Battle for Dream Island (BFDI) is an animated series created by twin brothers Cary and Michael Huang and hosted on the YouTube channel Jacknjellify. Inspired by the TV shows Survivor and Total Drama, BFDI features living objects in an elimination-based competition to win a grand prize. Each episode features a contest, and the contestants who do the worst are put up for elimination. Then, the host closes off the episode, and the viewers in YouTube comments vote for who should leave the game. In the following episode, the votes are revealed, a contestant is eliminated, and the cycle repeats until the finale, where the viewers vote for the season's winner.
The Huang twins started the show in January 2010, when they were just 12 years old. Balancing school and BFDI, they finished the first season exactly two years later. June 2012 saw the premiere of the second season, Battle for Dream Island Again, but due to school becoming busier and busier, and due to complications with their AdSense account, only a few episodes were made before the twins put the show on hiatus for three years. In September 2016, the show was revived for a third season, IDFB, but the twins were only able to make one episode before school took over again. Season 4, Battle for BFDI, saw major improvements to the team as the twins learned how to hire workers and turn Jacknjellify into a real production company in real time as they made the season. "Pre-split BFB" lasted from November 2017 until March 2020, when creative conflicts led to BFB splitting into two separate seasons with different portions of the cast. Post-split BFB ended in April 2021, and season 5, BFDI: The Power of Two, is still running. In September 2023, the crew started a surprise continuation of season 2, aiming to close the time gap that season 3 presented, and they plan to continue season 3 once season 2 is done.
Since the middle of season 1, BFDI has inspired fans to create their own similar "object shows," forming an Internet subculture called the Object Show Community (OSC). Adam Katz, creator of popular object show Inanimate Insanity, said at a fan meetup, "A lot of people see these cartoons on TV or on the Internet, and they're like, 'That's really cool, it would be really cool if I could do that.' But they don't really give it any more thought. And when I heard about Michael and Cary being literally my age [and creating their own successful cartoon], I was like, 'Wow, that's possible!'" Some object show creators who were fans for years have ended up working for Jacknjellify themselves, and some even received temporary jobs at other animation studios, like Katz animating for the Netflix show Centaurworld, or Brawl of the Objects creator Antony Kos animating for the 2023 Total Drama revival.