When watching it though,
viewers will feel relief, thinking,
“Thank god there are jokes.”VULNERABILITY IS AT THE
CORE OF ILLYMATION
Part of what makes Illy’s anima-
tion stand out in this growing
genre is her openness within her
content. “I think what people want
right now is authenticity because I
think that’s something on YouTube
that everyone knows that’s what
they want, but they know at the
same time too that that’s not what
they’re getting... I figured stories
about yourself and, I guess for my
channel, kind of vulnerable times, I
think that’s what people want.” One
of Illy’s most popular series, in fact,
is a narrative about her experience
in an abusive relationship.
This raises the question of how
to be truly authentic and vulner-
able when sharing with a huge
audience. Ilyssa explained how
she navigates setting a boundary
while creating personal videos
about her own life. “I’m still try-
ing to figure it out because what
I’m trying to do is get deep and
personal and tackle subjects that
aren’t always fun to talk about....
If I can’t find a moral or a reason
to say, ‘This sucked, but here’s why
it’s gonna be okay,’ if I can’t find
that, there’s no use talking about
it. Otherwise, I’m just putting out
this sad time, and I’m not help-
ing the cause.” She also handles
potential breaches of privacy by
being mindful of which details are
mentioned about the people and
places she’s illustrating.She hopes that by being so genuine and honest
about her own experiences can, in turn, help others
who may be going through the same thing. “Unfor-
tunately, [abuse] is something that affects so many
people,” she said. “Me putting it out there doesn’t feel
like I’m ripping off some kind of bandaid for everyone
to infest. It just feels kind of like putting the hashtag,
Me Too. I went through this, too. It’s not saying, ‘I’m
the first person to go through this’ or ‘listen to my
story, it’s crazy, you won’t believe what happened.’ It’s
saying, ‘I know this is happening to other people and
it’s scary to talk about,’ and I’m just trying to start the
conversation is all.”ILLYMATION’S ORIGIN STORY
Even before starting a YouTube channel, Illy had
already begun pursuing her interest in animation
by majoring in it at college. “I must have been really
itching to do something for me outside of school,” she
recalls. As for why she turned to YouTube specifically,
she said, “Part of it was just trying it out to see where
it would go.”
She began by working for another well-known
animator, Alex Clark. Though that experience, she
learned the programs and videomaking process and
decided to begin some YouTube animation projectsILYSSA
AN INTERVIEW WITH ILLY OF ILLYMATION
Ilyssa connects with fans with relateable animated storytime videos like
Evil Thinkgs I Did as a Kid.