The Visual Narrative in Twenty One Pilots’ Storytelling
by Mars Dalys
It might seem paradoxical to talk about the visual aspect of a band’s music, but if Twenty One Pilots are famous for one thing, it’s being an exception to the norm. Since its creation in 2009 by Tyler Joseph, the band went from making shows for an Ohio-sized fanbase to selling out stadiums in mere minutes all over the world. With hits like “Stressed Out,” “Ride,” and “Heathens” having billions of streams, there is a good chance everyone has heard at least one of their songs.
The two-piece band is composed of Tyler Joseph, who sings and plays the piano and the guitar among others, and Josh Dun, who is the drummer and trumpetist. Even if their music often gets summed up as alternative rock, pinpointing a single genre would be an impossible task as they are well known for mixing sounds from pop, rap, rock, electro, and even reggae.
But besides their style, the most unusual aspect of their art is the story they have built from 2015 to 2025. For a decade, Twenty One Pilots have been telling us about Clancy, a citizen of the fictional city of Dema. This city is ruled by nine Bishops who use the autocratic religion of Vialism to control the population and trap them in their gray and soulless world. Over the years, Clancy tries to escape many times, helped by a group of rebels called the Banditos, but the head Bishop always tracks him down to imprison him again. This cyclical story serves as a metaphor for mental illness, a heavy theme in the duo’s songs.
To tell this story over the course of their albums, Twenty One Pilots used more than music and lyrics. The starting point was when a mysterious website appeared between the release of their albums Blurryface (2015) and Trench (2019): dmaorg.info, featuring letters, maps, GIFs, and more. Piece by piece, fans learned about Clancy and his life inside Dema, puzzling over what it meant.
The website was just the beginning of something bigger, and the band’s unusual way of storytelling would take many shapes. In this way, Twenty One Pilots are more than a band, they are a whole ARG (Alternate Reality Game): an interactive puzzle in the real world that fans have to solve to progress through the story arcs. This transmedia approach has involved Twitter, accounts of the characters, shirts worn during shows with codes to crack, USB folders to download, phone numbers to call . . . Recently, letters have even been sent to fans, signed by the Bishops.
One of Clancy’s letters on dmaorg.info
One of the most complex puzzles was for the release of their song “Level of Concern” in 2020. In June, a livestream showed cryptic images hinting at hidden codes. Once found and used on their website, each code would lead to 20 folders to download, with images and audio messages inside. It led to a big treasure hunt with fans scrambling to find them. For example, one of the codes was found by piecing back together three sets of numbers and letters, dispersed on secret accounts on Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter. Another one was found in a previous downloaded folder by zooming in closely on certain spots of an image. Some others were found using Morse code or Hellschreiber, an older system.
All this to say that a lot of the band’s identity has to do with riddles, and part of the fun as a fan was to try to solve them and come up with personal theories. Now, the storyline has come to an end with the release of their latest album Breach in September 2025, stopping the enigmas and offering a well-deserved break to the duo. When he looks back on previous years, Tyler Joseph often says that Twenty One Pilots was as much made by the fans as by Josh Dun and himself, and he thanks them for their involvement in the story. The relationship between the band and the fans is one of mutual enrichment and thinking, with each side pushing the other to ponder and create in a circle of expressiveness.
The complex storytelling of Twenty One Pilots is also impactful due to the great importance they give to imagery. The visuals they use in their music videos work with the lyrics to convey messages and bring a unique atmosphere, distinctively theirs. For their album Clancy (2024), Tyler and Josh released a video for each song, proving once more how important visual storytelling is to them. Among those, some are less related to the lore (“Lavish” and “Midwest Indigo”), while others are impressive cinematographic recreations of their world (“Overcompensate” and “Paladin Strait”) that could easily have been a whole film. In those music videos, the characters from the letters are brought to life, either by Tyler and Josh who respectively embody Clancy and the Torchbearer, the leader of the Banditos, or by actors for the other roles like the Bishops. To get an extensive understanding of the story, the easiest (and most fun) way to start would be to watch the videos, starting with these.
