The Waenderer shows a super-easy way to make an animated glitch with one text layer and one effect.

Honestly, there seem to be tons of tutorials showing how to create glitch effects in After Effects, not to mention the countless third-party tools that cater to that aesthetic. Maybe there is room for one more? Very rarely does the glitch aesthetic come with such a simple solution as they do with The Waenderer’s technique.

Easy Glitch in After Effects.

The Waenderer’s glitch has just two components. A text animation handled by After Effects’ text animators and a levels effect. That’s all. The result is through strong motion blur and aggressive crushing of the histogram in levels. Of course, you can add to the effect, and the tutorial also shows this, adding more than one effect for some extras.

How to Glitch the Wrong Way.

As an aside, The Waenderer also posted how you can make your glitch with a much more realistic premise, which also holds much higher stakes.