Also, side note. The character at 27:55, that's a very popular character from Flipnotes. I don't think he has an official name, just often I hear him called "The Hero", a swords man who will "Never be afraid again, will fight until the end, can walk on water, can fly, and will fight till he dies". It's one of the most popular Flipnotes out there, and so seeing him set up as a hero from inside the city that willing to fight is very fitting. The flute playing is even a slowed down version of the song most usually connected to him.

Hm. Night Mind isnt a four eyed cat anymore. He's a *gay* four eyed cat. Neat.

I imagine Nick wears three piece suits around the house causally and his boyfriend just wears sweatshirts.

This isn't just a spooky ARG using a nostalgic framework, it's a genuine eulogy for Flipnote Hatena. GOD, I miss that place so much. Baby's first social media

Not only is the animation for this seriously impressive, but the freaking voice acting for the cat??? This is some seriously quality work here.

the fact that Fuzz The Cat is a creation from the creator's previous projects adds so much depth into his character.

I love how he just casually put in, “My boyfriend-“ I’m just so used to horror commentators just be.. commentators. It’s really nice when they sprinkle in a bit of their personal details in their videos! It’s just a surprise whenever they just suddenly say, “So I’m married with 5 kids,”

how you gonna have a whole kitty meowing in the background at 14:10 and not even acknowledge and show us the kitty??? THERE ARE RULES HERE MAN

Oh hey! I made the original Flipnote that inspired the hidden June Archive segment at 19:22. It’s amazing and surreal to have a 12-year-old animation of mine play a small part in this unfolding narrative. I have a lot of great memories of Flipnote and this series is using the characters and iconography in brilliant ways. It feels like an emotional epilogue for the entire platform, and the themes really resonate. Great job covering this, Night Mind. I’m eagerly watching along with other JA fans to see how the story unfolds!

Flipnote, horror, and eldritch boyfriends? Yeah this is gonna be a banger.

Night Mind covered a series I voice in! 🙏

It’s a grieving that nightmind is describing at the end. This was a huge chunk of those peoples’ lives. It was an actual “place” to them. Where they formed memories and friendships and skills. And that place ceases to exist now. They can’t even go back to visit. That’s sad.

I love the June Archive so much, there's something so endearing and nostalgic about flipnotes, and yet they have the capacity to be terrifying

I never expected you to cover the Flipnote series

I have a theory that the vials themselves are the data of the flipnotes people downloaded before the server shutdown. They’re the life boats of flipnote, and the perfect place for a parasitic memetic entity to transfer over to keep infecting others. Hence the unlock, do not destroy phrase. Look at it, but don’t delete it, because it’s gone forever. But yeah, I grew up with flipnote (I never had access to Hatena but my brother did) and I’m glad people have caught The Hero standing on the building, because I sure recognized him.

My impression is that Fuzz didn't exist until _after_ Hatena shut down the servers. The 'wound' left by the service's destruction and the psychic energy being invested in it by the former userbase acted as a lighthouse, drawing Fuzz from beyond space & time. He coagulated in that 'wound' - but it was already too late. The server was dark. So Fuzz started to reach out from this dungeon-realm he'd found himself in. He rifled through the minds of his unwitting summoners, and through the history of Flipnotes itself. Except that Fuzz isn't human. He didn't understand the difference between code and flesh. As he tried to understand what Flipnotes had been, the 'wound' began to fill with the fruits of his labors: data dredged from the server's past, corrupted by Fuzz's alien energies and the gathering memories of those who remembered Flipnotes. That's what the red city is: a could-have-been, a place that isn't, where old memes and nostalgia have been alchemized into living, thinking creatures. As Fuzz starts dragging the clock hand back, away from midnight, the red city grows and its denizens become more aware - and that awareness tends to breed chaos, confusion, and fear, because they're all trapped inside the half-remembered shadow of a dead world.

How did I not know Nick had a boyfriend? Lmao, I'm a moron. It was very cool to see them join in on this project! Love the video; nostalgic horror is so much fun.

I love how we've moved on from Analag Horror to Digital Horror. The next generation of technology being used that is still nostalgic enough.

I never thought the message 'where did they go? is it my fault? :(' scribbled on a screen on a Nintendo DS would wrench and shatter my heart so brutally, but here we are. Utterly marvellous.

Can we just stop and talk about that nostalgia monologue? That shit sent CHILLS down my spine. The VA for fuzz deserves so much credit.

Time to see flipnote-made horrors beyond man's comprehension!

