A really important factor that contributed to Digital Circus' success is that it's a show that was at the right place at the right time. As the video says, most of YouTube top viewed videos are kids content. Kids content is meant to be watch and rewatched. Digital Circus' colorful artstyle and fluid animation is eye candy for children, and even if it's just an artistic choice, since it's meant to be another "kiddy stuff that's actually dark and scary", it's still appealing to them because "kiddy stuff that's actually dark and scary" is also very popular with kids, hence the whole mascot horror genre. Digital Circus has just the right amount of kid appeal, especially when compared to other web cartoons: The Hellaverse doesn't have kid appeal, Murder Drones doesn't have kid appeal, Lackadaisy doesn't have kid appeal, and on top of that, Digital Circus is an easy to follow show, as its simplicity allows anyone to understand it easily. It's not as convoluted as Helluva Boss or Murder Drones. As I said in the Glitch thread, Digital Circus raised an entire generation.
Regarding the animation community, keep in mind the time period in which Digital Circus was released. It's 2023 and the animation industry isn't in great shape: the three main children's networks, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, have lost popularity to YouTube, and their respective owners are focusing all their efforts on streaming, which only complicates things further for cartoon creators, such as the unfair cancellation of new animated projects by Netflix or the infamous HBO Max Purge. Both Disney and Warner Bros. had their respective 100th anniversaries that year, and both were shit, with Disney being the worst here, making bad decision after bad decision, like with the movie Wish or the live-action adaptations. And then, out of nowhere, this bright and colorful pilot emerges, taking the entire world by surprise. "Ooh! How far the animation industry has fallen when some small, humble and innocent Australian D-list animation studio made a cartoon with great animation, great story, great humor, great characters, great voice acting, great music by themselves! These guys have saved and revolutionized the animation medium as we know it! The Amazing Digital Circus is the best animation of 2023!" Ok, this is an exaggeration, but people really did say things like this in 2023, and they still do to some extent. Even back in the pilot episode era, I remember seeing many comments saying "Glitch Productions defeated Disney," years before Knights of Guinevere even existed. Digital Circus is a milestone in the history of animation, its impact was so big, that the pilot was nominated for the Annie Awards for Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production.
No, seriously, that really happened
Here's the link if you watch to check it out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie...n_an_Animated_Television/Broadcast_Production
Keep in mind that it's usually stuff from corpos that recieve nominations, so seeing this web cartoon nominated alongside giants, is surreal, and even if it didn't win, the mere fact of having been nominated is impressive. As of this writing, this is the only time Glitch Productions has been nominated for an award.
While Hazbin Hotel demonstrated that indie web animation can reach the same level of quality as mainstream productions and that the internet is the ideal place to pitch a cartoon since there are no restrictions, establishing the format of releasing pilot episodes on YouTube (although it wasn't the first of these, there were already pilots of animated series on YouTube before Hazbin such as Liam Vickers' Cliffside), it was Digital Circus that proved that indie web animation can be very successful and have a great impact worldwide, officially starting the "Indie Renaissance". Each month, many indie pilots come and go, most trying to capitalize on the success of Digital Circus. not understanding what made it so popular. You could even say the same about Glitch themselves, since despite the good critical reception of The Gaslight District and Knights of Guinevere, neither of them managed to reach the level of fame and popularity of Digital Circus.
