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This article is about the Huang twins' YouTube channel. For their personal channels, see Michael H or carykh. For the unrelated musician, see ANDREW HUANG.
Jacknjellify
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Watch Battle for Dream Island or be eliminated.
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āJacknjellify's channel description
jacknjellify is an American YouTube channel run by twins Michael Yiming Huang and Cary Kaiming Huang (born: March 18, 1997 (1997-03-18) [age 27]),[1] who are better known online by their own respective aliases, fernozzle and carykh. They are best known for their animated web series Battle for Dream Island (commonly abbreviated to BFDI).
Jacknjellify's first video, titled "The BeiBei Squisher", was a contraption video. They also uploaded other contraption videos, animations, some videos created using Phun (now Algodoo), music videos, and their "Marble Race" videos. However, by 2016, they started to focus on specifically BFDI-related content.
Battle for Dream Island[]
Battle for Dream Island is a YouTube series which follows a group of animated object characters such as household items (e.g. clock, sponge), food (lollipop, taco), and nature (leaf, flower). Other obscure objects were also introduced in the later seasons.
The show is structured in a similar way to television shows Survivor and Total Drama. The objects become contestants who participate in challenges while being divided into teams, with the losing team(s) being put up for elimination. Then, they allow the viewers to vote on who they want out. This goes on until there is only one contestant left, who is declared the winner of the show. The prize has changed throughout the seasons of BFDI. In the first season, the prize was the eponymous Dream Island. By the fourth season, BFB, the prize was "a BFDI".
Battle for Dream Island gained significant popularity online and kickstarted the "object show" genre. YouTubers who were fans of BFDI created shows of their own based around the concept, often making their own characters (or sometimes using the same characters as BFDI). Along with the main series, jacknjellify also uploads short animations featuring the BFDI characters.
History[]
2008-2009: Early history[]
The jacknjellify channel was created on February 4, 2008. Their first video, "The BeiBei Squisher", showcased a contraption the twins had built. It was uploaded on February 6.[2] Throughout 2008 and 2009, they uploaded more contraption videos as well as Flash animations and real life Marble Race videos, one of which gained over a million views. In December 2008, they uploaded an animation they made for pre-algebra class titled "X Finds Out His Value". The two protagonists in this video, Four and X, would go on to become some of the most well known characters on the channel and in its cinematic universe.
Since early 2008, Michael and Cary had been drawing comics featuring anthropomorphic object characters. Going under the names Firey and Total Firey Island, their array of comics documented the adventures of the object characters they had created. The latter series was a spinoff of TV show Total Drama, which would eventually inspire the brothers to create a similar show. They began to devise a concept for their own animated reality series, which would involve the objects competing for a prize. The show came to be known as Battle for Dream Island (BFDI). The very first animation featuring the BFDI characters was made in February 2009.[3]
2010-2013: Emergence of BFDI, second season (BFDIA)[]
On January 1, 2010, the first episode of Battle for Dream Island, named "Take the Plunge", was released, marking the beginning of their long-running series. The show initially had 20 contestants. BFDI would slowly start to gain traction, and a community revolving around these types of shows was formed, with many fans of BFDI creating their own spinoffs of the show. BFDI's first season went on until January 1, 2012, when it reached a winner and concluded.
In June 2012, a second season was released, called Battle for Dream Island Again (BFDIA). Though, this season was very short-lived, only reaching episode 5e in August 2013 before jacknjellify announced they would be taking a break from producing the show.[4] They ended up not returning to it, and from then it was often labelled as cancelled. Despite this, the BFDI and object show community was continuously growing with many other object shows and camps being made increasingly more often.
2014-2016: AdSense suspension, hiatus, IDFB[]
On March 6, 2014, jacknjellify's AdSense account was suspended for an unknown reason. The email that they received said that AdSense had detected invalid activity and that their account had been disabled. Michael and Cary sent several appeals, even attempting to show Google image proof that they were not violating AdSense's guidelines, though they were all rejected.
This subsequently resulted in jacknjellify starting a hiatus from making animated content on YouTube. This hiatus lasted for roughly two years, and the only videos uploaded during this time frame were a short promotional video for a different channel and two videos regarding YouTube's false takedown of BFDI's first episode.
