Warning: The following article contains mentions of self-harm. Please proceed with caution.
2023 has been a rough year for Marvel fans. It started terribly with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, our summer was ruined by the dreadful Secret Invasion, and we capped things off with The Marvels flopping so hard it broke records. Sure, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was good, but even that brief joy was tempered by knowing it was James Gunn’s MCU swansong.
But despite all this misery, with only a few days left of the calendar year, this very odd video may have lowered the tone even further.
Marvel fans are currently collectively furrowing their brow at one of the most surreal MCU fan videos we’ve ever seen, in which TikTok and YouTube star Annie Dvorak has imagined the major MCU characters reacting to discovering a fan was hurting themselves. You’ve gotta see this to believe it:
There’s a lot to unpack here. First up you may be wondering: is this a joke? Well Dvorak herself says that she’d avoided making the video as she prefers to “keep things light and fun”, but realized seeing the MCU’s heroes like this “might help someone who struggles”. At the end of the video, she breaks character to underline that this video is for “entertainment purposes only” and provides a support number for anyone in danger of committing self-harm.
Reactions have been all over the board. The TikTok comments indicate that for many viewers this was a genuinely life-affirming and emotional experience: “As someone who’s been clean for a month, this is actually really comforting”, “this healed something in me I was missing”, and “thank you for your video and your empathy”.
But the video has also been reposted on X where the response is a little more direct: “Free speech was a mistake“, “this is the weirdest and most offputting thing I’ve seen, and the succinct “might be the worst video of all time.“
All that said, even the haters can’t deny that Dvorak nailed these characters. Her Natasha, Wanda, and Peter are all top-tier, though for us it’s her scarily intense Loki that hits the highest note. Criticize the concept, but you can’t deny the talent:
This is the nexus of cringe/amazing:
Would we go this far? Maybe.
Did this video need to be made? No. Was it made well? Yes. Is it going to help anybody? Apparently!
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