UWANIMAL just wants to have fun

Meet the guy whose videos have captivated UW Twitter — and caught the attention of Kalen DeBoer.

Via UWANIMAL/YouTube

He is 29 years old, and a 2016 graduate of the University of Washington, and he lives in the Seattle area with his wife and dog, a Goldendoodle. He works for an HR software company. He tailgates with his family in the Padelford parking garage. Some of his earliest memories are of attending games at Husky Stadium.

One day last winter, his phone rang. It showed a South Dakota area code. He answered.

Washington’s head football coach wanted to tell him he loved his videos.

You don’t need to wander too deep into UW Twitter to admire the work of @UWANIMAL1, a fan whose zany highlight videos have become popular enough that Kalen DeBoer watches them. The school even showed his Boise State recap on the scoreboard before the Tulsa game. 

DeBoer told him: “We all watch them in the coaches’ offices every week.”

The UW Animal does have a name, though he’s asked not to share it here, preferring to separate his public and private lives. He said he’s not a particularly big fan of The Muppets, but chose Animal as his pseudonym to align with the frenetic, unserious nature of his videos. Animal, he said, is “always sort of psychotic, but fun. He kind of embodies the videos, I think. They’re a little crazy. They’re not supposed to be taken too seriously.”

For example: last week’s production began with the famous alien-glimpse scene from the 2002 movie “Signs.” A Michigan State logo is superimposed over Joaquin Phoenix’s character as he watches the news. When the frightening creature strides across the frame, Michael Penix Jr.’s face is photoshopped over its head. Penix, he figured, “is like the bogeyman for these guys,” based on his career history against the Spartans.

You know the alien bit is coming, but it’s still funny, in part because of the imperfect quality of the editing. That’s sort of the point; the creator says he has no real background in video. “By no means am I trying to make them good,” he said. “They’re supposed to be sort of low-tech and kind of goofy. I’m just trying to do what I can and make people laugh with them.”

He decided to make his first video — a spoof on The Incredibles, based on the 2019 Apple Cup — because the Twitter landscape was beginning to feel a little toxic.

“There’s a lot of negativity or things that aren’t so fun on Twitter sometimes,” he said. “You know what? It’s college football. It’s supposed to be fun.”

He posted it on Reddit, but deleted it after ten minutes passed and nobody interacted. Then someone messaged him: “Did you just delete that video? That was really funny.”

His post-Arizona video in 2020 has 360 likes and 92 reposts. It was around then, he said, when he felt like he might really be able to establish a following. He had plans to do more in 2021, but scaled back as the Huskies cratered and finished 4-8. Last season, though, presented new opportunity to let loose and find an audience. Sure enough, his recap of Washington’s home victory over Michigan State — featuring clips from Star Wars, Oprah, A Star is Born and the Wolf of Wall Street — garnered nearly 2,000 likes.

This year’s Michigan State recap included visuals from Independence Day, Obey, 30 Rock, Tyler the Creator, Breaking Bad and Arrival. Mötley Crüe and Simon and Garfunkel supplied the soundtrack. Sometimes, the references are more niche, like last year’s “University Polkswagon” plug in his video after the Oregon game.

He cuts everything together using Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premier. He started by downloading a free trial and playing around, then spent more time learning the ins and outs during the pandemic. Sunday through Tuesday, when he’s not working his day job, “we’re working pretty hard on these.” He estimates spending 15 to 25 hours on each video, from pulling movie clips to adding sound effects.

“I wish I could say I got these together in a couple hours,” he said, “but it’s quite a bit of time.”

The videos offer an entertaining juxtaposition to the professional, cinematic projects disseminated by UW’s official social-media accounts. The school has been “really cool” about supporting Mr. Animal’s work, he said. Will Gulley, UW’s associate athletic director for content strategy, reached out earlier this season to ask if they could show his Boise State video on the scoreboard. He was in the stadium when it played, and describes the moment as “sort of like a culmination of everything so far.” The official Twitter account for UW football also shared his post-Michigan State video.

DeBoer called him last year after watching his postseason recap. They spoke for maybe 20 minutes, about football and his background as a UW fan. “It was cool,” he said. “It was a really down-to-earth conversation.”

The coach, by the way, knows his real name.

— Christian Caple, On Montlake