On March 3, 2016, Michael uploaded a video explaining the reason for no recent animations.[5] On June 14, 2016, after getting in contact with a Google employee who saw the video, their AdSense account was reinstated, meaning that they could continue animating.
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Also, we got our Adsense account back online! That resolves the 2.5 year long issue we discussed in our "Why We've Had to Stop Animating on YouTube" video. Hooray!
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āMichael Huang
With the revenue issue sorted out, Michael and Cary resumed work on the series. BFDI's return was announced in July 2016 in an animated skit,[6] officially bringing their channel back on track. On September 1, 2016, the first episode of BFDI's third season, IDFB, was released. However, the season was promptly put on hold due to Cary going to college.[7] IDFB has not released another episode since.
2017-2019: BFB, increase in popularity, expansion[]
In 2017, the brothers began developing an entirely new BFDI season with a new hand-drawn art style, as opposed to the use of assets in previous seasons. The new season expanded the cast up to 64 contestants, including many of the failed debutants to BFDIA. Jacknjellify hired voice actors and animators to help run the show. The core crew consisted of Michael, Cary, Satomi and Kenzie; they did most of the writing and animation for the season in its early stages.
The new season, titled Battle for BFDI (BFB), released its first episode on November 3, 2017. This season quickly became very popular and influenced a new wave of object shows using a hand-drawn style. BFB also helped greatly grow the jacknjellify channel, with their subscriber count having doubled by the point around the season's two-year anniversary.
BFB continued to run in the following years. In July 2018, BFB's 12th episode became jacknjellify's first video to appear on YouTube's "Trending" list.[8] In August 2019, jacknjellify released the Firey plush, beginning a line of plush toys for a variety of BFDI characters.[9]
2020-2021: Split and end of BFB, creation of TPOT[]
In March 2020, BFB's 16th episode was released. With this episode came the announcement that BFB would be split into two separate seasons. BFB would continue, with a significantly shrunken cast, while a fifth BFDI season, known as The Power of Two (TPOT), would start with all the remaining contestants.
The decision initially garnered backlash from fans, who were upset at how many of the contestants simply left BFB and how this would alter many aspects of the show. Jacknjellify then uploaded a video dedicated to explaining why they went through with splitting the show.[10] The main reasons involved how Michael and Cary wanted to return to the "whimsical" nature of the very first season of BFDI, though some fans enjoyed the well-written and visually polished episodes. Their standards for BFB continued to rise until they decided to split the "fun" end and the "serious" end into their own shows, with BFB staying fun and TPOT being more serious. It was also noted that the pace in which BFB's episodes were being released was continuously getting slower, and a winner would not be announced for significant time to come.
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I realized at the pace BFB was going, that the season wasn't going to announce a winner until I was in my 40s.
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āCary Huang
Over time, viewers would eventually accept the split. Post-split BFB ran throughout 2020 while TPOT was being worked on. TPOT's release date was revealed in BFB 27 to be at the beginning of 2021. Enthusiasm built up by fans just prior to the highly-anticipated release even caused "#tpot" to trend on Twitter.[11][12] TPOT released its first episode on January 10, 2021. The episode was a major success, and has since amassed over 16 million views.
The season finale of BFB was released on April 9, 2021. Jacknjellify reached 1 million subscribers in that same month, on April 27.
2022-present: Further expansion and return of BFDIA[]
After the end of BFB, Michael and Cary announced they'd be taking a break from BFDI to focus on other parts of their lives. As of April 2022, jacknjellify has released many short BFDI skits over the past year while their team continues to work on TPOT. Though the episodes initially began releasing slowly, Michael and Cary both said that the episodes would begin to come more often. As of April 2024, The Power of Two has released ten episodes.
