| “ | Captain Disillusion! |
” |
―Captain Disillusion | ||
Alan Melikdjanian (born: April 13, 1980), better known online as Captain Disillusion, is a Latvian-born Russian-Armenian YouTuber and filmmaker. His videos promote critical thinking and are mainly debunkings of viral hoax videos that claim to be video proof of the paranormal, UFOs, and other fantastic claims.
Early Life[]
Alan Melikdjanian was born in Riga, the capital city of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, to a Russian mother and an Armenian father. He grew up speaking Russian. His parents were traveling entertainers and during a trip to the United States, they defected, leaving a young Alan to live with his grandmother in Riga for two years while he continued to attend school. At age 12, Alan immigrated to the United States. He studied filmmaking in college before turning to YouTube. He gave a full summary of his biography on the H3 Podcast.
About[]
Captain Disillusion was created to debunk video hoaxes on the internet. The videos he addresses generally are videos that use special effects and video manipulation yet present themselves as being completely natural. Melikdjanian has a bachelor's degree in film production from the Miami International University and Design.
He then founded his film company, Amelik Entertainment in 2001. He has since directed two films and has worked as both an animator and visual effects editor and sound editor on other films. He has stated that he focuses on videos that have been edited with digital effects because it is the area in which he is most qualified to do so.
Video Style[]
Most videos begin with Captain Disillusion sitting in the corner of a red room. He refers to his viewers as children and usually greets them by saying, "Greetings, children, Captain Disillusion here." The episodes are formatted to parody children's television shows from the early 2000's. After greeting his viewers, the Captain moves on to introducing the video/topic that he is going to debunk or explain.
The Captain then explains how these videos are faked by showing how visual effects can be used to make it seem as if amazing and unbelievable things have happened. To close each episode, the Captain leaves viewers with a piece of advice: "Remember, love with your heart; use your head for everything else," before ending the video with an amusing exit gag. The gags generally have him appear as if he is about to fly away, only for something amusing to happen instead. Occasionally these videos are recorded in a shorter format, titled "Quick D"s, with the Captain standing and using green screen effects to create his backdrops, and with typically less gags and special effects.
Characters[]
Captain Disillusion himself is presented as a superhero type character. He wears grey sweatpants, with a black t-shirt and a yellow jacket. The bottom half of his face is painted silver, with black "drips" along the edge where the paint meets his skin. On occasion he has been shown without his shirt on and he was silver there as well. In designing the character, he has stated that he really didn't want to cover his entire face in silver because it would have been too much work.
Since his show attempts to present the difference between illusion and reality, his viewers can wonder what half of his face is real. The authenticity of his skin is humorously depicted in the following episodes; in his video "Man on Mars Debunk," he puts his finger on the line between the silver and skin portions of his face and lifts the skin off his face. Also in the video "BEAKMALLUSION: Free Energy Devices" featuring Beakman from Beakman's World, Beakman pulls Captain Disillusion's skin taut and snaps it back when they discuss about magnets.
While the majority of the videos show Captain Disillusion only, many other characters have been introduced along the way. The side character who appears most in his videos is Mr. Flare. Mr. Flare is a small light that comes out of a lamp and is also voiced by Melikdjanian. The Captain also has an admirer, named Holly, who has appeared in several videos. Holly generally appears as a disembodied head surrounded by flashing light, although she has occasionally appeared with a full body. She is infatuated with Captain Disillusion, though he does not return her affections. He, in fact, finds her intolerable. She was made as a subtle parody of Gods in religions.
In 2016, in his video, "The Undebunkable," a nemesis character named Zeitgeist is introduced. At first, he appears as Captain Disillusion and tries to debunk videos that are actually not faked. After a period of frustration, the red room begins to collapse and Zeitgeist's jacket turns from yellow to purple, while the solid black "drips" along his face extend further down. As the room continues to fall apart, it is revealed that Captain Disillusion was locked in a cell behind the wall. He escapes and restores order to the room while commenting that not every somewhat unbelievable thing is orchestrated by some mastermind with evil intentions, and that viewers should remain skeptical while acknowledging this fact.
History[]
The first Captain Disillusion video was posted to YouTube on September 18, 2007. It was called "Penguin Slap Debunk" and in it, he explained the visual effects used in a viral video in which it appears that a penguin is slapping another penguin, knocking it into a hole in the ice. He then tackled many well know viral videos debunking claims of hauntings caught on video, UFOs, the famous "Ms. Ping" video and "Catching Glasses" videos where people appear to throw sunglasses and others catch the glasses perfectly on their face. He reveals how the videos are made using visual effects editing, invisible cuts, playing film backwards and other methods.
Over the years Captain Disillusion has had several well known skeptics guest star in his videos. On June 18, 2009, noted skeptic James Randi appeared in the video "Randi+Pantry Ghost...Debunk?" and helped the Captain when he was unable to debunk the famous "Pantry Ghost" videos from TheYouShow.com. In his video "Tam 6 Special + Reptile Woman Debunk," Captain Disillusion impersonated his own versions of magicians Penn and Teller onscreen. James Randi was able to get Penn Jillette to provide his voice to read the Captain's catchphrase for his Penn styled version of himself. On May 31, 2016, Paul Zaloom appeared as Beakman from "Beakman's World" in a video debunking free energ|y devices.
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