is a send up of “inspirational” memes that promote masculinity and supposed manly lessons. I wrote, animated and provided one of the voices for the project…

Memes like these appear across the internet, an extension of macho hustle culture that tout themselves as masculine life lessons for men to fulfil their lives by (eg “You lose value when you are too kind”, “Showing emotion is like bleeding next to a shark”, “No one cares, just work harder”). There’s a set group of handsome mascots who always appear, particularly Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, as well as renowned macho characters like John Wick, the Joker and particularly Tommy Shelby of Peaky Blinders.

Whilst I find them cringy, it’s a push to describe these memes as actively insidious - there’s likely some wise words featured within. The strange lack of self-awareness really felt apparent to me when I spotted one centred upon Sam Claflin’s Oswald Mosley (a character in Peaky Blinders, but the real-life founder of the British Union of Fascists.) Putting inspirational quotes next to the guy who proudly wore the moniker of “Hitler’s Man in Britain” (to the tune of rapturous Twitter engagement) felt like a slip towards fascist dystopia worth poking fun at, hence the creation of this sketch.

My initial draft pushed this “Mosley approach” by just putting motivational captions alongside some of history’s greatest monsters (other fascists, serial killers etc), much of the advice being as over-the-top edgy or silly as it is in the final thing. But in an effort to be less gauche and more affecting, the script took a pivot in to embracing ones emotions rather than forcing them down for the sake of appearing successful/cut throat/alphatastic/whatever it is these things are supposed to achieve. Cillian Murphy took centre stage in particular, considering Tommy Shelby appears to be the poster boy for the pained-yet-earnest masculinity that flows through these memes. If he ever sees this, I hope he knows I think he's an incredible performer and will not seek to eat his family unless provoked.

Featuring the voices of

Jake Alexander Pemberton, Ben Chinapen, Tom Ridgewell, Noah Adams and Oliver Robinson-Sivyer

Written, edited and animated by Jake Alexander Pemberton