“I Can’t Sleep” Review
A Terrifying Hidden Gem In YouTube’s Depths
What makes YouTube such a good platform for horror content is the sheer amount of it that’s there.
Anyone with a microphone or animation and editing skills can tell a captivating horror story, and there is indeed a plethora of terrifying content to consume there. I know that I, myself, have binged hours and hours of horror-related content from murder mysteries, classic ghost stories, obscure hidden horror gems, horror book and film reviews, and more. If it talks about ghosts, monsters, conspiracies, or anything else, I’ve more than likely watched a lot of it on a weekend with a large mug of coffee and some snacks.
Yet my favorite style of YouTube horror content has always revolved around original projects. I enjoy reading creepypasta and listening to a narrator weave dark webs and tales of woe, or hearing about true crimes that leave me shivering in the dark, glad that I’m capable of defending myself against a crazed attacker (people are often more terrifying than ghosts, I’ve said).
But there’s something about original content that delights me. It tells me that I’m not alone in wanting to tell dark tales and scare people late at night. Films, from realistic to animations, all draw me in the moment I see them, no matter how well-animated or written they are. They can be top of the line, or a dingy few sketches with scratchy music – if it’s there, I’ll more than likely watch it with fervent interest.
So, imagine my surprise when I found a new channel with crunchy, jagged art, jilted, jittery animation, barely any sound, and videos so short they’re blink-and-you-miss. It looks like it belongs in the era of the internet twenty years ago. Imagine my surprise even more when I checked it out and found that I liked it, despite there being no coherent story and hardly any sound or dialogue. I also discovered that there’s a growing number of people who are just as interested in it as I am.
I’m talking about a small horror animation channel called “I Can’t Sleep“.
What makes “I Can’t Sleep” such an interesting animation channel is primarily the way it looks, as I briefly mentioned above. Most of the time, other artists choose a style that works well with animation, perfecting it to make it more fluid, energetic, and full of life. Look at modern projects like Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel, The Amazing Digital Circus, and other animators on the platform who hone their craft.
Yet “I Can’t Sleep” isn’t as polished, but that tends to work in its favor. It has a sort of creepy, nostalgic appearance that almost seems like an early Jhonen Vasquez meets Edward Gorey’s “The Gashlycrumb Tinies“. The animation style is also reminiscent of early Newgrounds Flash animations from the mid-2000s, characterized by edgy, thick, sharp lines and limited animation at around 30fps. Plus, it doesn’t help that the creator intentionally uploads the videos at 360p, which limits their video clarity and hides details so as to force second or even third watches.
If you’ve ever watched the early days of YouTube or Newgrounds, then these animations will probably feel right at home, and maybe even make you want to go and visit Hot Topic for something black and spiky to wear. They’re evocative of a time that was once quite prevalent in the early days of internet culture, but has since disappeared.
If that sounds interesting enough for you to check out, you’re probably wondering what the animations are even about, or if there’s an ongoing story.
Well, with that, I have to say… no.
See. Most of the videos posted by NoSleep666 (more on the creator below) are extremely short and don’t really follow any coherent story. Most of them are under a minute long, with only a few that are two minutes long, and one that’s 10 minutes long – but the 10-minute one is just an animation loop for its entire duration.
Instead, the videos are predominantly silent, with sound effects occasionally added in after a certain point. Only a couple of videos feature any music. Mostly, they’re silent, with the unnamed protagonist doing something—either sitting on a subway, in her room, waking up, etc.—before something horrendous happens to them. Usually, it results in their death or mutilation in some way.
That’s the crux of the videos. The protagonist ends up killed or horrifically injured in some way.
However, it’s more than just the edgy content of watching the character suffer that makes “I Can’t Sleep” compelling. While yes, it is unnerving to see an innocent girl repeatedly harmed over and over again, it’s hardly done in a gratuitous fashion that revels in it or treats it as entertainment. Instead, every time it happens, it’s supposed to invoke feelings of unease, dread, and even downright horror.
It also helps that many of the videos are metaphorical, with the character symbolically suffering rather than literally. While it’s clear that NoSleep666 is a fan of Creepypastas (with seven being dedicated to them, according to their playlist), most of the videos touch upon themes of abuse, assault, parental trauma, and possible sexual trauma as well.
Please note that none of this is definitive. As I said, almost every video is, for the most part, silent, with no dialogue, and every theorized hidden meaning is just that: a theory. The creator hasn’t talked about their meanings, and likely never will.
With that said, there ARE content warnings for those who want to explore the YouTube channel for themselves. If Sexual Abuse, Self-Harm, Violence Towards Children (I’m assuming several deal with the main character being a child), and the like are not your thing, then you might want to skip this channel altogether. But if you are curious, here are a few standout videos—with links in their titles—that you might find interesting. Don’t worry about continuity or watching them out of order either, as most of the videos aren’t tied together unless stated in the title, and all of them are allegorical.
