| “ | Like this video. Aww that's good! | ” |
―2011-2012 YourFavoriteMartian outro | ||
Your Favorite Martian (often abbreviated to YFM) is an American virtual pop/rock band originally active from 2010 to 2012, and active again from 2022 onward, known for their comedic animated music videos. Created and spearheaded by Ray William Johnson, the group became notorious for their crudely made and sometimes vulgar content in their early career.
The YFM channel became a hit upon its inception in early 2011, with their music videos easily garnering millions of views on YouTube. They continued to release music and expand until late 2012, when a dispute with their production partner forced the band to shut down. After their initial disbanding, the channel was named THIS PROJECT IS RETIRED, and went completely dormant for nearly a decade. The announcement of the band's return in 2022 resulted in it being briefly changed to say "reborn". YFM releases new music videos on around a monthly basis, typically on a Wednesday.
The channel currently has over half a billion total video views and over 3 million subscribers. It was previously one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube, having been the 28th overall and the #1 most subscribed music channel on YouTube at its height.
Musical style[]
Your Favorite Martian's music has swayed between the genres of pop, rap, and rock, sometimes implementing elements of all three in one song. Additionally described as "meme rap" by Ray,[1] the band was also known for their off-color sense of humor in much of their old music's lyrics. The band's reboot saw more pop-oriented production and toned down lyrics.
History[]
Background[]
The YourFavortieMartian channel originally joined on November 30, 2006. Nothing was uploaded in the first few years of the channel's existence. Ray William Johnson would begin to emerge as a popular YouTuber in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
In 2010, following the disbanding of his previous music group, Fatty Spins, Johnson would begin work on a brand new music project. On June 30, 2010, the YFM channel uploaded its very first video.[2] The video, titled "be patient", announced the project to be coming soon. The following months would see the culmination of the Your Favorite Martian project as songs and a crew were put together for its debut.
Rise to popularity & original YouTube tenure[]
Your Favorite Martian's first song was released on iTunes and Spotify on December 24, 2010. The song, titled "My Balls", would have an animated music video released as the first real video on the YFM channel on January 26, 2011. A week after upload, the video had already reached over 6.5 million views, establishing it as a viral video. From then on, the channel would release original animated music videos every two weeks on Wednesdays.
The YourFavoriteMartian channel quickly grew, with every new music video gaining millions upon millions of views. YFM became the most subscribed music channel, and one of the most subscribed channels overall, on YouTube. On December 2, 2011, the first episode of an animated spin-off series featuring the band members on tour, titled Your Favorite Martian: The Series (YFMTS), was released on the Animonster channel. All of the series was hosted on this channel and YFMTS ran for 11 episodes from December 2011 to April 2012.
In May 2012, Your Favorite Martian would begin to make covers of pre-existing songs, rather than totally original ones. The band cited that all original content was going towards the album they had just announced. The songs would also begin to become less comedy-oriented, and revolve around more serious topics. The channel's last video of their original tenure was uploaded on September 26, 2012.
Disbandment[]
YFM had been continuously pushing the announcement that an album was to be released in the winter of 2012. However, these plans soon came to an abrupt halt. The album would promptly be cancelled along with the whole project.
In November 2012, the band announced that "the project had been retired". This was a direct result of a dispute between Maker Studios and Ray William Johnson, who co-created the band. Maker Studios, who had funded the production of YFM, and, specifically, the announced album, demanded a higher share of Johnson's Adsense revenue and more control over the joint intellectual property of the two parties. When Johnson declined, the network cut funding for the album, also discontinuing Your Favorite Martian as a whole.
Following the fallout, The YFM channel changed its name to "THIS PROJECT IS RETIRED" and was left completely inactive. However, Maker Studios (and later, Disney, following their absorption of Maker in 2017) held on to the trademark and rights for YFM. This prevented Ray from using it without paying royalties, which he vehemently refused to do.
No new music at all was released from Your Favorite Martian in the time that followed. Eager fans have speculated that perhaps their album would be released at a later time, though it was later confirmed that the album had barely began production before the project was shut down.[3]
Sudden activity in 2021[]
After the channel was dormant for over nine years, it would briefly become active again in an effort to restore some of YFM's old music videos which had previously been taken down. On October 31, 2021, the channel began reuploading deleted videos and other content in HD, including original music and YFMTS. The restoration process was conducted between October and December 2021.
However, the channel claimed that there were no immediate plans for YFM to actually return, and since the channel restoration was finished, it had again gone inactive.
Return and recent endeavors[]
On May 14, 2022, the YFM channel changed their icon and banner to say "June 1". One day later, in one of Ray Johnson's new YouTube shorts, he announced that Your Favorite Martian would be coming back after almost 10 years.[4] On the same day, the name of YFM channel was also changed to "THIS PROJECT IS REBORN".
