Twister with maybe a musical chair-esque aspect to it. Someone plays as the DJ and plays music, and calls out moves to the other players.
If I had to guess, this is meant to symbolize Showfall's control over people, and how they tell them what to do.
Miscellaneous Games
These ones I don't really have much (or anything) for, honestly. I'm mostly putting them here in case anyone has any ideas, or in case they're somehow relevant.
I also have to stop adding images unfortunately bc I've hit the app's limit :(
Battleground: Crossbows and Catapults
Interestingly enough I had this as a kid lol. Used to play with just the lil plastic castles and guys a lot, not really playing the game. Anyway, the premise is you use the rubber-band powered disc launchers on top of the castles to knock down the other team's guys. Apparently hitting their flag gets you bonus lives or something, so maybe that's relevant?
Star Wars 100 Piece Puzzle (1996)
I.. actually really doubt this one's relevant. It seems a bit too mainstream for it to be, and it's also a puzzle. The date could maybe be relevant? Piece count? Or somehow the characters on it (Luke, Leia, Vader) are, but I just can't think of anything that'd work here, so my best guess is it's a red herring.
Classico (??)
I literally couldn't find anything on this one that matched the box, so I'm at a total loss.
Closing Remarks
Well, I hope that was all comprehendable :D I spent the past two hours or so putting it all together, and honestly in the process of doing so found wayy more to it than I initially thought.
ok anyway. theres something deeply unsettling to me about the carousel crew. austin not having the filter?? ethan being the lamb led to slaughter??? niki crying the whole time???? vinny being weirdly okay with everything compared to the others and being calm and not moving when hes about to die??????
This whole concept centres around a genloss AU, one that’s not too far from canon but is just a little bit more disturbing.
We know that, at least with Ranboo, Sneeg and Charlie, they’re controlled by various headwear; Ranboo his mask, Charlie his headphones in Episode 3 and Sneeg his hat. With Ranboo and Charlie, it’s made clear that taking it off is what regains the consciousness of the person; however, Ranboo is warned by Hetch that if he tries to take his mask off prematurely, his “whole face comes off with it”.
(We know this doesn’t apply with Charlie or Sneeg as their headpieces are removed easily, and Sneeg’s whole hat thing is just a big exception to everything, but sssshhh just pretend. As I said, this is based on an AU).
Now, Hetch was likely saying that just to convince him not to try to take the mask off. But what if he had been serious? Consider an AU where the mask is literally surgically attached to Ranboo’s face, and all the other headpieces being used to control other cast members are exactly the same, making it incredibly difficult, or even deadly, to remove them.
Now consider a group of frantic people, afraid, panicked and angry, who are willing to harm themselves to hellish extents by removing their headset objects to regain control. Consider one person on the carousel breaking free of the control and ripping masks, earpieces or hats off of the rest of the cast in a panicked state in an attempt to save them too, or multiple people working together to remove controlling devices from another cast member who cannot do it themselves.
Thus is born a gory fanart idea of the characters having tried to rip away the thing keeping them under control, or of another character having done it for them. Here’s kind of how I imagine it would look like:
Earpieces: This is one that will work with any character, because if you look in the episodes, you will see all of them wearing obvious earpieces for communication purposes (Ranboo talked about how there was no real way to hide these earpieces, much like the cameramen in episode 2 and 3, so they’re made to seem intentional and to fit in with the storyline. So yes, they’re canon). To get something attached to the ear off wouldn’t be the worst; in fact, it would be mild in comparison to most of the other options here. Maybe ripping it out would just badly injure the ear and damage the skin, maybe the whole ear would have to come off depending on how it’s been attached (which is plausible, ears are surprisingly easy to rip off). So you could really draw any of the characters like this, with a bloody, mangled ear and clutching the remains of the earpiece in their hand (or just the whole ear itself).
Regular face mask: Ranboo, the Ghouls and Jerma (the Puzzler) all wear a mask over the lower half of their face. The Puzzler’s is technically prosthetics, but let’s assume it somehow acts in the same manner. Skin would obviously be ripped away and maybe even flesh, which could give them a half zombie-esque look with holes that expose their teeth and gums. Very grim to picture but also cool. And in Ranboo’s case, maybe he would have to cut the wires out from his neck as they could be attached there too, or down his back.
Rat Face Mask: A good three quarters of their face skinned and ripped away. Their eyes and mouth/general lower face area would be fine, but the rest… ouch. Also a zombie-esq look like the regular face mask, but more on the upper half of the face.
Showfall Media Mask: Yeahhh the employees get the worst deal out of this. Their entire face would be basically torn apart, but instead of blood, consider wires poking out of the rips in the flesh, or maybe even out of the eye sockets. I imagine you would see this after one of the cast would try to pull the mask off of an employee they encounter.
Hats: Okay, this one set up to look pretty stupid, as you would immediately imagine it taking all the hair off the top of their head, which would look ridiculous. But rather imagine wires maybe being threaded into the skull through the hat; maybe in a sewn on kind of way, maybe just with just multiple drilled holes in the head that the wires run down through. Wires would be trailing out of the head once the hat has been removed, or you would see them stitched into the skin under the hair. Blood would be soaking their hair and face, which would be pale because of the blood loss. Niki, Sneeg and Vinny apply here.
Glasses: Ethan and Charlie both have glasses, which are an easy deal, like the earpieces except better. Just ripping off skin/flesh where the glasses are attached, so the bridge of your nose and the side of your face. Painful, but won’t affect any of your necessary reflexes/senses such as hearing, sight or vision, and won’t kill you.
Headphones: As I mentioned earlier, Charlie’s headphones are removed without injury in episode 3, but ssshhh and just imagine. I would think that they would probably have wires connecting into his ears, so after they were taken off there would be loose wires poking from the ears and a lot of blood coming with it. Also probably a complete loss of hearing accompanying it, even though you can’t exactly draw that. That or both of the ears have to go.
Horns: Charlie also has his horns as The Spirit in Episode 1. This all depends on how you’d imagine them being attached to him; if you’re thinking like just fake horns on a simple band (like the actual prop used), then it would be a similar deal to the hat with the wires running into the skull along the band, most likely in a sewn style. If you like the idea more of two separate horns fully attached to his head, then just imagine they were stitched there and had to be pulled off. Yikes, poor Charlie.
You can also do combos. If a character has an earpiece and a hat, draw them as though they needed to rip both of these items off!
This is just a concept I came up with that I think would be really cool to see. No credit needed for the idea if you do take inspo from this, but do tag me in art as I love to see it!!
Also, just a little specific idea I have related to this is either Charlie in episode 3, Sneeg in episode 1 or just the carousel crew from episode 2 trying to remove Ranboo’s mask, maybe even just out of curiosity or ignorance, to horrible results. Very disturbing, but a good prompt for both fanartists and even fic writers I think
my mom said she'd watch genloss with me but she doesn't watch Internet Content, how on earth am i going to make her understand how tragic the Carousel Crew™ is
I made an edit. I'm piss poor at editing so I apologize of its not cool. I just kinda slapped everything together. AV did not teach me how to make fandom edits I apologize.
The song is Against the Kitchen Floor by Will Wood :)
Anyways I almost cried because while clip searching Nikki shook hands with both Ranboo and Sneeg because she thought she'd make it out alive and that hurt my soul