“They’re Coming” – The first video with sound applied, but at the end. The animation is unusually smooth in this one, possibly because it was sped up to 60 fps instead of the usual 30 fps these videos are typically at.
“He’s Here” – This video’s thumbnail is mildly sexually explicit, though nothing sexual happens in the video itself. An early example of NoSleep666’s type of short-form storytelling when it comes to sexual horrors.
“I CAN’T SLEEP” – Named after the channel. In this, the main character can’t sleep, not because they’re unable, but because every time they do, they see an enigmatic figure that haunts them getting closer and closer. This video was animated exceptionally well, showcasing a technical skill that isn’t present in the other videos, which demonstrates that the limited animations and low resolution are deliberate design choices rather than skill constraints.
Were there some duds? As of this writing, there are 84 short-form videos, so I personally did not like a few of them. I’ll mention them below in case you’re curious and want to see for yourself.
“Punishment” – This one was a little too violent for my tastes. I love horror, and I don’t typically shy away from it, but I’m also someone who doesn’t believe that violence is inherently horrifying, and this just felt like it was meant to be violent for violence’s sake. If you watch it, there is an Extreme Content Warning as it involves impalement.
“Laugh!” – This one was just a clown trying to get the unnamed protagonist to laugh, while the background noise was an audio clip of screaming children. It wasn’t overtly scary, but it was unnerving. Some people will probably enjoy it, but I’m more dismissive, as I’m unsure how it fits with the themes “I Can’t Sleep” has already presented, aside from maybe experimenting with something different.
Surprisingly, there were a few that weren’t pure horror-based and didn’t end with the unknown character’s death or mutilation. While none of them were cute, wholesome, or subverted your expectations of what a channel like this could be about, they were a breath of fresh air.
“Oh…” – Wasn’t too scary, and was mainly about a minute of the main character smacking her cast on a table until it broke, and she wiggled her fingers. That’s it. It didn’t have any hidden meaning or interpretations. Just the main character being cute at the end.
Unfortunately, these types of videos are far and few between, as they’re not the main focus of the channel, which is alright because if someone wants sweet and wholesome with their horror, there are plenty of other horror animation projects on YouTube that cater to that. I’ll even cover some of these later on.
That begs the question, then: Who is the artist behind this project? Unfortunately, that’s not an easy question to answer because the creator deliberately hides themself, and has not offered any information regarding their identity or what they want to achieve with their animation.
All we know (so far) is that they live in Japan, their internet handle is “NoSleep666”, and that they’re female. Even that information is also circumspect. They created their YouTube channel on May 11th, 2021, and their upload schedule is inconsistent. Even their Patreon page offers little to no information, as their posts and updates are mostly just early works and links to uploaded YouTube videos. People comment on their Patreon posts, but, like their YouTube channel, they never reply to anyone directly or… at all really.
So who is this for? If you’re the type of person who lived through the edgy, gothic, Hot Topic era of the 2000s and love visceral, bloody horror, then this channel will give you something to contemplate on. “I Can’t Sleep” might be relatively short (I watched the entire catalogue of 84 videos in about 2 hours), with many videos that run less than a minute, but there is a lot to interpret and rewatch. The channel excels at not providing direct answers, forcing viewers to interpret the meanings themselves and come to their own conclusions. It’s a hard watch a lot of times, as there is a lot of implied sexual violence towards the main character, and themes of mental disorders, self-harm, self-loathing, and more, as well as gory violence abound.
So, if you enjoy uncomfortable watches, appreciate rewatching things to glean meaning and understanding, are eagle-eyed enough to spot blink-and-miss-it Easter eggs, and appreciate the aesthetics, then you’ll love this channel.
However, if you’re someone who prefers slower-paced stories, with more psychological than physical horrors, dread over being uncomfortable, and being told and shown what the horror is rather than having to interpret it yourself, then you might want to skip this. Although, given the length of the videos and the fact that a majority of them are not tied to one another, you should give a click to a video or two that look interesting and judge for yourself.
And if you do like it? There’s a growing fanbase around it on Twitter/X, Newgrounds, and other places like 4chan’s /co/ board. They produce art of the character (Named “Nia”, as in ‘Insomnia’, though that’s noncanon), fanfiction, and discuss the deeper meanings behind the videos. If you’re the sort of person who enjoys getting involved with your interests, you might find the occasional conversations fun.
Otherwise, “I Can’t Sleep” is an interesting project, and one that I’m invested in seeing where it goes from here. It’s short, it’s disturbing, and often I find myself flinching away, prepared for the jumpscare, the murder, or something else, and then I click on the next video to see what happens.
Hopefully, you’ll like it just as much. Be sure to watch it in the dark.
If that interests you, you can find “I Can’t Sleep” below at the following link, followed by their first video. Enjoy!
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/@Nosleep666
