The No Deo Duo



"No deodorant, no shoes, no problem."

The No Deo Duo is a comedy, sports, and entertainment channel starring two best friends, T-Wrex and Primal Instinks, and featuring their tight-knit crew of friends.

It began as a personal hobby and an artistic outlet to share the good times the two had together since becoming roommates, as well as a social networking alternative to outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which the duo shared a distaste for. Once their home videos began gaining attention from loyal fans asking for more, the two expanded the channel to be a more diverse, innovative collection of athletic competition, satirical comedy, and eccentric entertainment.

Their personal taste in content reflects their mutual interests and inspirations, including the zany antics of MTV's Jackass crew, the strange humor in cartoons such as Ren and Stimpy, the comedy skits of YouTube acts like Smosh, and the parody and satire found in some of their favorite shows, such as Futurama and South Park. The use of animals with stereotypical qualities (ie smelly rat, stompy dinosaur) was inspired by TV shows like Rocko's Modern Life and BoJack Horseman.

Though YouTube lists the creation date as January 9th, 2016, the channel was originally started in October of 2015. On September 18th, 2016, the channel reached a milestone of 1,000 subscribers, and in January of 2017 it celebrated its first birthday. On June 22nd, 2017, the channel grew to 2,000 subscribers, and on January 18th, 2018, it gained 3,000.

Their slogan "no shoes, no deodorant, no problem" is a parody of the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" signs commonly found on the front doors of businesses.

Playlists


The channel is organized in titled playlists which are updated on a regular basis. All videos are filmed from a comedic/entertaining standpoint, and generally include instances of banter, parody, and satire. The comedy skits utilize retroscripting, where a plot is thought up and the dialogue is improvised on the spot. In some instances, the duo film dramatizations of scary scenarios, such as drowning in their backyard swimming pool.

According to the official channel description, the content categories include comedy (parody, satire, banter), athletic competition (boxing, breath holding contests, weight lifting, wrestling), and eccentric entertainment (stompdown videos, barefoot and deodorant-free living).

The No Deo Duo Sho


The main outlet for the channel is "The No Deo Duo Sho," which is a playlist of original comedy and entertainment skits thought up by the two friends. As their channel name suggests, a center theme of their comedy revolves around the unconventional fact that neither of them uses deodorant. As a result, they're sometimes seen subjecting their audience, as well as each other, to their body odor in the spirit of this eccentric humor.

The duo are also known to utilize self-deprecating humor, as is exemplified in the "Primal Instinks the Unwashed Rat" video, or the "If Neighbors See Us Filming" skit, where T-Wrex plays a neighbor who happens to see the duo filming one of their stompdown videos in their backyard and reacts accordingly.

Stompy Stompy Joy Joy


This playlist contains what the duo calls "stompdown" videos, which are virtual simulations filmed from a ground point of view with the camera facing up, and consist of them pretending to jump their audience for following them.

The stomping is accompanied by entertaining banter, and includes the duo's own signature stomp moves, such as the elevator stomp (dropping both feet together down on the camera in slow motion), the yin-yang stomp (putting one of each foot of both stompers together in the form of a yin-yang and slowly lowering them at the same time), and the tap dance on your face (one of them doing a wild tap dance over the camera). The duo have also filmed underwater versions of these stompdown videos using a GoPro camera.

The slow-motion stomping, ground point of view, and overall concept of the stompdown videos were inspired by a scene from the hit 90's movie "Office Space" where three of the guys destroy a printer outdoors by stomping and punching it while fitting music plays in the background.



Having the larger feet of the two, T-Wrex was crowned by The No Deo Duo's fans as being the king "crushasaur" of the stompdown playlist. According to the blog on their official website, these stompdown videos, along with the breath-holding contests, helped jump-start their cult following, and the channel began expanding in content and growing in followers from there.

The playlist title "Stompy Stompy Joy Joy" is a parody of the song "Happy Happy Joy Joy" from the TV show Ren & Stimpy.

Breath-Holding Battle


A contest between two friends where each one takes a turn holding their breath as long as they can while the other person covers the competitor's nose and mouth with their hands to ensure they don't cheat. An embedded timer displays how long they hold their breath for. The person who's mouth isn't covered aids the video with entertaining banter.

