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We're Just Normal Men
Part of a series on Viral Videos. [View Related Entries]
Related Explainer: What Is 'We're Just Normal Men?' And What's The Story Behind The Meme
About
We're Just Normal Men is a quote from CBBC, a British children's TV channel, puppet Hacker T. Dog in a blooper between itself and co-host Lauren Layfield on CBBC HQ. The moment causes the two to uncontrollably laugh after staring into each other's eyes. Though it occurred in 2016, the clip was unearthed in April 2022, leading to a series of memes based on the quote "we're just normal men …"
Origin
The blooper occurred on November 1st, 2016.[1] On October 30th, 2017, Lauren Layfield posted a compilation of bloopers between herself and Hacker T. Dog during her time on CBBC HQ, including the "we're just normal men" clip. The video gained over 192,000 views in four and a half years (shown below).
On February 7th, 2023, YouTuber Antigone Journal posted the video, offering a little more context about the phrase. In the clip, Hacker tells Laura "We're not ice stars" (referring to a clip about ice skating children), "we're just normal men." The clip gained over 131,000 views in six months (shown below).
Spread
After occasionally appearing on social media for several years, the clip appears to have gone viral thanks to an April 15th, 2022, upload of the clip to Twitter by user @jamabing,[2] though the account is locked as of April 25th. On April 16th, YouTuber Maz uploaded a longer version of the clip to YouTube, gaining over 50,000 views in a week (shown below).
On April 16th, Lauren Layfield[3] quote-tweeted Jamabing's upload, gaining over 900 retweets and 20,000 likes in one week (shown below).
Over the following week, the clip inspired multiple parodies. For example, on April 19th, 2022, Twitter user BeardedGenius posted a video in which the audio played over a soccer player talking, gaining over 1,700 retweets and 13,000 likes in one week (shown below, top). The same day, user @Robotduck posted an edit that played the audio over a clip of Boris Johnson speaking to Parliament, gaining over 60 retweets and 210 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below).
— Nooruddean (@BeardedGenius) April 19, 2022
how's this?… pic.twitter.com/qKC2SCwZ7m
— Ben Pitt (@robotduck) April 19, 2022
False Origin Story
As the clip went viral, many users attempted to uncover the context behind the clip and repeated a March 2nd, 2022, comment from Redditor /u/timidimage[4] in which the user claimed Phil Fletcher (the puppeteer behind Hacker) and his friends had been stopped by a police officer the night before and one friend attempted to get out of the situation with the sentences, "We're just normal men. We're just innocent men!" According to timidimage's telling, Fletcher told this story to the studio and they thought it was hilarious, thus the viral clip is of Fletcher repeating an inside joke.
On April 18th, Fletcher addressed the rumor and explained he'd merely come up with the joke on the spot and the "police" story was a complete fabrication (shown below). /u/timidimage then edited his comment and confirmed he had made the "police" story up and implied he'd done it intentionally in an effort to spread misinformation and prompt a correction of the rumor.
EXCLUSIVE! In a topical #SpraySocialMonday, Hacker's manager
Phil_Gluvets</a> tells the TRUE story behind the <a href="https://twitter.com/HackerTDog?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">hackertdog and @LaurenLayfield "Innocent Men" clip that went viral this weekend. pic.twitter.com/Z64lF7R01j— 𝗦𝗣𝗥𝗔𝗬 💙💛 (@spraypopmusic) April 18, 2022
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Indy100 – A CBBC dog saying 'normal men, innocent men' has become the internet's new favourite meme
[3] Twitter – LaurenLayfield
[4] Reddit – /u/timidimage comment
[5] YouTube – We're just normal men, we're just innocent men