Analog horror is nostalgic to a certain group, but flipnote was my childhood. Digital horror hits different.

It’s good to hear the rain, I love watching the VODS, but I love the mainline videos as well.

The loss of Hatena did a major hit to my mental health. As a kid I dealt with serious mental issues and Hatena and the communities on there was my safe space. When it was gone I kinda had nowhere to go to escape for a while. And man, the joke that was the 3DS Flipnote was just a nice lemon squeeze in the wound.

I love the evolution of Nick mentioning his boyfriend every once in a while, to being a bit more open about it, and now the bf appearing in a vid! You love to see it

the way the june archive plays with themes of moving on from the past is so incredibly interesting and poignant to me. like, i've seen the concept covered in media before, i'm sure, but the specificity of the nostalgia really makes the feelings unique. more raw, i guess i could say? i really worried that people who weren't part of that hatena community back in the day wouldn't resonate with it as much, but with the incredible craftsmanship on display, and the universality of those core themes, i hoped it could reach across that bridge, and i think your covering of it proves that after watching this i don't remember if you mentioned it, since you did mention sudomemo at one point, but last year, the people behind that site were able to put up a flipnote archive. they managed to secure and display almost every flipnote that was uploaded to the original hatena. it made me so so emotional when i first saw it, because it broke my heart that so many hours of work and passion from young artists had seemingly been lost to time. so much of that media that was so important to so many of us is no longer lost, and for that i am incredibly grateful

What a throw back. I remember spending 6 hours on a stick-figure music video to "Party Rock" before the battery died and I forgot to save. It killed my 12 yr old heart. I've been thinking about that a lot lately while working my way out of a depressing time and trying to find purpose. Huh. Cool video!

This is the first Night Mind video where I _haven't_ had to stop and rewatch the entire series beforehand because I'd already been following it, and I consider that an achievement.

as a june archive fan, yall don't understand how happy this makes me

I love that you and your boyfriend have the same laugh pattern.

Why am I kicking my legs under the table haha, like the little interview section was so cute. I’m a pretty new subscriber but I fell into this channel hard. It’s helped me out along this year. I guess I just want to say I’m really happy for Nick and his bf because creating work together and sharing it with us is something we all should keep close to our hearts. Truly beautiful and grateful to see such a cool person be open with an audience. So thank you and happy for the both of you!!

Yes! Birthday Night Mind, let go!

I swear your voice should be prescribed as an anxiety treatment. It's one of the few things that manages to soothe me when my anxiety is about to knock at my brain's door.

the clock cat reminds me a lot of Galactic Nova from Kirby. Intentional or not, this design choice definitely helps feed the nostalgic feeling the series has, with kirby super star ultra being a key release from the time (specifically '08)

Really didn't think I would be crying, but the line "it was more than flipnotes" really got me flipnote was a home. It was the only place where I had friends, it was a place to shield myself from the crushing loneliness of the real world. And now that it's gone, there's just a hiole.

NIGHTMIND, I HEARD YOUR CAT. I HEARD THE MEOWS.

as a longtime viewer of this series, i would say that the best way to view this series is on a real dsi or a modded 3ds with flipnote studio on it. not only do i think it provides a nice atmosphere to the series, but there are also several secrets accessible by downloading and viewing the flipnote in the editor, mainly by turning off layers. an example i can think of is the “hatena bye bye” flipnote, where by turning off one of the layers certain letters are highlighted in red.

NICK LIKES MEN? REJOICE, HE'S ONE OF US

I refuse to believe I was the only one who didn’t know night mind had a boyfriend

This is such an awesome project. As someone who was on DeviantArt in its glory days and has seen what it's become, this hits home even though I'm largely unfamiliar with hatena and flipnote.

if theres anything we can learn from the june archive and welcome home, its that we should stop starting "restoration projects" for the rest of time

I was genuinely **upset** when I found out this was a creepy pasta. I was SO LOOKING FORWARDS to assembling all the old flip notes to try and find some of the old classics!

yay new nightmind to listen to while i draw :) haven't caught it so early before!

I love the heart and nostalgia put into this project. It's especially nice knowing the creator was also prominent on Flipnotes back in the day.

i spit out my drink when you said your boyfriend, go you king

They really turned Clavicus Vile into an evil date meme cat.

