The jarring aesthetics of some entries in the genre recall late 2017’s Elsagate imbroglio, when YouTube was overrun with disturbing and sexual videos of children’s characters like Spiderman and Elsa from iFrozen.

“The characters are so jagged and sharp, they look almost designed to be villainous,” said Matt Schimkowitz, an associate editor at Know Your Meme. The particular style of low-budget Johnny Johnny video is driven by the economics of the YouTube nursery rhyme business, which relies on flooding the site with videos while minimizing animation costs. “The faster you can get them up, the more you can get them up, the more these ear-worms will entice and keep kids coming back for more,” said Schimkowitz. The rush to innovate on what would at first appear to be a very simple formula has also created some disturbing twists on the Johnny scenario. In one Johnny Johnny video, the Johnny role is played by an anthropomorphic refrigerator who lies about the kind of treats he contains.

Eventually, he confesses, and the family eats food directly out of him.