The duo and their friends find new ways to compete by holding their breath, such as attempting to solve a Rubik's cube in one breath, both on land and underwater. They also invented a new type of wrestling, which they call "breathling" (described below in the playlist section), where the goal is to wrestle the breath away from your opponent to win. Behind the scenes, they also participate in plastic bag challenges.

Primal Instinks is the reigning champion of the breath holding battle, with his longest personal record being clocked at 5 minutes and 5 seconds, which he ended up passing out on camera at the very end of.

Along with the stompdown videos, the breath holding battle videos tend to receive the most views on the channel as far as playlists go, and also assisted in jump-starting their following.

Home Gym


Workout/exercise videos which are shot by the duo either from inside their home gym, or outside in their backyard. Some of these videos are also strength-related challenges, such as the Abs of Steel Challenge, which is their most viewed video of all time.

Their equipment includes two 35-pound dumbbells, a barbell with two 20-pound weights and several smaller weights, and a piece of equipment which works several different muscle groups, including pull-up bars, handles for perfect-form push-ups, dip bars, and arm rests for leg raises. According to the duo, this piece of equipment was purchased using donations sent in by fans.

Interestingly, the duo sometimes create their own weight resistance when doing push-ups or crunches together by placing their foot on the back (push-ups) or core (crunches) of the other friend while they're performing the exercise. They are also known to sometimes use the weight of each other in place of actual weights, for example in the "Fireman Carry Squats" video.

This is SPAR-ta!


These videos are boxing matches which take place in the backyard of the house the duo live at. In every video aside from the first match, protective head gear, mouth guards, and hand wraps are worn along with the boxing gloves.

The two (and their friends) trade heavy blows, but never seriously hurt each other. The videos include banter along with the boxing to make the videos more entertaining. Whereas most rounds in boxing would last a few minutes, some of their fights turn out to be endurance matches where each video is one long, continuous round.

In some boxing videos, the duo add their own playful commentary in the background to highlight certain events that may have been difficult to notice from the angle the video was filmed at. The commentary was a parody of what you would hear by celebrity commentators at a professional boxing event.

The Pool Kids Club


These videos are shot at the above-ground pool in the backyard of the duo's house.

They have filmed events such as underwater handstand and somersault competitions, watergun fights, flips and dives into the pool, breath holding contests, lap swimming contests, underwater fold-up chair races, underwater screaming compilations, pool wrestling matches, and several scenarios where they pretended to drown one another.

The title of this playlist is a play on "The Cool Kids Club."

Wrestling / Breathling


One day during the filming of a backyard boxing video between Primal Instinks and Chief Slapahoe, the sport of wrestling was brought up. The chief challenged Primal to a few rounds, and from there the idea to expand the channel to include wrestling was born.

When Storm made his debut appearance on the channel soon after, Primal Instinks challenged him to a wrestling match and filmed the two matches they had. The wrestling playlist was created from those two rounds, and included as an addition to the athletic competition and sports playlists on the channel.

The duo play by submission rules, where matches are run by either applying chokeholds or limb-locks to your opponent in an effort to get them to tap out. If an opponent fails to tap out while in a chokehold and loses consciousness, they automatically lose the round. Some fans have compared it to Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

During a wrestling match between Primal Instinks and Danny Duck, a new sport idea was created. T-Wrex would later name this new sport "breathling," which is a portmanteau of "breath" and "wrestling," as the object of the sport is to wrestle the breath from your opponent in order to win. Limb-locks are not allowed in this style of wrestling, breathling matches must be won by either using chokeholds or "smotherholds" to win, which means using the palms of your hands to block your opponent's airways (nose and mouth) so they can't breathe.

Breathling is a hybrid of the duo's wrestling and breath hold battle playlists, and the only way to win the match is to cut off your opponent's oxygen supply until they either tap out or lose consciousness. Upon uploading the first breathling match, it was very well received by their audience, with fans commenting suggestions and support for future matches of the new sport.

Co-Stars
The No Deo Duo is T-Wrex the crushasaur and Primal Instinks the unwashed rat. They also feature their friends on the channel as well, who use nicknames and personas of their own.