In January 2023, a Spanish-language channel for jacknjellify was officially launched through Unilingo, hosting Spanish dubs for the BFDI series.[13][14] In July, jacknjellify opened an office in the Water Garden business center in Santa Monica, California.[15] In the same month, the channel began uploading short-form videos on a daily basis, resulting in a large increase in channel growth.[16]
On September 1, 2023, jacknjellify revived the originally cancelled BFDIA, by releasing the season's sixth episode on the 10-year anniversary of the episode's original intended upload date.[17]
Controversies[]
BFB 16[]
On March 24, 2020, the 16th episode of BFB was released. It quickly garnered backlash from fans, with the main reason being that the episode in question announced that the show was being split into two individual ones, with BFB remaining, featuring 14 of the remaining cast. Those being Firey, Leafy, Gelatin, Lollipop, Teardrop (Who eventually joined TPOT in episode two), Balloony, Ruby, Spongy, Loser, Blocky, Taco, Woody, Bubble and Flower. With a new season being created, named Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two, which features everyone else remaining on BFB, who left the show to compete for Twoās power. (Liy was also meant to join, escaping alongside Spongy and Loser, but this was scrapped).
Many fans were furious with this decision and stopped watching BFB all together. In a response to the controversy, a video titled āThe Secret Behind BFBās Splitā was released,[18] where Cary explained the reason BFB was split up was so that the show wouldnāt last a long time. In an earlier tweet before the video was released. Showrunner Satomi revealed that the split wasnāt even considered early on. As it was originally planned that everyone who joined TPOT wouldāve been permanently killed off all together, leaving everyone who stayed on BFB remaining. How exactly they all wouldāve been killed off however, is unknown.
Another controversy from this episode surrounded the vote for a recommended character to debut in TPOT. Due to their previously attained popularity. The recommended character, Winner blazed through and won the debut all together. Many people were heavily mad with this, as Winnerās popularity gave them a huge advantage over other recommended characters, including debut veteran Nonexisty, who came second in the debut. When TPOT 1 did release Price Tag, who placed 3rd in the debut, also joined TPOT, since Two didn't want a prime cast. However Nonexisty was considered for this spot, but couldnāt compete due to literally being nonexistent.
The third controversy of this episode spawned from how Loser and Spongy were allowed to rejoin the game out of the blue without any voting or even a rejoin challenge, as they escaped from the E.X.I.T. during the episode, in the eliminated contestants plan to get out. This caused many people to claim how this was also unfair. Whilst many didnāt mind Loser rejoining, since he had been eliminated for some time, and came close to rejoining in BFB 11, people were especially mad with Spongy's rejoin, as he was supposed to be eliminated earlier in the episode. However couldn't, due to his large size, and being apart of the EXITors plan in escaping. Spongy and Loser were eventually re-eliminated in BFB 19 and 21 respectively.
Unfair eliminations[]
With the viewer-vote system and the continuously growing popularity of the BFDI series, overtime, controversies regarding some viewers either bot voting, using alternate accounts to save or eliminate a certain character, or someone encouraging their fans to vote someone, would arise within the community.
Perhaps the most infamous elimination in the BFDI series, and in the entire OSC, would be that of the one seen in āBFDIA 4: Zeeky Boogy Doogā. In the last episode the team, W.O.A.H. Bunch was up for elimination, and this episode was their Cake At Stake (elimination). Teardrop won the prize in the episode, and for her prize, chose to get a Recovery Center, over immunity until the Final 15. Strangely however, when it came time to show whose eliminated, Teardrop was the one sent to the TLC.
Many users were of course, heavily upset and confused about the ordeal. They questioned how it was possible for Teardrop to be both eliminated and win the prize at the same time. Fans later found out that AnimationEpic, in particular Adamās cousin, was actually the one responsible for the incident. Via imitating another user, she had managed to convince said userās subscribers to vote off TD, over Coiny, who at the time, had the most dislikes. Many of the YouTubers fans did not know what BFDI was, as the channel is primarily a My Little Pony focused channel. Yet followed their instructions, resulting in TDās elimination.
Another more recent example, was the vote that followed BFB 19. This intense 48-hour voting period became controversial, which is attributed to GDNacho and his Discord server, The Bracelety Inquisition. After the voting had ended, people began to criticise GD, claiming he planned for his Discord community to use alternate accounts for voting in order to save Ruby, and make sure Gelatin had the least votes (the new voting system introduced in BFB 17 now has people vote for the character they want to stay, with the person with the least amount of votes being eliminated).
