Marvel at Two Youtube Comedians' Painfully Unfunny Attempts at Taking Down Nightclub Stereotypes

YouTube, eh? Love it. Absolutely love it. There I was, flitting between some absolutely hilarious John Oliver clips—the man is a total hoot, and he knows his politics to boot!—and some absolutely hilarious clips of women hurting themselves, and I was having an absolute whale of a time. "This is great fun," I said outloud to myself, "but I would love some hilarious video content that roasted nightclubs and the kind of people who go clubbing."

At that exact moment, Pierre Bants arrived in my life, and wow, those boys sure do know how to elicit a few laughs from that old thing we call going out! As I sat and watched their seminal work of art, The 5 (WORST) types of people in a nightclub, I laughed so hard that I literally bust a gut, rolled on the floor, and pissed myself. It was that accurate, that cutting, that perfectly done, that even while I was rolling on the floor in a puddle of my own piss, holding my now burst stomach together, I was still giggling.

Not really! I fooled you there, didn't I? Surprisingly, a video about clubbing stereotypes presented by two blokes who look like they voluntarily drink bottles of beer in pubs isn't very good. But it's more than just 'not good' because 'not good' doesn't really mean a great deal. This video is strangle hateful. It is cheap and tacky and visually repugnant and our hosts, Dan and Gabriel, display quite strange attitudes towards…well, everything really. Watch below.

Now, that wasn't very funny, was it? This is the problem with this kind of humour. YouTubers often strive for a kind of observational relatability that's meant to have us screaming, "YES, GOD YES, THAT'S EXACTLY HOW LIFE IS," at our phones when we're on the bus. The reason for this, presumably, is that the more people who scream "YES, GOD YES, THAT'S EXACTLY HOW LIFE IS," at a video, the more money the YouTubers in question will earn, because, the theory goes, all we really want out of life is for other people to confirm that life is how we think it is. The thing is, though, observational comedy is either so observationally accurate that it becomes someone telling you things that are literally statements of fact, or, it presents a performative kind observation, where reality is subsumed by a maddening desire to make people laugh by talking about something that's sort of slightly maybe a tad like life is.

There's also, in this specific case, the problem of banter. Now, the world doesn't need another writer weighing in on the pros and cons of banter, and what banter actually means in 2016, and what cycle of irony we're in when we talk about banter, because at the end of the of the day, banter is banter and if you don't understand banter then banter isn't for you. This, though, is bad banter. Rancid banter. Squalid banter. Banter which has mistaken signalling itself as banter for actually being banter. This is anti-banter.

Now, here at THUMP, we're not adverse to cataloguing experience and presenting it to you as the fearless work of club-culture anthropologists, sociologists of the smoking area. We've detailed the five stages of your clubbing life, the dance moves you attempt to pull off every weekend, and every conversation you've ever had when you're fucked. Which means we think we're able to determine whether or not the stereotypes that Dan and Gabriel chunter on about have any basis in reality. Here's what we thought of them.

To prove that they aren't fucking about and that this video is a hard hitting examination of everything bad about people who go clubbing, the lads start strong, by essentially indicting all men who have ever been to a club. "You walk into a club and there's guys who want to have a good time," Dan says, "And they don't mind making a fool of themselves. Then there's the other type of guy. In their mind they think they're real cool…" He never really makes an actual point, other than that these other type of guys pull strange faces, which apparently sets them apart from his preferred type of guy. Dan, Gabriel, just a little advice for you….stay woke and never forget #Notallmen!

Not content with outing themselves as misandrist, the Beavis and Butthead of British YouTube based banter decide to take a swipe at another huge target: women! Bloody women in clubs! Grr! "The one that pisses me off is when girls come to the club saying they don't want any attention," Gabriel says. He then expands this point, arguing that the girls who say they don't really want attention actually do want attention only they're giving their attention to someone else rather than him—which might be because they have total agency to do whatever they want in a club and don't at any point need to state who will and won't receive 'attention' or what shape said attention will take. Or it might just be because Dan and Gabriel look like they spend most of their nights out whispering to each other about the fit birds who totally can't stop looking at them mate, but don't ever do anything about it.

You've got to start broad in the observational humour game and then specialize, delving into narrower observational holes, getting really into the nitty gritty of your chosen area. They've slammed men and taken down women, so naturally the next stereotype they want to mention, but not really say anything about is, as Dan eloquently puts it, "the-guy-like-everyone's-dancing-like-having-a-good-time-on-the-dancefloor-and-some-guy-you-don't-know-decides-to-rock-into-the-middle-of-your-crew-and-rock-some-outrageous-dance-moves!" We all know a guy like that don't we? There's always one lone wolf, hepped up on goofballs looking for a good time while you and your guys—guys who are the good guys and not the guys who pull the funny faces that got slated above—are trying to enjoy yourselves without needing some dry-dick rando piling in and doing the worm! Christ man, those awful women are already not paying us any attention and you're just making it worse!

Bloody bouncers! That's the thing about bouncers, they all, apparently, think they're Rambo! I've always thought that! I've always queued for a club and been polite and respectful and got in the door successfully and then turned round and shouted, "Oi, Rambo, who do you think you are….Rambo?" and the bouncer normally takes it in good faith. Except for the one who thought I was calling him Rimbaud. Things got very sour very, very, very quickly, let me tell you that. Anyway, what really grinds Dan's gears about bouncers is when they ask him to step off the pavement at the end of a night, which is a very relatable scenario that most of us can relate to immediately. Bouncers, Rambo, Rimbaud, pavements: this is the Great British night out and we love it, annoying stereotypes and all! Dan also reckons that the only thing worse than a fat bouncer is a short bouncer. Women! Men! Dancing men! Fat men! Short men! Who WON'T these guys savage in the name of succulent banter.

The photo above demonstrates Dan and Gabriel doing an impression of another famous stereotype: people who go to a club and wave to no one in particular/beat themselves on the chest for no reason in particular.

What I love best about Dan and Gabriel is that these guys go in. They're fearless. "This one is a personal pet hate for me," Gabriel says. "These dudes come into the flipping club wearing their new Yeezys or Air Forces or whatever they're wearing and get pissed because there's someone walking, people walking, people dancing in a club….of course your feet are in danger!" Thank you, Gabriel, angel Gabriel, for making me think about my feet being in danger in the club. Thank you. Incidentally, it's around this point in the video where the will to live finally left me. I am writing this from the afterlife. Join me. It's nice down here.

Find Josh in hell and on Twitter