Ray said that Maker Studios (which had gone defunct years prior), and its successor, the Disney Digital Network, no longer had control over YFM and he had become the sole owner of the property.[5] He also revealed new character designs for the fictional band members.[6] Your Favorite Martian's comeback animated music video was set to be released on June 1, but was released a day early, on May 31, 2022. The video's upload officially marked the return of Your Favorite Martian, after almost a decade of silence.
In November 2022, Ray announced the addition of Stefan Johnson to YFM's lineup, with the latter becoming the new voice of DeeJay in the group's videos.[7]
The fictional band members
Members and characters[]
Band members[]
Real members[]
- Ray William Johnson - Creator and frontman of the band. He is a writer and the lead vocalist in many of the band's songs. He is the voice of Puff Puff Humbert.
- Jesse Cale - Writer and vocalist in the band's songs. He is the voice of Benatar.
- Stefan Johnson - Vocalist in the band's songs. He is the voice of DeeJay.
Fictional members[]
- Olive Clay - We don’t have any information about Olive, If in any information we’ll update the section about Olive.
- Puff Puff Humbert - The lead vocalist. He has also been seen on occasion playing the piano. He is seen with a red hoodie, white basketball shoes, and blue jeans. He is voiced by Ray William Johnson.
- DeeJay Johnson[8] - A DJ and occasional vocalist wearing a light blue track jacket and light blue sweatpants. He is currently voiced by Stefan Johnson, and has formerly been voiced by numerous people, including Ray.[8]
- Benatar - Vocalist, keytarist, guitarist and pianist for the band. He has blond hair and wears a blue suit with black jeans. He is usually voiced by Jesse Cale in the group's music videos, and was voiced by Ray in YFMTS.
- Axel Chains - Drummer for the band. He wears a grey shirt with a skull on it and black jeans. He normally does not sing in the group's music videos, but provided clear vocals for the first time in "Telescope" (2023), where he was voiced by Christian Erik.[9] He was also voiced by Steve Greene in YFMTS.
Guest members[]
The following are real people who have been featured to sing in Your Favorite Martian songs.
- Wax - Featured in the "Orphan Tears" trilogy, as well as "Stalkin' Your Mom", "Uno Reverse", "Eff This Job", "This Is Why I'm Single", "Rich People", and "Everyone Clapped". He wears black jeans and a white snow leopard coat. He has become a common guest in YFM's Generation 2 songs.
- DeStorm Power - Featured in "Fight to Win". He wears a backwards baseball cap, a white shirt, and blue jeans.
- Hoodie Allen - Featured in "8-bit World". He wears a tight white and brown abstract t-shirt and blue jeans
- Nice Peter - Featured in "Whip Your Kids". He wears a pale blue shirt with a orange smiley face and grayish green pants.
- Mike Posner - Featured in "She Looks Like Sex". He is the original singer of the song.
- Dumbfoundead - Featured in "White Boy Wasted". He wears a green beanie and has a tattoo on his right arm.
- Kelly Farrell - Featured in "Orphan Tears" (parts 2 and 3), as well as "Brain Rave" and "Telescope", under the name Stevi the Demon. Her character is a purple demon with horns and purple hair, who wears a white T-shirt and jeans. Outside of YFM, she is Ray's wife.
- Shuba - Featured in "This Is Why I'm Single". She wears a pink shirt and jeans.
- Billy Marchiafava - Featured in "Damn I'm Ugly". He wears a yellow jacket over a brown T-shirt, white shorts and sunglasses.
Background characters[]
The following are miscellaneous animated characters that have made small appearances in the band's music videos.
- Corona - Appears in "Bottles of Beer." In "Bottles of Beer," Puff has a crush on her and gets to touch her breast. She is also Mexican.
- Mr. Douchebag - Appears in "Mr. Douchebag", "Friend Zone.", "Just a Friend" and "Boom Headshot." The song "Mr. Douchebag" is about him, and all of his faults. In "Friend Zone," he is dating the girl that Benatar is in the friend zone with. The song "Just a Friend" is partly about him. In YFMTS, he's shown to be compassionate, smart, and friendly, even going as far as helping the band. He also appears as a cameo as one of Puff's thoughts in "Brain Rave", and returned again in "iamverybadazz"
- Grandma - Appears in "Grandma Got a Facebook." The song describes Grandma's addiction to Facebook and her online antics. She has also been featured on YFMTS, being shown as Puff Puff's grandma. She also appears in the video, "Verified", "Date Myself", and "iamverybadazz"
- Tig - Appears in "Tig Ol' Bitties" and "My Balls (rock cover)". Tig is a ginger girl/woman (Depending on the video), with big breasts (In the video "Tig Ol' Bitties" they are fake but in "My Balls (rock cover)" they are presumed real), always wearing a white shirt and green skirt. In the video "Tig Ol' Bitties" Puff sings a song about her boobs(Which turn out to be fake/tissues). In the song "My Balls (rock cover)" Puff is trying to get back together with Tig and he sings her the song "My Balls" (With a rock cover). She also makes appearances in "Verified", "Uno Reverse", "Brain Rave", "Gentleman's Ballad", "Everyone Clapped", and "Date Myself"
- Wilton - Appears in "Nerd Rage" and "Take Over The World." The song "Nerd Rage" is sung primarily by him (voiced by Ray William Johnson) and describes the stereotypical "nerdy" things that seem to infuriate him. He also appears in "Just a Friend," "Fight For Your Right," "Boom Headshot", and "Road Rage."
