Much of our lives are centered around computers and the internet, but the internet is so large we end up only accessing a minute portion of the web. In the past, when malls were the gathering place of youth, fans flocked to movie theaters and rewound videotapes in VCRs.
Now, the gathering place of teens is the internet, and a new form of storytelling emerged. An alternate reality game (ARG), is a strange mixture of puzzles, videos, art, acting, and hidden webpages. The audience takes an active role in uncovering the mystery, and it’s possible to miss entire parts of the story if you are not careful.
South’s own, junior Peazy Perry, creates a whole world in their head and shares it through the internet. They say their ARG, The Mary Bell Township series, combines traditional pen and paper art, acted videos, animation, website design and collage to try to “immerse the viewer into the universe of the media.”
The story is based on music by Will Wood, an online musical artist and comedian, using his lyrics as inspiration. Perry is also inspired by horror movies they watched as a kid, including Scream, American Psycho, and “all that crazy sh*t.”
Perry follows a somewhat unorthodox method of content creation, calling their creative process “kind of insane.” First they has an idea and writes a script, then they will usually “create all the animations first… and sporadically just [during] the process contact people, and like, ‘Hey, voice act for me.’” They have “voice actors from all around the country” and always need more for each character they introduce.
Major themes of the story include “current America and past America” and “cult hive mind hit mentality.” Perry uses satire and explores the themes of religion and conservative values, saying they “over-exaggerate[s] a lot of things in [her] animation progress to kind of confuse people… a lot of things that happen in the show are very ridiculous and far-fetched;” however, Perry says that “some of the stuff that happened in the show is far-fetched for 2024, when the show takes place; but [in] 2026, it is not far-fetched.”
The religious imagery was inspired by Perry’s childhood, growing up with a “bunch of crosses around [her] house.” They said that they find inspiration in Renaissance art and use Christian symbolism. Despite being an atheist, and the series examining Christianity in an occasionally negative light, Perry doesn’t want to offend Christians.
“Christians are great…” they said. “The problem is the people who are claiming to be Christian, yet they’re just acting like people who aren’t Christian at all… you’re not loving your neighbor, dude.”
Perry plans to continue the ARG into college, with no definitive end date. However, they have an ending planned. The series will touch on many aspects of horror, and they suggest the story is for all high schoolers. The beginning can be found on Youtube under the username Eazy_Peazy.
Article by Emmett Coughlan