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What Is 'We're Just Normal Men?' And What's The Story Behind The Meme
Nearly a year ago, a blooper from the CBBC show CBBC HQ seemed to spring out of the ether into viral fame. The clip shows a woman talking to a dog puppet and consists of her looking into the dog's eyes as he says "We're just normal men…" Stifling a giggle, the woman asks, "What do you mean, 'normal men?'" The dog replies, "We're just innocent men!" and the two break down in a fit of laughter.
The hypnotic Britishness of the clip mesmerized viewers from across the pond, and people begged to know the context behind the blooper. Let's break it down.
Who's In The Clip?
The lady is Lauren Layfield and her costar is Hacker T. Dog, voiced and puppeteered by Phil Fletcher. The show, CBBC HQ, is a children's television program where the hosts do a variety of kid-friendly content, like playing games and answering viewer-submitted questions about the world. The mascot is Hacker T. Dog, a puppet and a rather rambunctious character, both on screen and behind the scenes.
Fletcher regularly tried to get his castmates to break character on the show, and it seems Layfield was often the target of his shenanigans. On October 20th, 2017, Layfield posted a compilation of Hacker getting her to break character on YouTube, including the now-famous "Normal Men" clip.
Although the clip was uploaded in 2017, it wasn't until April 2022 that it began going notably viral. On the 15th, a Twitter user posted the clip and Layfield reposted it, and soon it began spreading in memes, as people remixed it to fit various contexts.
— Nooruddean (@BeardedGenius) April 19, 2022
What's The Story Behind The Clip?
In short: there is none, but it took the world a while to figure that out.
For weeks after the "Normal Men" clip went viral, a rumor persisted that Fletcher was quoting a friend of his who attempted to get out of police questioning with the lines, "We're just normal men. We're just innocent men!" As the story had it, when Fletcher relayed the story to the studio, everyone had a big laugh, making the key blooper a reference to an inside joke.
This turns out not to have been the case. In fact, the person who started the rumor knew it wasn't the case.
Redditor timidimage was the first person to tell this version of the events, and it became widely offered as the context behind the clip. This caused Fletcher to publicly clarify that it was a false story and the whole "normal men" scene was merely spur-of-the-moment improv he did to get Layfield to break.
EXCLUSIVE! In a topical #SpraySocialMonday, Hacker's manager
Phil_Gluvetstells the TRUE story behind the hackertdog and @LaurenLayfield "Innocent Men" clip that went viral this weekend. pic.twitter.com/Z64lF7R01j— 𝗦𝗣𝗥𝗔𝗬 (@spraypopmusic) April 18, 2022
Once the official story came out, timidimage updated his original comment to say that their "plan" had succeeded. Timidimage claimed they made up the whole "police" story with the hopes that it would get widely shared and force Fletcher to deny it and provide the actual context.
For more information, check out the Know Your Meme entry on "We're just normal men".
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