Five Nights at Freddy’s, the movie based on spooky video games about possessed animatronics, is out today, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an in-depth, accessible explanation of the series’ deeply complex lore. The Game Theorists’ YouTube channel, created by MatPat, is one place fans have turned to to get a full education.
“I do love the MatPat videos. Five Nights at Freddy’s, big fan of them,†says Toby “Tubbo†Smith, a 19-year-old Minecraft Twitch streamer. “I’m more mainly into storytelling. Like, if FNAF was a series of YouTube videos, I probably would enjoy it a lot more than playing as a game. I’m really big into storytelling. It’s why I do a lot of Minecraft.â€
Smith’s response is indicative of a larger pattern within the fandom, which is filled with people who love the game even though they’ve never played it. The Five Nights at Freddy’s series’ popularity goes hand in hand with the rise of content creators and streamers promoting its stories. The creepy series, filled with jump-scares, was the perfect content to stream to viewers, whether they are fans of the horror genre or not, as some people prefer to watch others play these games rather than experience them themselves. Playing — or watching — together shields them from having to experience the jump-scares alone. And for some, cheering for their favorite creators to burst into blood-curdling shrieks is part of the fun.
“I​​ know plenty of people will watch a stream who would typically never play these games themselves. But it is fun to watch that experience somebody else goes through,†says Twitch streamer Ryann Weller. “Not only do you have people who watch who aren’t interested in horror, but you’ll have people on the opposite side where they wouldn’t play it themselves.â€
Over on YouTube, Mark “Markiplier†Fischbach was one of the main creators to bring Five Nights at Freddy’s to mass recognition. He played the game in a 2014 Let’s Play video that accumulated 114 million views. His name and Five Nights at Freddy’s have grown so synonymous that he was invited to be part of the film. He told his viewers during an October 16 stream that he had to turn down the invite due to a scheduling conflict, because he is filming his own horror-movie adaptation of a video game, Iron Lung.
Tubbo credits Markiplier as the reason he first heard about Five Nights at Freddy’s. He was also influenced by several of his friends, top streamers as well, being interested in the series and caught up on the lore.
“On Twitch, Five Nights at Freddy’s has had a trajectory driven less by hard-core fans and more by top variety streamers who only dabbled in it for several hours,†says Or Perry, co-founder of livestreaming services provider StreamElements. “This speaks to the power that top creators have to move the needle for any genre game they decide to play for their fans.â€
For example, when Tubbo streamed FNAF for a few hours on Twitch in 2021, he generated about 273,000 hours watched for the game in collective views. The game series peaked at 2.8 million hours watched, a unit of measure that analysts use to track how well a series is performing. Tubbo was surprised when Vulture told him that he was one of the game’s top streamers in 2021.
“I started playing Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach because one of my mates, Aimee or Aimsey on Twitch, got really into it and was explaining the story to me,†explains Smith. “I’m like, I’ll stream it. Turns out it’s really quite scary. I’m not really the biggest fan of horror games. Yeah, it was like I pressured myself into doing it.â€
Despite its success on streaming platforms, in some ways Five Nights at Freddy’s is still quite niche. It mirrors how horror films are treated in Hollywood, according to Jason Blum, speaking to IGN in June, who said, “People who make horror movies are still ostracized a bit,†and that he was made fun of for pursuing this film. One Twitch streamer we approached for this story grimaced, while her video producer burst out laughing when asked if she played the games. Finding those who embraced the title while at the streamer convention TwitchCon, which was held in Las Vegas this year, took a fair amount of sleuthing.
“I live for that genre. I freaking love spooky, which is funny because I love it so much. But I do still get scared, and when I play, I play with a heart-rate monitor onscreen, so my chat can see how flippin’ scared I get,†says Twitch streamer Kate “helloiamkate†Sisto, who adds that her birthday was in October. “I want to say my highest heart rate that I got for a jump-scare, I think I was playing Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, it was like 142. My heart rate frickin’ spiked up because of the jump-scares.â€
Sisto initially thought the game would be for “teenyboppers†and was too cutesy, but she was convinced by her Twitch chat to give the series a fair chance.
For Weller, a game developer turned Twitch streamer, his audience likes to see him squirm, so even though he doesn’t enjoy jump-scares, that’s part of the fun for viewers.
“I told my community, we hit certain goals, I’ll play these freaking games on there, and they were like, ‘Oh, well, bet.’ So I have now to date played every single Five Nights at Freddy’s game, including the VR crap and the AR stuff. And so it’s been helpful to the channel, but you know, sleeping and that kind of stuff, not so much,†says Weller.
As for Tubbo, he says he’ll return to streaming Five Nights at Freddy’s only by popular demand.
“Maybe if someone tweets something out and everyone likes it, like ‘Yes!’ Then I’m like, ‘Well, fuck, I guess I’ve got to now,†he says with a laugh.