Primal Instinks


Primal Instinks is the creator, operator, and a co-star of The No Deo Duo. He is a roommate to T-Wrex, who he names as his best friend. Primal Instinks has had prior experience with a few YouTube channels before this one under different aliases, which were mainly solo efforts and served as precursors to some of The No Deo Duo's playlists, such as breath-holding contests, comedy skits, and work out routines. Primal Instinks eventually grew bored with being a solo act, and these early channels were abandoned and deleted as a result.

On the duo's official website, Primal Instinks reveals that he unconventionally doesn't use body soap, shampoo, deodorant, or toothpaste (aside from washing his hands) due to his natural outlook on life and natural lifestyle. He is aware that this is frowned upon in modern society, so in the spirit of self-deprecating satire, he created an "unwashed rat" persona for himself which has green fur to illustrate the lack of soap. He also doesn't like to wear shoes, and only does so when absolutely necessary, and as a result spends most of his life barefoot, even driving his vehicle barefoot when the weather allows for it.

T-Wrex gave him the nickname Primal Instinks based on his primitive hygiene habits, shoeless preference, and natural outlook on life, with "Instinks" being a pun on "instincts" due to his unwashed lifestyle, which carries the threat of body odor.



Primal Instinks states that he views himself as a vermin to society only in jest, and plays along with the joke at his own expense for the sake of entertainment. Due to his choice of not using hygiene products, he entertains his persona, which is basically an unwashed human who's brain was infected with "the rat's curse," by speaking highly of body odor, and expressing his hatred for soap, cologne/perfume, and deodorant.

In the video "My Strange Addiction - Smelling Shoes," which is a parody episode of the TLC show of the same name, Primal Instinks further entertains this rat persona by revealing an unusual habit he has of sniffing his friends' shoes. For the video, he had personal friends of his give him their old shoes to use as props so he could smell them on camera in a comical manner.



Primal Instinks has stated that holding his breath has been a skill he's practiced ever since he was small enough to fit in the bathtub, where he would often spend time trying to stay underwater as long as he could instead of washing his body. He would hold his breath in class during boring lectures, and practice at home whenever he was bored in his bedroom. He's never met a friend who could beat him in a breath-holding contest, and the many minutes on end he effortlessly goes without breathing amazes people both in person and on the internet.

He enjoys showing off his breath holding talent and pushing his body's limits with the help of his friends, referring to it as his personal choice of "benign masochism," a term associated with bodybuilders who enjoy the soreness of their muscles after lifting weights, as well as competitors who enjoy the burn while competing in hot pepper eating contests. He compares the thrill he gets from pushing his body's breath-holding limit to the rush people experience from skydiving, and considers himself a breath-holding daredevil due to breathless behind-the-scenes requests he fulfills as gifts for fans who donate to the channel.

Primal Instinks is a big fan of parody and satire, and comedy and entertainment as a whole. He loves puns and alliterations, and will often use them in video titles and descriptions. He enjoys doing voice impressions and imitating foreign accents, and often includes these in some of the duo's videos as a gag. He also loves music, and will sometimes sing songs during the filming of videos. He has stated that the three things that make life the most enjoyable for him are friendship, music, and humor.

T-Wrex


T-Wrex is a co-star of The No Deo Duo, and a best friend and roommate to Primal Instinks. This channel marks his first appearance on YouTube. At first he wasn't interested with the idea of being filmed and seen on the internet, as he doesn't share his roommate's interest in photography and film making, but he quickly warmed up to the idea after he realized how fun it was. Along with providing a unique character for the channel, he also began submitting video ideas of his own for use on the channel, and the combination of T-Wrex and Primal Instinks working together is what has made The No Deo Duo as successful as it is.

T-Wrex's persona is a dinosaur that likes to stomp everything in sight in typical, predatory fashion. T-Wrex, who stands 6 feet tall, has unusually large feet and is the bigger of the duo, weighing around 35 pounds more, and is a fan favorite in stompdown videos as a result. T-Wrex is also able to perform more reps whenever the duo work out together. Ironically, he has the endurance to run for much longer than Primal Instinks without tiring, but can't hold his breath as long as Primal Instinks can.



