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I Am A Cuck: Documentary on Tim Heidecker, Sam Hyde and the 2016 Election

Started by Retinend, October 31, 2020, 05:37:55 PM

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Retinend

I am proud to announce that my first feature film is almost* available to watch on YouTube.

TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jPy4suQN3o

FULL FILM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceKo6oWY-DI  *

*The thing goes live tomorrow at 9PM. Be there or be square, folks!









Synopsis:

"Tim Heidecker is at a crossroads in life, making a transition from TV comedy to a career as a serious musician; he decides to start a home-made call-in show so he can talk seriously to his fans; meanwhile a young upstart, reminding Heidecker's network boss a lot of Tim's younger self, gets his big break; but when his politically radical tweets inflame an all-out war on social media, Heidecker, his comedy hero, finds choosing sides inevitable"

So it's a documentary that covers internet trolls, right-wing extremism and the intersection of this with the comedy world, set during the 2016 US election and its direct aftermath.

At the end of the film I credit the forum for making the film possible. And that's not just me being a luvvy. The saga can be traced directly through the threads:

Thanks, Computer! - Moms  (Read 3596 times) (Jan. 2014)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=40079.0
Adult Swim Off Cuts  (Read 10614 times) (May 2016)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=53476.0
Million Dollar Extreme Presents World Peace (Adult Swim live action)  (Read 19575 times) (Aug. 2016)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,55222.0.html
Tim and Eric - Beef House  (Read 4345 times) (Mar. 2020)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,78891.30.html

but going way back to the old threads on Tim and Eric too.

Tim & Eric's Awesome Show, Nice Job!  (Read 7924 times) (May 2007)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,14937.0.html
Tim and Eric - "Body Boys: Legend of the Piers"  (Read 2923 times) (Mar. 2011)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=27684.0
Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie  (Read 12362 times) (Nov. 2011)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=30134.0

and so on.

So sincere thanks to all you guys, for existing as a community of serious comedy fans, but especially to the ones who helped me out in the making of this by sourcing tweets or offering specific feedback and technical pointers. I wouldn't have worked as much on it if people hadn't encouraged me.

Enjoy the show, tomorrow! And, if you like it, please tweet it to Tim, Gregg, Vic, Doug so that they might be intrigued to watch it. It would be nice to have an endorsement from the "stars" - I'm unfortunately just a fan without a platform to promote the film from.

QDRPHNC

Good looking trailer. Also the old link to that moms video reminds me of what a tedious edgelord cunt Sam Hyde is.

Retinend

Oh, I had to fix a small error and therefore the URL is different now.

Premieres at 9PM Tonight at this new URL:
https://youtu.be/kQv5pB1DkcU


Retinend


BritishHobo

Looks really interesting, thanks for letting us know. I was reading the replies yesterday to Heidecker's tweets criticising Spotify for platforming Alex Jones on Joe Rogan's show, and it made me feel really bleak about this bizarre confluence of events that's happened. Excited to give this a watch, cheers Retinend.

Dusty Substance


Watched it last night. Very interesting and a real eye-opener. A friend had told me the story of Sam Hyde vs. Tim Heidecker and the subsequent online anger Tim had received but to actually see the many tweets and hear those calls really put things in perspective.

Good work, Retinend. The time, effort and research put into that is to be admired. Must have been a hell of an editing job.

I've sent a link to said friend who told me the story and I'll definitely be watching it again at some point.


QDRPHNC

Yes, well done Retinend. I was fortunate enough to see this thing come together almost in real-time, and it's amazing how much work went into it and how much progress was made in such a short period of time.

As someone who thinks Tim is great, but stays on the periphery of Office Hours, this was a really good delve into the situation.


Garam


Retinend

Thanks for the retweet, Garam! If anyone else wants to help a CaBer out (I have zero reach) then like or retweet me here:

https://twitter.com/retinend/status/1323002340186722311

thugler

Enjoying this! It helps to explain a pretty long running thing that's been a bit hard to pin down without reference to a lot of different online stuff and long ass podcasts that are hard to keep up with. Well done for producing something entertaining and coherent out of all of that chaos!

lazyhour

Halfway though this and finding out all really interesting. Thanks so much for making it!