I like that the main villian is a charming, charismatic, yet manipulate villian. I don't think I've seen that in internet media like this yet, so this is really a treat

i was only involved with flipnote through youtube uploads but its always baffled me how incredible and creative these animators are. the composition on all of these videos is so good

I genuinely love the june archive, one of my favourite horror series on youtube (and twitter) right now

omg NM is a part of the Skittle Squad LESSGOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! /gen /lh

Night mind boyfriend cameo, let's goooo

My friends and I refer to nostalgia as "the sweet poison." Personally, I would not go back. I had an epiphany in 2017 that one of the major antagonists in my depressive disorder was living in the past; I killed that internal demon. Never again.

Having Graffi explain the details helped me understand a lot more than I would have, as I didn't know anything about this scene. You ought to bring him on stream some, if you haven't already (sorry, I'm not too much into streaming, either as I'm old and fear new things, lol). You two have good chemistry, I guess it's obvious why y'all are together, lol.

Thank you Mr. NightMind sir for this video, have a good day.

Someone who wants to watch flipnotes doesn't need to know tHE WORKINGS OF A TIME MACHINE

SPECIAL GUEST BOYFRIEND! Woooooo! Can we have him on more often for his nerdy goodness?

Go to Surfshark.deals/nightmind and use code NIGHTMIND to get 83% off a 2-year plan and 3 extra months for free! The June Archive Playlist: kzfaq.info/sun/PLUtMdfebeaoeuMLBDdnYsDHosUO8zKt_0

It reminds me of Homestuck in the best way, but with way more creep factor and loving labor put into it

I love how the very first word we hear from your bf in this video is “nyeah”

Man the art and animation in this is INSANELY GOOD like holy shit And using an incredibly limited color palette too. Chef KISS man!!! Also unrelated but i always love how you make sleep tight sound like a threat

I've been following the June Archive for a while now and it's amazing, needless to say I was shocked to see it actually be covered by you with a great video to do it justice as usual

Nick's voice is so soothing it's 50% of the reason I watch his videos

13:42 so I’m new to your content NightMind, but I absolutely love several things about your channel. First and foremost, you support creators that are driven and work really hard to make spooky content. Second, your voice is amazing and you sound very flirtatious. And third, I really just love to watch your videos, thankfully I have a large backlog of stuff to catch up on!

I love how stuff gen z grew up with is being used for horror projects it’s so damn cool!

i feel like having been there and being familiar with the references in the flipnotes and the different popular creators' and their styles at the time really elevates the whole experience. this was awesome!

i am SO glad you're covering this series. I caught it as it was starting up and I was so excited to see where it'd go. Here's to hoping this video gives it the exposure it deserves!

some of my fondest memories barely scrape back to the time that the flipnote service was still active and i am *ecstatic* that this is the focal point of this video, cannot wait 💙

Finding out Nick has a boyfriend made my brain have happy chemicals

Hi NightMind! Thank you so much for always saying "hi, friends" in the intro. It really warms my heart. Much love from Latin America ❤

I never used flip notes, as I didn’t have a DS until the 3DS came out, but I still resonate with it deeply. I used to frequent an Oekaki board as a kid. It was essentially a image board with a built in art application, where you could draw and share your work, and other users could even watch a demo of your entire process for each piece of art or edit it themselves if given permission. It was a pretty great community, and I miss it dearly. The board in question is long gone, and the oekaki boards that are still up (at least the ones I could find) are practically inactive. It was a time and place sort of thing, a period of my young life I won’t get back, a thing I took for granted until years after it was gone.

What an excellent project. Really grateful, genuinely, for Night Mind for helping sift through alllll the content out there and clue us in to things to follow. I get nearly all my best media experiences on this app, and thats no accident. Really creative people, unburdened by what a producer thinks people will like....nothing else quite like unfiction out there, and people just keep pushing those boundaries

I genuinly love the June Archive I found myself quoting it more than once when talking about the morality of isolation as a form of punishment "Memory is the key to reality, if it burns down and no one remembers it, it was never there to begin with" And when your ARG can be quoted as a political statement you have reached the peak of dialogue writing That plus the terrifiying line "that's exactly the point", wich always works, is most times good writing

I kinda love the existential dread mixed with the horror here. It kinda reminds me of this fever dream Adult Swim had a bit ago called Pibby's Playhouse(?) Or i suppose Pibby's reminds me of this. Not a fan of all the sharp sounds. Okay, Fuzz the Cat is so very much filling that Habit shaped hole in my fear centers. The friendly seeming eldritch being that likes to chat. You almost want them to succeed to see what they do with it. It's like having a frenemy.