T-Wrex has a personal longest record of 6 minutes for a "wall sit," a leg exercise where you must sit with your knees bent and your back against a wall for as long as you can endure. He also runs a mile in 6 minutes (compared to Primal's 8-minute mile), and is able to run several miles in a row without tiring.

A catch-phrase of his is "what is happening?" whenever something strange or discomforting occurs. A personal quote of his is "I (just) like to exist," which is his overall outlook on life. T-Wrex enjoys playing video games at home, especially with Primal Instinks, as well as having a few drinks and relaxing in his spare time.

T-Wrex's favorite bands include Pink Floyd, Three Days Grace, and Sublime. Some of the channel videos that were his ideas include "Trainer T-Wrex Used STINKPIT," "Don't Forget to Bring a Towel," and the "Seven Minute Abs of Steel" comedy skits, the last of which is embedded above.

According to the duo's personal website, T-Wrex is a smart person but has always struggled a little with reading and spelling, adding to the prehistoric satire of being raised in a cave.

Featured Friends
There are many personal friends of The No Deo Duo featured on their channel who make one-time and recurring appearances.

The No Deo Duo enjoy inviting their friends to participate and share the fun they have on YouTube. The appearances of their friends depends on their friends' schedules, and as a result, some are seen more often than others.

Lord Rubix


Lord Rubix is a mutual friend of the duo. His nickname derives from his skill in solving Rubik's cubes, as well as the fact that he has a tattoo of a Rubik's cube on his arm. The "Lord" title is a joke that he comes from a royal line and sometimes speaks in a snobbish tone as a result, and was actually thought up one day when Coltrain mistakenly referred to him as "Lord Rubix" instead of his original nickname of Kid Rubix.

Lord Rubix is an avid video gamer who also enjoys playing mind games such as chess. He also drums as a hobby, is a fan of post-hardcore and screamo music, and attends Warped Tour just about every year. He collects superhero action figures, mainly of Spider-Man and Deadpool, his favorites. He owns a Spider-Man costume which he's used in videos before.

Lord Rubix has many tattoos on his arms, including video game characters, a set of drum sticks, and a Rubik's cube. He wears glasses, and can be seen in them in most of the videos he's featured in. He's participated in most of the channel playlists, and usually films a cameo whenever he hangs out with the duo at their house. Of all the featured friends, Lord Rubix has participated the most in behind-the-scenes videos for channel patrons.



Videos which feature Primal Instinks, T-Wrex, and Lord Rubix together sometimes include a logo reading "The No Deo Trio" during the introduction. This is because Lord Rubix also happens to choose not to use deodorant in real life, so the title is changed as an apt joke.

Lord Rubix's nickname was originally "Kid Rubix," but it was later changed in order to avoid any further mistaken assumption that he's a minor.

Toast


Toast is a part-time member and mutual friend of the duo who has participated in several of their playlists on numerous occasions, including backyard boxing matches, breath hold battles, and stompdown videos. He's also participated in comedy skits and behind-the-scenes videos for donors.

His persona is a high-voiced superhero who saves the world by using comical phrases and absurd signature moves. Aside from being an entertainer on the duo's YouTube channel, Toast is also a talented musician and sketch artist. His toasted, tan skin and dark features are attributed to his Puerto Rican heritage.



His breath holding battles with Primal Instinks are among the earliest and most popular on the channel's playlist, due to the prolonged periods they each hold out for, and the amusing banter Toast contributes throughout the duration of the videos. Like T-Wrex and Primal Instinks, he enjoys working out regularly and staying in shape.

Toast's name was changed from "Bread Boy" in order to avoid any mistaken assumption that he's a minor.

Sloth


Sloth is a part-time member of The No Deo Duo whose participation is limited due to his commitment to his family.

Sloth earned his nickname one day when he was asked by Primal Instinks "if you could pick any animal you most likely resembled, which one would it be?" and he answered with sloth. The reason given was his laidback nature, shy aura, and his slow, soft way of speaking, and the nickname stuck.

Sloth is known for his good sense of humor, and regularly makes witty jokes and obscure TV references that usually only he and the duo would know. He's a night owl and a family man who likes to spend time with his girlfriend and child.