It works as a companion piece to the BBC documentary about Pepe the frog. So interesting/depressing to realise how many angry young outsiders have been sucked into far right ideology largely just because it upsets well-adjusted normies :(

Retinend

Thanks, Lazyhour. And thanks to those coming to amplify my Twitter signal. I've had some success on FB, Reddit and in the YT comments section, too. Hopefully it will eventually make it into the YT recommendation system for whatever demographic chunk encompassing Office Hours, Adult Swim fans and Lefttube viewers and I can take a rest from promotion.

Your comparison with "Feels Good Man" is very apt, because if I hadn't seen that film a month ago I might not have made this film.  I made a thread about it in Deeper Into Movies: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,82766.0.html

Retinend

Luckily the film has been picked up by a couple of influencers and is now reaching a wider audience. The comments section is thriving, but I would most like to hear from members of this forum on the film, since it came from here. Therefore please excuse this sad and shameless bump.

Moribunderast

Just watched the first half and really enjoyed it. Will return to finish it tomorrow. As someone who has had awareness of this stuff but never followed it too closely, it's a good resource and timeline of what went down. My knowledge of Sam Hyde is confined to a few skits I watched out of curiosity and his phone call to Tim's show. Seeing clips of him in this film, he's such an odious, ugly person. Just thoroughly unpleasant.

Good work, Retined.

ASFTSN

Is the audio/video out of sync on the re-upped version for anyone else?

Retinend

You mean even with the sections that are simply the blue/red sound wave are out of sync?

If those are out then something is wrong... for me it's not that way though.

For the rest of the film, any footage of Tim on screen was merely "paired" with the audio in an impressionistic way in the edit, therefore giving the impression of being out of sync.

ASFTSN

Sorry I was flicking back and forth like an attention deficit internet user, it seems ok now and is probably what you suggest.

Good work drawing all this poisonous crap together in one place so far!

Five bags of popcorn (and maybe throw in a little Oh, God! keychain to remind Sam Hyde and company what real comedy looks like).

Despite being a big Timhead and Office Hours fan, I was not familiar with any of this. Not sure I had ever seen any of Million Dollar Express either. Most interesting takeaway is how easily the Tim and Eric aesthetic can be misinterpreted by an audience and transformed into something as shit as the alt-right comedy on display here, and in general it actually brought home how much of the success of Tim and Eric has to do with their natural charisma as performers and their fundamental non-mean-spiritedness. Someone uncharismatic or mean doing Tim and Eric style humour is absolute shite, without even getting into the nasty politics of it all.

ASFTSN

My main takeaway was how hurt/frustrated Tim Heidecker seemed at points by all this shit as it all blew up, I hadn't seen that side of him before. He seems quite sensitive (and I mean that in the positive sense). Probably feeds back into the amount of abuse he got.

The Mollusk

Quote from: ASFTSN on November 09, 2020, 10:25:15 AM
My main takeaway was how hurt/frustrated Tim Heidecker seemed at points by all this shit as it all blew up, I hadn't seen that side of him before. He seems quite sensitive (and I mean that in the positive sense). Probably feeds back into the amount of abuse he got.

Yeah, behind his persona he does seem like a very compassionate and caring individual. Whenever he posts about his son on Instagram it's always very touching and sweet, it gives off the impression that he's a wonderful father.

ASFTSN

I know someone that felt he was pretty rudely snubbed by Heidecker when he rang Office Hours to ask Vic Berger a genuine question about his history working with developmentally disabled adults. After watching Retinend's video and I have to wonder if it was TH's troll alert kicking in (incorrectly in this case).

The Mollusk

I think he's quite methodical with his work and he gets quite strongly "into" whatever he's doing, even if it's something more lax on the character-based style like Office Hours. When I saw him do standup a couple years back his shtick was belligerent and frustrated, and we heckled him to encourage the act and he absolutely laid into us (to great effect). We met him after the show and he was totally out of character and lovely to speak to.

