This August will see an evening at ARC in Stockton dedicated to cult British Flash animation web show Salad Fingers, with all eleven instalments of the show screened before attendees have the chance to quiz creator, David Firth. This is a rare event for those interested in the showcasing and analysis of notable pop cultural ephemera.
Salad Fingers is certainly a phenomenon of Noughties culture, at a time when the internet could still be considered emergent. Firth, originally from Doncaster and very much now an elder statesman of Millennial internet trends, broke out via online comedy in the late ‘90s, the era of Geocities and dial-up connection. He is also the brain behind another touchstone of those times in the form of MC Devvo, a satirical horror again instantly recognisable to Northern English comedy fans of a certain age and with a specifically online awareness.
As a musician himself under the Locust Toybox moniker, it is unsurprising that Firth has been a close collaborator of Los Angeles titan Flying Lotus; Firth has released music via FlyLo’s Brainfeeder label and released short films and videos associated to FlyLo’s own work. FlyLo has himself been at the vanguard of experimentalism and the locus connecting music and animation for over a decade, making this an obvious match. The sounds of Salad Fingers reference an impeccable musical taste (Aphex Twin is the weightiest feature).
Salad Fingers debuted with five episodes in 2004 and had reached a total of 8 by 2007 via annual releases. The most recent three episodes were unveiled in 2011, 2013 and 2019 respectively, a rate of output to make George RR Martin blush. Nonetheless, this speaks to the enduring nature of the show’s appeal and the commitment of its fans, bringing with them the customary forums dedicated to analysing the show’s meanings, which seems only right for a show which has drawn its oxygen from online space since its formulation.
Undoubtedly surreal and both comedically and thematically darker than a block of Bourneville, Firth’s exploration of mental illness far predates that of newer animations acclaimed for similar in-roads, such as Bojack Horseman, and the project seems a beaming precursor to animated comedies becoming battlegrounds for cultural meaning in the modern alt-right era, by which point internet culture had curdled considerably. Thus, there is no shortage of exciting lines of inquiry to put to a creator of Firth’s perhaps somewhat obscured but important standing.
Tickets, priced from £12.00, are available at arconline.co.uk.