Like the duo, Sloth is a big fan of TV shows such as Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, Rick and Morty, and the short-lived US comedy trio Stella. References to shows like these often find their way in the banter included in videos he's featured in.

Coltrain


Coltrain is a part-time member of The No Deo Duo who makes seasonal appearances on the channel and behind-the-scenes. He's a "juggalo" who enjoys rap music, especially the Insane Clown Posse. He also produces his own rap beats, writes his own lyrics, and raps in his free time. Some of his freestyle lyrics appear in videos on the channel.

Coltrain also refers to himself as a "ninja," having spent time living in Japan and taking martial arts training classes. He can perform backflips, as well as other tricks without ease, which were demonstrated in videos on the channel. He's also a fan of anime shows such as Naruto and Dragonball Z, and games such as Pokémon.



Coltrain has participated in stompdown videos and appeared on The Pool Kids Club playlist, as well as made recurring appearances on The No Deo Duo Show. He's also made several appearances in behind-the-scenes request videos for channel patrons, which he has a lot of fun doing.

Staggz


Staggz was a mutual friend of T-Wrex and Primal Instinks who was a fan of their channel for a while before deciding he wanted to try out for it. Due to having a busy schedule, it took a while for him to finally make him over, but he ended up having a lot of fun filming with the duo once he did.

His debut was met with favorable results from the fans, and he had so much fun with the experience that he decided to plan on future returns for more. He was impressed by how many fans watched and enjoyed the videos he was been featured in, and he appreciated the supportive messages left for him.



Staggz made his debut in the breath-holding battle and stompdown playlists, and also participated in a tryout round against Primal Instinks in the wrestling/breathling matches. Staggz filmed a few personalized scenes for patrons behind-the-scenes with the duo as well.

Unfortunately, Staggz's behavior suddenly became erratic and he began canceling scheduled appearances for weeks on end, flaking out on both the duo and their patrons he had originally committed to in the process. He then expressed a disinterest in continuing with the crew, and as a result, he was let go.

Danny Duck
Danny Duck was a mutual acquaintance of the duo who hung out with Primal Instinks and participated in the channel for a while.

Danny's character is a suave foreigner type who likes to dance and, true to the "duck" persona he chose, shake his tailfeathers. He sometimes speaks in an accent which sounds like a Spanish version of the character Borat. His dad jokes and off-the-cuff banter made him entertaining to some of the fans.

Danny's appearance became more noteworthy after he started a playful wrestling rivalry with Primal Instinks, and co-starred in the popular "Abs of Steel 2" challenge, a sequel to the channel's most popular upload. He's also credited as a co-creator to the new "breathling" sport, which he participated in the debut of.



Unfortunately, after starting "breathling" with Primal, Danny began losing ambition in life. He became flaky and unreliable, and, after being a no-call-no-show four times in a row and failing to return calls and texts, Primal Instinks stopped inviting him over.

Chief Slapahoe
Chief Slapahoe is a friend of Primal Instinks who also knows T-Wrex. He's a tall, skinny skater and sports player who, as his nicknames suggests, is part Native American. He has a very competitive nature to him, which is what led to him appearing in the backyard boxing videos on the channel.

Chief Slapahoe has boxed Primal Instinks several times, with each round being more intense than the previous. The playful rivalry then extended to wrestling, which he has a great deal of experience and skill in. The chief also participated in a brief stompdown video as an intro to a boxing match, and held Primal's breath once for the breath holding battle playlist.



A wrestling video between him and Primal Instinks turned out to be an entertaining compilation of pins by the Chief, who won in every round the two had that day. At the end of the video, Primal Instinks attempted to apply the signature "stinkpit" move in a last-ditch effort to secure at least one victorious round, but even that failed to get Chief Slapahoe to tap out.

Primal Instinks has stated that the boxing matches he had with Chief Slapahoe were one-sided, because unlike Primal and everyone else who boxed on the channel, Chief Slapahoe would actually try to swing hard and hurt his opponents instead of simply sparring for fun. By boxing at a harder level than Primal Instinks, despite Primal attempting to ask him several times to respect the rules the crew had, Chief Slapahoe landed harder hits and even caused injuries, which resulted in him not being invited over to box again after the third round.