- Shitty G - First appears in "Shitty G", a song about him and how he lives his life. He also appears in Bartender Song and "Boom Headshot" and has been completely redesigned. He also appears in "Alien (Unplugged) " and "Uno Reverse".
- Bully - Appears in "Alien", where he's frequently seen bullying the Alien. His appearance can be found in their last music video: "Boom Headshot."
Series[]
- Your Favorite Martian: The Series (December 2, 2011 - April 18, 2012)
Trivia[]
- On the Yourfavoritemartian YouTube page, Benatar is seen with a black keytar. However, in most music videos, his keytar is red.
- In "Tig Ol' Bitties," you can see all of the band members as teenagers except for Axel Chains (drummer), suggesting that he met the rest of the band after high school, in which they had already known each other.
- The lead vocalist, PuffPuff Humbert, contrary to popular belief, is not meant to be Ray William Johnson, as Johnson has explicitly stated.
- Your Favorite Martian's name is derived from the 1960s television show "My Favorite Martian."
- The channel Yourfavoritemartian is Ray Johnson's first ever YouTube account, created in 2006, before Johnson's main account, which was created in May 2008.
- "Robot Bar Fight" is the only video with just PuffPuff and Axel in it.
- PuffPuff has the exact same outfit as Ray William Johnson in FAttY SPiNS.
- There is an official T-Shirt on Johnson's website that reads the heights of the band members. PuffPuff is 5'7", DeeJay (not counting the afro) is 5'8", Benatar is 6'0" and Axel is 6'2".
- In the series by Animonster (YFMTS), Axel talks. However, in the music videos, he never sang until Telescope
- Some songs include characters from other media. These include various film, TV and video game robots in "Robot Bar Fight", various villains in "Club Villain", video game characters in "8-Bit World" and some odd appearances featuring the Smurfs and Care Bears in "Orphan Tears" and Star Wars and Family Guy references in "Take Over The World".
- Sometime in 2015, 6 videos were removed from the channel for “violating YouTube’s Terms Of Service.” Many of them have been reuploaded, either on the main channel, or through fan released mirror videos.
- PuffPuff is the only character whose hair didn't cover his eyes for a long time. Dee Jay and Benatar have shown their eyes before, but only rarely and Axel never shows his eyes. This changed in Generation 2, when all band members were redesigned to show their eyes
- Twelve songs have either been removed or become unavailable on the main channel. These songs are Puppet Break-Up, Epileptic Techno, Dookie Fresh, My Balls, The Jump Around Cover and more. All of these songs have been reuploaded on the main channel.
- Sometime in 2017, the Jump Around cover was significantly removed from the channel. It has been found out that it has been copyright claimed by Warner Music Group. It is unknown why this happened. It was later found on an adult website
- Jesse Cale first voiced Benatar in the video "FIGHT TO WIN".
- LadyBug Animation Studio created the original music videos before YFM was bought by Maker Studios.
- YourFavoriteMartian only preformed live once at the Funny Bone club where Ray William Johnson and Jesse Cale preformed the unplugged version of ALIEN.
Channel milestones[]
Subscriber milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: May 31, 2011
- 2 million subscribers: November 16, 2012
- 3 million subscribers: January 8, 2023
Video view milestones[]
- 1 million video views: January 27, 2011
- 10 million video views: March 12, 2011
- 100 million video views: June 5, 2011
- 500 million video views: June 11, 2022
References[]
- ↑ The Truth About Meme Rap... — Your Favorite Martian (YouTube). 29 Nov 2022
- ↑ Internet Archive: be patient — Yourfavoritemartian (YouTube). 30 Jun 2010
- ↑ Community post by Your Favorite Martian: "We definitely tried but we didn't make it to the finish line" 17 May 2022
- ↑ I have big news… — Ray William Johnson (YouTube). 15 May 2022
- ↑ Community post by Your Favorite Martian: "No Maker. No Mickey Mouse. We’ll see you June 1st." 23 May 2022
- ↑ Your Favorite Martian has a new look… — Ray William Johnson (YouTube). 25 May 2022
- ↑ Big announcement today — Ray William Johnson (YouTube). 2 Nov 2022
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8 Things you didn’t know about DeeJay — Your Favorite Martian (YouTube). 2 Aug 2023
- ↑ Telescope by Your Favorite Martian - IMDb