Clancy and the Torchbearer, in the music video “Paladin Strait”
Their most recent music video, “City Walls” off of their latest album Breach (2025), used its $1 million production budget and nearly 10-minute run time to bring the series to an end. After an epic battle between Clancy and his biggest enemy, the head Bishop, we are faced with an emotional ending that left most fans misty-eyed. The video has the qualities we would expect of a movie: flawless camera work, stunning costumes and visual effects, and well-mastered choreography.
It isn’t surprising as Twenty One Pilots had already proven their competence in the cinematographic domain with the Livestream Experience in 2021. This one-hour livestream featured music from their album Scaled and Icy (2021). Performed on a fictional TV show called “Good Day Dema” and hosted by two Bishops, the experience pushed the audience’s immersion even further by framing the whole show as propaganda, and letting Clancy fall into the Bishops’ claws. Other than being a clever story building tool, the livestream was also an impressive demonstration of Twenty One Pilots’ choreographies and settings. Switching seamlessly from scene to scene, Tyler and Josh gave each song a different set, outfit, and atmosphere. The livestream was then adapted to fit the big screen, in what became the Cinema Experience. Just like that, Twenty One Pilots debuted their life in theaters. Screened in over 1,500 theaters across 60 countries, the film was a hybrid between a movie and a live theater performance. With 24 songs performed either whole or as mashups, this experience was as much an ambitious promotional operation for Scaled and Icy as it was a love letter to the fans.
“Trees” performed during the Livestream Experience
This kind of intense exigence in Tyler and Josh’s work is also remarkable in their stage presence. During the Clancy Tour—which took place from August 2024 to May 2025—the scenography of each show was designed to bring the story to life. With carefully crafted visualizers on screens and even a recreation of Dema’s concrete tower, the audience was transported right into Twenty One Pilots’ universe. During certain songs, Tyler and Josh also got in character to perform as Clancy and the Torchbearer: wearing their costumes, putting on masks, and carrying torches. At some point during the show, the Torchbearer gives Clancy a jacket and they watch Dema burn. At another point, Clancy seems to teleport from the stage to the back of the stadium. The shows truly become extensions of the story.
The Torchbearer watching Dema burn, jacket in hand, at a show during the Clancy Tour
In the scenography, everything is calculated to put on a real show, and between the flaming pyrotechnics and flashing visuals in the background, we forget that it’s just two men on stage. Additionally, their creativity doesn’t limit itself to the inside of the stadiums. At their shows, for an additional prize, fans had access to the Fan Premiere Exhibit, a mini museum retracing the band’s history. There, visitors could find outfits and music instruments, but also the Bandito’s tent and other lore-related content. Towards the end of the tour, when new letters were found they were added as new elements to the story.
During shows, fans come dressed for the occasion in skeleton suits, yellow and red tape, and even their own masks. Most of it is handmade, a tribute to the band. It highlights a last aspect that proves the visual importance of Twenty One Pilots—the aesthetics. Each album has its own color code: red tape for Clancy, yellow for Trench, red beanie for Blurryface, and cat-ears mask for Breach. The band’s logo also changes along with the eras, marking them even more in time. Each era’s recurring motives and codes mean we could date a picture of their shows just by looking at it. It not only reflects Clancy’s journey and the different places he finds himself throughout the story, but also the fans’ journeys who grew up alongside the group, too.
Fans at a concert during the Breach Tour
All in all, Twenty One Pilots is about more than music. The mysteries and enigmas, but also companionship and creativity, are motivation to push one’s limits. To experience the band as a whole, listening to the albums might not be enough. Watch the music videos, connect with other fans, and try to decipher the hidden meaning in everything, and you’ll come away with an incredible audiovisual experience. Halfway between music, cinema, and their own category, Twenty One Pilots is a one-of-a-kind band that we can’t help but want to explore.