Storm


Storm was a new friend that Primal Instinks had met who also happened to know Chief Slapahoe. At the time of his debut appearance, Storm was the youngest friend to be featured on the channel of young adult friends.

Storm enjoys sports, and has played on teams for baseball, lacrosse, and wrestling, and also skates, snowboards, and longboards as a hobby. Thanks to Primal Instinks, he was also able to add boxing to his list of athletic endeavors.



As a result of their mutual interest in athletic competition, Storm participated in backyard boxing matches, a breath holding battle, and a stompdown video with Primal Instinks. He also debuted the Backyard Wrestling playlist in a two-round match against Primal, which ended in a tie of 1-1. Unfortunately, the camera placement was still being worked out in this first round, and some of the action took place outside of the camera's view. A follow-up wrestling match between the two friends also ended in a tie of 1-1.

Primal Instinks planned for a special tie-breaker wrestling match between himself and Storm to be filmed for the channel, however, Storm, who was already busy in life with only one day out of every week to stop by and participate, apparently no longer had the time to continue, and stopped responding to calls and texts until Primal abandoned the idea of moving forward with him.

One-time appearances
Friends who made one-time video appearances include Foxtrot, Ozprey, K.D., and an unnamed acquaintance featured in a pool video. Another friend, K2, appeared in two channel videos, as well as a few behind-the-scenes bonus videos, before losing communication and no longer being a part of the channel.

An unknown friend appears in the banner with the duo and Coltrain at the top of the Photos page on the official website. This friend had been present in the early videos predating the YouTube channel, back when it existed as a personal Facebook account. The friend lost touch with everyone shortly after the channel began, and thus isn't featured in any content.

In-jokes and Lore


According to their website, The No Deo Duo's channel name originated from the unconventional fact that neither of the two friends use deodorant, something they found to be amusing upon becoming roommates. Shortly after the creation of the channel, they invented nicknames and accompanying personas for themselves and their featured friends, which was said to be a combined effort, with Primal Instinks coming up with the rat and dinosaur personas, and T-Wrex coming up with the two witty nicknames. Many of the nicknames are animal-related.

Like other YouTubers who choose not to disclose who they are in real life for a sense of mystery and reason of anonymity, the duo keep their private lives to themselves. They refer to their channel as their "virtual playground" and treat it as its own world.

Along with assigning satirical personas to themselves, they also exhibit unconventional behaviors and act primitively for entertainment purposes, such as advocating a deodorant-free lifestyle and running around barefoot all the time. In-jokes such as the "stinkpit" were also created in line with this lore.

Tropes
There are many tropes existent in The No Deo Duo's act. Some of the more prominent ones include:


 * Heterosexual Life Partners: T-Wrex and Primal Instinks are best friends, as well as roommates, and are prone to showing friendly affection for each other in their videos, particularly their vlogs. They do everything together, and as a result, whenever scheduling conflicts cause T-Wrex to be absent for a video, diehard fans will leave comments asking where he's at. Some fans will sometimes even mistake the duo as being gay (which is also a trope).


 * Real Men Hate Affection: Whereas Primal Instinks is all about friendly affection and giving hugs to his friends, T-Wrex prefers handshakes, and would rather be Vitriolic Best Buds with Primal instead, although he'll still on occasion be affectionate toward him.


 * Vitriolic Best Buds: Primal Instinks is an affectionate friend at heart, but he'll entertain this trope with T-Wrex at times as well. Examples of this are instances of the duo slapping each other in the face, stepping on each other if one is lying on the floor, and the breath-holding battles where they take turns blocking each others airways for as long as they can bear for sport.


 * Does Not Like Shoes: The No Deo Duo and their friends are almost always filmed barefoot. While most of their videos are filmed inside their house, which would provide a good reason for not wearing footwear, videos filmed outdoors also lack shoes, including boxing and wrestling matches, as well as a few videos showing them driving their vehicles barefoot.

