yugioh abridged is unironically a cultural artifact. it pretty much kicked off the whole abridging scene, yeah, and that's had crazy effects on related industries. but more importantly, it's just that. having been around for nearly two fucking decades and tending to reference then-recent memes, cultural events, and online norms means that you can use it to trace the evolution of, like, our entire fucking society over the past 18 years. it's living archaeology.
and yes that means early stuff is shitty! it was expected for comedies to casually mock gay people in 2006! hell, trans people weren't generally even acknowledged as existing, which led to running jokes about a notably feminine male character that would read as eye-searingly transphobic if made now. and it was transphobic then too, but it was more a reflection of the normalization of transphobia in comedy than an actively bigoted rhetorical choice. most of them could be easily reframed as the currently-acceptable "this character is an egg and somehow keeps failing to realize" gag with very minor adjustments. this is due to the complete lack of implied vitriol or value judgements beyond "haha that's funny."
the creator really didn't mean any harm, he just didn't understand that he was doing harm. and when he started to learn, he struggled with poe's law for a while. and then he sorted it out! and he did so at roughly the exact same pace the majority of the internet did.
and that's cool. that's expected. people learn, as individuals and in groups. and it's wild to be able to track that through a deeply unserious meme-filled parody series making fun of a shitty anime designed to sell trading cards
revisiting this after the creator cracked her egg to say 1. congrats to her and 2. this proves my point forever