I was never on a DSI, the SP was my last handheld. But the themes and emotion done through this project is as clear as day. Bravo to the creator(s) for their work so far!

I never had flipnote but I do remember quite a few artists who preferred using it over other animation programs (keke- comes to mind) Pixel art works really well with horror... I think it's partially because it lends itself to corruption edits, but also because simplistic art lets your brain add more details, the same way vague descriptions make your brain add scarier things. Also I am thrilled that of all songs, the Great Mouse Detective delivered spooks.

I’m super surprised I’ve never heard of this series and I’m obsessed with it, it’s so well done and the plot resonates so much with me and I hate that hatena is gone it was such a large part of my childhood. Thank you Nick for covering this!!!

It’s 10:30am, I have my coffee. I open up KZfaq and the goat himself posts. I’m not waiting until tonight to watch lol

also i have now learned that your voice is naturally the nick nocturne voice

OMG OMG OMG! I have been following the June Archive for so long and I’m so glad that you covered it!

"the parasite's monologue" would make a killer song name

I hope you’re having a wonderful week, Nick! Thank you for producing such great videos. It really makes my day! Stay safe and stay spooky!

Oh this was so good! I love this one, it's come a little ways since the last time I've caught up with the June archive! It's great to see how it's going

So happy that you’re covering June archives. This series gives me overwhelming nostalgia.

This one hits very, very different for me because of my own nostalgia for Flipnote Hatena. I really, really, really hope that, someday, it makes a comeback. June Archive perfectly screws with me, since I can perfectly recall most of the flipnotes that are being edited from my childhood. It goes beyond just "oh nooo, nostalgic thing we like is being edited and it's creepy ooooo", it's genuinely clever, subversive, and unnerving in a meaningful way. Such a good series so far.

Great video as always Nick! Common NightMind W

you know what. learning that night mind has a boyfriend completely out of the blue talking about a dsi seems so very night mind that im not even surprised

Our favourite Cat Daddy talking with his amazing boyfriend! This is what makes me happy. :) Love you guys!

So cool to see you talk about this. I have been following the June archive Almost Since the start. I grew up with Flipnote and it’s so cool to see someone making a horror story with them! And I don’t know if you know, but They do have a Twitter as well.

Finally more talk about this series!! Im suprised that not many people have touched upon it, it's really good

Can we talk about how genuienly cool and creative the grandfather clock guillotine is, the blade being the error screen as the past self gets murdered by time and the present reality. its so simple and direct but still a 'show don't tell' its like slightly delayed symbolism to me , the symbols are clear but you are so taken aback by the act itself that you need another watch through and/or a few moments with the scene to really have it all click after the emotional aspect of the symbols in action, I gobble stuff like that up.

So happy to see you cover this! I have been OBSESSED with this one :D

To see more content covering the June Archive is something so exhilarating! I've been interested in the Project since Seagan Hawkes covered it, and I hope this video can bring more WELL DESERVED attention to it. Though, with the theory NM had in this video, I do hope Fuzz isn't able to manifest in reality. I've made a small felted doll of him, he sits on my desk watching me and everything I do online. Regardless, incredible video, and I can't wait for more June Archive Content!

SO stoked to see you cover June Archive! I'm friends with the creator and some of the talented people who've worked on this and everyone's so happy to see you cover this.

As someone with no previous knowledge or experience with Flipnote Hatena, this was still a really interesting series to go through as is and then have this deep dive explaining more of the finer details. Excellent as always. 🖤

nick THANK YOU i have been WAITING for this one

Every day i forget Nick has a boyfriend - like i DIDN'T NEED another gay icon but like thanks 😂

So often, I see projects that use nostalgia as a story vehicle, some reason the protagonist begins to investigate something strange. BEN Drowned revisiting a childhood classic, Angel Hare remembering an old show they loved, really a good chunk of analog horror or stories with video games or something similar. And it's always left me with an ache for someone to tell a story ABOUT nostalgia, for it to be a plot point or central theme instead of just the reason we showed up, and I cannot possibly be more THRILLED with seeing someone finally execute it, let alone so wonderfully!

Oh This was a DELIGHT!!! I love that the videos stick with the three tone flipnote color scheme and Im SO glad I checked it out before your analysis.

YESSS OMG I WAS HOPING YOU'D COVER THE JUNE ARCHIVE... i've fallen completely in love with this series!!

My favorite part of this project is the animation. It’s just absolutely incredible