T-Wrex's ear-piercing shriek into the camera is also a running gag which will be used to end a video, or provide a jump-scare effect; this was especially true in the "Soothing ASMR Whisper Session" skit.
 * Running Gag: Everyone being barefoot in virtually every upload is also a running gag which has become part of their channel lore. Primal Instinks will also attempt to ask any friends who stop by to be on the channel to refrain from showering or using deodorant beforehand in a "when in Rome" attempt to make the "No Deo Duo" experience more realistic.

Along with this, he also chooses to not use deodorant, shampoo, body soap, or toothpaste, adding to the "earthy, natural" character. This may be a character he plays on the channel, but it's also true of him in real life.
 * Earthy Barefoot Character: Primal Instinks prefers running around the woods or on grass barefoot, and believes in connecting with the planet by doing so. He only wears socks or shoes when absolutely necessary, even driving his vehicle barefoot whenever the weather allows for it.

Primal Instinks is a skinny rat because he chooses not to use deodorant, shampoo, or even soap in the shower, and he also enjoys smelling his friends' shoes, especially if they're stinky. The rat's fur is also green to illustrate the unwashed state of the character. T-Wrex is a dinosaur (a T. Rex, obviously) because of his build, his real-life lack of feeling of pain ("having a thick hide"), his slight difficulty with reading and spelling ("raised in a cave"), and his habit of wanting to stomp everything all the time, including others around him. He also has the ability to emit an ear-piercing shriek, which he likes to do often in videos.
 * Self-Deprecation: The duo's personas were created using self-deprecating humor.


 * No Inside Voice: The duo like to be loud in their videos. Primal Instinks speaks in loud, excitable tones, and T-Wrex screeches like a dinosaur, sometimes directly into the camera for comedic effect.


 * Alliterative Title: Primal Instinks loves these, and regularly uses them in the channel videos and descriptions, as well as the titles for the behind-the-scenes bonus videos.


 * Shout Out: Along with naming their mutual inspirations for their video ideas and sense of humor on their website, the duo also give various shout-outs in their content. For example, the name of the stompdown playlist is "Stompy Stompy Joy Joy" in reference to Ren & Stimpy's "Happy Happy Joy Joy" song. They filmed dramatized Godzilla monster battles using cardboard boxes for buildings in a throwback to Godzilla. They had even stomped a watermelon to pieces barefoot in a throwback to melon-smashing comedian Gallagher, but deleted the video after YouTube began censoring their content.

T-Wrex doesn't really like to be touched, which is part of why he sometimes rejects physical affection from friends. This is also why he doesn't participate in the wrestling matches, because the contact triggers anger in him, although it doesn't bother him if it's done in the swimming pool, for reasons unknown even to him.
 * Berserk Button: Not only does Primal Instinks not use deodorant, but he hates everything about it, including the smell of it. He has stated that no donation of any amount would get him to voluntarily use it, and anyone who attempted to put it (or any artificial fragrance) on him would be considered his enemy.


 * Space Case: Primal Instinks and his unusual habit of smelling his friends' shoes. He has to sniff both shoes in the hope that one may be smellier than the other. Also, T-Wrex's habit of wanting to stomp everything.


 * The Wonka: Primal Instinks. He created the brand using intentional eccentric humor and unconventional lore and successfully found an audience for it, even fans who were willing to financially support it.


 * Non Sequitur: T-Wrex is a big fan of these. He sometimes interrupts vlogs by saying something random and unrelated to the subject at hand, or repeats random phrases like "I like bananas."

The stompdown videos on the channel are filmed from a ground point-of-view, giving the visual impression that you're being stepped on.
 * Trampled Underfoot: T-Wrex's persona is the "crushasaur," a dinosaur-like being who goes around stomping on everything he can with his large-sized feet in predatory fashion.

The video explaining T-Wrex's persona begins with a shot of his feet (which also counts for Feet-First Introduction), followed by footage of him slowly stomping forward with his hands raised in a stereotypical dinosaur style. The next scene shows him drowning Primal Instinks by using his foot to hold Primal's face underwater in a puddle of mud (as well as a quick shot of him doing the same thing in a bathtub full of water), and then switches to a ground view facing up as he begins stomping at the camera and screeching like Godzilla.
 * Fearsome Foot: T-Wrex's large feet are his personal weapons.