GD made a video in response to the criticism, and revealed that the members of the server planned it entirely without him knowing, resulting in many users being banned from the server. But despite all of this, a 96 vote gap saved Gelatin from elimination, and Ruby was subsequently eliminated. However, there was an error scene in BFB 20 that spawned from the vote feud. It depicted Ruby appearing for a quick second, due to the uncertainty of who would be eliminated and who would stay earlier in the episode. This 96 vote gap, did seem to pay-off though. As Gelatin was able to get the runner-up position in BFB, falling behind Flower.
Vote botting and alternate accounts became more of an issue later on, almost causing a four-way-tie between Firey, Blocky, Taco and Flower for the elimination in BFB 22. When the votes were counted, Taco and Flower were the bottom two. And the vote margin was by a single vote. This one vote ended up being for Flower, and Taco was eliminated as a result. Had Taco received that one vote instead, Flower wouldāve been eliminated. Which also means she wouldnāt have won BFB. It is possible that since the votes were so close, the Jacknjellify crew were able to play with the votes and make their least favorite get out.
Another example is the elimination in TPOT 4. Starting from TPOT 3, two teams would now be up for elimination, but to make things fair, viewers were still given one vote. Initially, the votes for Team8s, obtained from an unofficial vote counter, showed that Gaty wouldāve been eliminated. But, like BFB 22, bot votes ended up being made, and would be counted. As a result, Saw was the one who was eliminated in the episode. The S, the other team up for elimination, did not have any major changes, and their votes mostly remained the same throughout.
By TPOT 10, the voting would've switched to Google Forms to avoid botting, or any controversies.
The revival of BFDIA is also not safe from voting controversies. When The Beautiful Face Devotion Institute when up for elimination, Ice Cube was seemingly in the lead with 13K dislikes, with Spongy having around 11K. But when the results were revealed, it was actually Spongy who got the most dislikes, leaving an outcry in the community claiming the elimination to be unfair and possibly related to Spongy flooding the grasslands with lava in BFB 14, which canonically didn't happen yet. Despite all this, Cary revealed the results, showing that Spongy indeed got the most dislikes, and that the "return YouTube dislike" extension was heavily relied on and is never truly accurate. [19] Despite this, viewes have mass disliked Ice Cube's video when LRLD (formerly Freesmart) went up for elimination right after.
didentWe is a secret channel created by jacknjellify in 2011. Its content consists of two videos titled "Dident we?" and "We dident.", uploaded in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
The channel's existence was largely unknown to jacknjellify's fanbase until a user named Epic Swoosh published a video about it on November 18, 2023.[21] According to Cary, it was created as an inside joke between him and Michael, as they found humor in the way the Announcer pronounced the phrase "didn't we".[22]
Channel milestones[]
Subscriber milestones[]
100 subscribers: November 19, 2023
1,000 subscribers: November 21, 2023
Zack Bone Productions is a channel the twins created in 2015. Its content mainly consists of archives of various forms of media they produced when they were younger.
The archived media on the Zack Bone channel includes camcorder tapes and various small games they made during the 2000s. Many of the videos on the channel feature Michael, Cary, and their friend Sam playing the old games of theirs. The game series, dubbed Exploring the Stagecast Sims (or simply SIM), had episodes uploaded (mainly) daily between December 2015 and April 2016.
On April 19, 2016, Michael uploaded a video to the channel announcing that he would be "taking a break" from creating content for Zack Bone Productions.[23] Zack Bone's most recent video was uploaded on July 31, 2017.
Trivia[]
Jacknjellify has hired new animators to help them create their show, with people in different positions working with them.
These videos arenāt much however, and 60 of the videos are simply the videos used for voting who gets the prize and who gets eliminated in BFDIA, via the like (prize) and dislike (elimination) system.
Some 5 of the videos are announcements and other videos.
BFDI has been going on for over 14 years.
If including the original comic series, Total Firey Island, the show's history spans from over 15 years ago.
One of their flash games was featured on NASA's website.
In 2021-22, 1971 UD1 was named ā10003 Caryhuangā.
Michael and Cary got their own building/office for a few months, before vacating it.
![2008-2018 Jacknjellify profile picture. The logo is a spoof of the Homestar Runner logo.[25]](/wiki/File:Jacknjellify_old_pfp.jpg "Jacknjellify old pfp.jpg (119 KB)")
.svg "Battle for Dream Island (logo).svg (99 KB)")
