A Brand Genius That Is Joji/Filthy Frank/Pink Guy
A Name You Need to Know
Enough with wolves or owls, Joji/Filthy Frank/Pink Guy is my ultimate spirit animal. Yes I am a millennial female with a corporate job and my spirit animal looks like this.
![](https://res.cloudinary.com/jerrick/image/upload/d_642250b563292b35f27461a7.png,f_jpg,q_auto,w_720/aq9vwcfxmmvieoshmmcy.jpg)
Before I can convince you to continue reading further, make sure to play the above video so that it can set the ambience for the article.
Okay here we go. First of all, let’s talk about who the heck is this Joji/Filthy Frank/Pink Guy.
Joji/Filthy Frank/Pink Guy are all onscreen personas created by this guy called George Miller. He is basically just a random dude who started his music career by creating mixtapes in his basement for his friends. He has some Japanese heritage and spent the first few years of his childhood in Japan—that probably explains the heavy Japanese culture reference in his work and also the absurdist humor in his Filthy Frank/Pink Guy personas. He returned to Canada/US around preteen age and grew up there.
Filthy Frank was the earliest out of the three, and it was mainly on satires, rants, pranks, music and comedy. Pink Guy was a sub-character created in the Filthy Frank days, who was more focused on the music contents on the channel. You might think you don’t know who this Pink Guy dude is, but he is actually the original creator of the Harlem shake viral meme. That was probably the first legit worldwide viral video that I can remember of. In a time where the only social media platform was Facebook and Youtube was still in its only homemade shot-on-webcam stage, it’s no mean feat to achieve.
![](https://res.cloudinary.com/jerrick/image/upload/d_642250b563292b35f27461a7.png,f_jpg,q_auto,w_720/lgby8ge6d3avnr2fv6lt.gif)
Don't pretend you have not done a Harlem shake video before.
In the meantime, the persona Joji emerged separately and this is the space where Miller makes his more serious lo-fi music, stripping away the vulgar elements and the shock comedy nature that is signature to those in Pink Guy’s. It was previously private and only shared among his friends, but a few tracks leaked out online and Miller had to publicly announce that it was his work and since he already did that, he started sharing more on Youtube under Joji. Then years later, Miller decided to stop doing Filthy Frank and Pink Guy all together and just focuses on Joji from here on.
It does sound a little confusing up till here—“why can’t he just be George Miller and do everything together”? Well, I am not sure his real reason behind this but one thing I can be sure of is that our personality is multi-dimensional, and sometimes when the dimensions differ too much from one another, it might confuse the people who can only relate to one particular side of you. So either for distinct personal branding purpose or merely laziness to explain himself, Miller chose to categorize his contents this way and it is kinda genius I would say.
As to why he quit the much loved Filthy Frank and Pink Guy videos, you can hear from Miller himself in the video below. Baseline is that he felt that after all these years, he had grown out of these characters and they no longer served his state of mind, becoming something unrelatable for him. So like how we all grew out of our hobo-hipster-too-cool-for-anything-but-really-wanted-to-be-seen-as-cool-kids era, Miller transited from Filthy Frank and Pink Guy characters into Joji, which in a way can be interpreted as closer to his real self. You know, George, Joji, Georgie.
While I had my fair share of love for Pink Guy, I have to say Joji is a more valuable musician compared to the previous two brands. The music brings you to a more real place and the melancholy is capable of making you feel like you are in the heat of your mid-life crisis even though you had barely started your quarter-life crisis.
Don't believe me? Try this.
Tell me how could fans or anyone accepts that it is the same person as this POO POO PEE PEE PENIS AND VAGINA person.
So yea if it teaches us anything, brand segregation is a must.
And also Joji is a lofi god.
About the Creator
Judy Mae
I put words on the internet.
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