 * Giant Foot of Stomping: The stompdown videos are filmed from a ground point of view where the camera is set on the floor facing straight up as the duo and their friends stand over it and menacingly stomp at it. The angle of the camera gives the impression that a giant foot is coming right for you, with nowhere to run.


 * Spell My Name With An "S": The duo's nicknames are purposefully misspelled the way they are for comedic effect and because the names are puns. However, fans will sometimes misspell their names by fashioning them properly as "Primal Instincts" and "T-Rex."


 * One-Shot Character: There are a few featured guests on the channel who only appear in a single video and are never seen again, including Ozprey, K.D., Foxtrot, and an unnamed guest featured in "An Aquatic Adversary Appears."


 * No Animals Were Harmed: A dramatized horror video of the duo pretending to drown in their backyard swimming pool titled "Dramatized Drowning" includes momentary footage of a rat being held underwater in a tank by a turtle, as well as a rat in a cage being drowned in a body of water. The video description reveals the clips were stock footage found on the internet which were artistically being used to illustrate Primal Instinks (the rat) being drowning by T-Wrex (the turtle, which is a reptile, just like dinosaurs were), and that no actual animals had been harmed in the making of the video.

Fan Funding
After successfully finding an audience for their content, The No Deo Duo began receiving inquiries from fans who were interested in supporting their channel by way of crowdfunding. In response, a PayPal account was set up, and a donation link was added to the duo's official website.

The No Deo Duo often receive a lot of video requests from their fans, but have stated they don't have enough free time to fulfill them all. As incentive for fans who could potentially become donors, however, the duo announced the opportunity to fulfill personalized video requests as gifts for channel patrons only, and began listing some of the scenarios they had already filmed for fans on their website as behind-the-scenes gifts for donors, giving them creative titles, and supplying descriptions, genres, and screenshots for each scenario they had acted out.

Fans who donate a threshold amount to the channel earn the opportunity to view the pre-filmed, behind-the-scenes requests as gifts if they didn't have a personalized request of their own. Many of these requests consist of creative scenarios based off the duo's sense of humor and pre-existing channel content.

Censorship
YouTube has censored The No Deo Duo's content numerous times on the platform, in instances of both age-restricting some of their videos and even outright removing a few.

Examples include the deletion of the "T-Wrex the Crushsaur" skit for allegedly containing nudity or sexual content, despite not having either of those things present in the video, and the video itself being an obvious parody of an Australian animal show such as "Crocodile Dundee."

A moderator also removed a "duct tape escape challenge" video starring Lord Rubix, who was then known as Kid Rubix, for mistakenly believing his nickname was literal and that he was a kid who was being taped up by adults. The No Deo Duo's official website states that everyone in the crew are all college-aged adults. As a result, Kid Rubix's nickname was changed to Lord Rubix, and Bread Boy's nickname was changed to Toast to prevent any further issues with YouTube.

Primal Instinks' original shoe-smelling comedy skit was age-restricted for containing "sexually provocative content," despite being filmed from a comedy standpoint and as a parody of TLC's "My Strange Addiction" program. The "Double-team Tickle Fit" video was age-restricted for the same reason, despite it also being an obvious comedy video of two friends tickling a third friend as they all sat together on a couch.

Attempts by The No Deo Duo to appeal these decisions and to inform YouTube by emailing their customer support agents that these decisions had been made in error were met with canned responses, and the agents stated they would not be able to provide any additional details or assist them any further. Attempts to point out that numerous YouTubers, including popular, verified channels, had all filmed duct tape escape challenges, "tied-up and tickled" challenges, and even a shoe-smelling prank similar to Primal's skit without any restriction or demonetization applied, were also met with generic replies of copy-pasted policy and statements that the decisions would be upheld without providing any further explanation.

As a result of this censorship, The No Deo Duo took down a lot of older, less-edited videos from their channel in an attempt to stop YouTube from harassing them any further, including the remaining duct tape escape challenges they had filmed for fun. They also added context in the description of all their stompdown videos after one was age-restricted, as well as a disclaimer in the descriptions of videos featuring Lord Rubix stating that everyone on the channel is an adult.