Retinend

Quote from: Pearly-Dewdrops Drops on November 09, 2020, 01:08:26 AMit actually brought home how much of the success of Tim and Eric has to do with their natural charisma as performers and their fundamental non-mean-spiritedness. Someone mean doing Tim and Eric style humour is absolute shite

Speaking of "mean-spirited"... if you have a strong stomach, have a look at what Sam Hyde was up to the other day (and ignore the cowardly disclaimer about it being staged):  https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHO1O4_A9Pc/

In the video he creeps up on a Muslim man privately praying inside a truck that the man drives for a living. He points the camera right into the man's behind as he films, giggles in order to provoke a reaction, and when the man chooses to ignore him, proceeds to disturb him with rude remarks and noises.



In another recent Insta video, he wantonly fires a gun out of a moving vehicle on the motorway multiple times (no doubt terrifying the drivers around him, and risking that they will swerve and crash): https://www.instagram.com/p/CBKpKNMgVuH/

He is 35 years old.

He also extorts his fanbase for $ubscriptions - for one measy sketch, in this instance:





Which underscores something i have heard again and again from his own fanbase since Timgate: sentiments to the effect of honestly Sam is just living off his subscribers and merchandise and doesn't put any effort into making comedy any more; he just makes his podcast and takes monthly payment without monthly content. It seems to me as if he feels entitled to the support of these underlings and, if you read the comments sections, they actually have a lot more sense then he does:




I love how the Pepe avatar guy is the voice of reason here.

Petey Pate

Quote from: Retinend on November 09, 2020, 01:08:21 PM
Speaking of "mean-spirited"... if you have a strong stomach, have a look at what Sam Hyde was up to the other day (and ignore the cowardly disclaimer about it being staged):  https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHO1O4_A9Pc/

In the video he creeps up on a Muslim man privately praying inside a truck that the man drives for a living. He points the camera right into the man's behind as he films, giggles in order to provoke a reaction, and when the man chooses to ignore him, proceeds to disturb him with rude remarks and noises.

Blimey, that's some hateful unfunny shit.

Interestingly, Larry Charles attempted to interview Sam Hyde for his Dangerous World of Comedy series. However, the production team got wise to an attempted prank where an imposter was to show up instead of Hyde to their scheduled interview, so it fell through. By then, Hyde was at the same level of influence and fame as other alt-right humourists like Baked Alaska, who Larry did interview, so I doubt him appearing would have added much.

Mobius

Watched this last night and really enjoyed it, great job! I hadn't followed any of this so it was interesting to get the full story.

What's this Sam dickhead up to nowadays then?

Dude, there's little to no value in trying to have a discussion with shaun_vids. He's said several times he's of the "debate is pointless and snark is king" camp, though I suppose it won't hurt the view count.

Great video, by the way.

Retinend

Thanks, both of you!

For the record, on Twitter, @shaun_vids was publicly calling me a pedophile and siccing his 200,000 followers on me....  for saying Steven Pinker wasn't a pedo...

https://i.imgur.com/tnk84mH.png  (maybe I'm wrong on Pinker, I don't think he's a pedo but that's not the point right now)

...so I answered all comers with a link to the film (my subscriber count is 30 - I am using Twitter for the sake of promotion so his 200,000k viewers can't hurt). Annoyingly though, in my haste I made a bad typo: "bridgading" instead of "brigading."




But yeah, it is a little bit frightening that on Twitter you can't have a decent debate, like you can on here... and at the very least it ruins your mood to have to deal with so much unjustified anger. Hopefully I've turned it into something useful. I'll see when I look at the numbers tomorrow.

Quote from: Retinend on November 09, 2020, 09:03:37 PMBut yeah, it is a little bit frightening that on Twitter you can't have a decent debate, like you can on here... and at the very least it ruins your mood to have to deal with so much unjustified anger. Hopefully I've turned it into something useful. I'll see when I look at the numbers tomorrow.

It's definitely something to see BreadTube fans bandy "you are a nonce" about when they (quite rightly) don't appreciate the same from TERFs like Linehan. But it's good to see you're taking it in your stride.