Dissecting the Greatest Show on Twitter
A couple of dudes in blue velvet blazers. But it’s so much more.
At 11:29 p.m. on March 16th, a 59 second video was uploaded to Twitter. That’s pretty unremarkable, considering millions of videos are uploaded to Twitter every day.
But this was no ordinary video. Nor was it by any means unremarkable.
What if I told you this video featured a pair of seven-foot, mustachioed NBA players lounging in their living room, while wearing what appears to be bright blue, velvet blazers — alongside gym shorts and sweat pants? Would that interest you?
Or that these gentlemen were surrounded by photographs, framed or displayed on large easels, of the pair’s bromance as well as the legendary mustaches of Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds? Or that they are pretending to smoke large pipes while sitting cross-legged with a fireplace crackling behind them?
Yes, this video was spectacular. But words cannot do it justice.
Roll the tape!
The seven best things about this first video:
1) The flicker of legitimate pain on both men’s faces after their extremely powerful high five
2) The way that Steven Adams says “Mooose-taches”
3) That Enes Kanter is wearing his own jersey underneath the blazer
4) That someone (whoever edited together this video) was able to retrieve a photo of the guys hugging a tree together
5) The face that Steven Adams is making in the aforementioned photo
6) “I don’t even know who you are anymore, mate.” Pretty sure this was the climactic line in Casablanca? Or maybe it was Citizen Kane?
7) That the longest-tenured and likely most-respected Thunder player agreed to be in this video, and agreed to be the clueless remote guy
From that first gift to the world the duo has spawned a series. Now three episodes in, it’s undeniable that the greatest show on the interwebs is the “Stache Brothers!” Or maybe it’s “Roomies!”
The branding isn’t really nailed down yet.
The self-deprecating humor is matched stride-for-stride with unintentional humor, and the sheer goofiness is equaled by the sincerity of message. Russell Westbrook for MVP!
It’s incredible that, in an NBA landscape that has confessed to being intensely individualistic, teammates would take a portion of their free time to produce a show advocating for their teammate’s MVP candidacy. Message to all of you who say that Westbrook’s style of play is causing his teammates to resent him (*cough* Bill Simmons *cough*), what other set of teammates are doing this?
On to the second video!
Here are 13 things I noticed about this second video:
1) OK so they are wearing the same exact clothes as last time, which means that they filmed these videos at the same time. They knew it was going to be a hit series!
2) But in the opening shot we seee that there are a pair of juice boxes on the table that weren’t there before. Which means that between filming the episodes they went and got juice boxes.
3) Steven did a full on no-look high five, but Enes actually glanced over to aim his hand and still missed
4) Would you really be surprised to learn that these guys took a trip every month to Disneyland?
5) Steven has (rightly) seized full-on hosting duties for this show, having to introduce his co-host “Enes Kan-tuhh”
6) I can’t be sure, but does Steven greet Andre Roberson as “Mr. Woman?”
7) I really could’ve guessed that Roberson would be a hugger
8) Andre Roberson is also wearing his full jersey. Either they went and got their jerseys specifically for this show, or they did this directly after some other jersey-ed event?
9) Steven’s off-the-cuff comments like “I mean it’s weird but that’s okay. Three men hugging” have me 100% convinced that he could be an incredible full-time late night talk show host
10) As the camera pans wide to catch Roberson’s hugs, we can see the side of the set, including photos of three more fabulous mustaches including Borat’s — a classic.
11) Roberson, God love him, doesn’t have the gravitas to pull off this acting gig nor those alligator sneakers.
12) R.I.P. Steve Irwin
13) Nick Collison is an incredibly humble guy, but are we to believe that he cleans his own pool?
By the time the third video hit, I wasn’t really sure whether or not the show had become the best part of the Thunder season full stop, and perhaps overshadowed Westbrook’s MVP campaign all together.
The only thing I’m left wondering is who is producing these videos, and why is the method of distribution Enes Kanter’s Twitter feed? While there’s certainly no huge budget, thought has certainly been put into set design, costuming, multiple camera placement, and editing.
If the Thunder organization was making these, why wouldn’t they want to at the very least use their own official social accounts? Same goes for if it were another news or media outlet. So there’s really only one conclusion: Kanter has hired a few people to produce this for him. Like actually spent his own dollars to create a viral marketing campaign for his buddy’s candidacy. Or perhaps it the money came from Adams, looking to start up his comedy career. That makes it so much better.
But without further delay, on to the third video!
Here are eight observations from the third video:
1.) Same outfits again. How many of these did they film??
2) The juice boxes have been swapped out for Capri Sun, and I’m left wondering what other beverages from my childhood have been purchased for props? SunnyD? Dannon Danimals?
3) Wow, for the first time it’s obvious that Enes is reading off of cue cards. It only took three episodes for Steven to outshine the show, like a breakout star on SNL. Enes, you gotta keep up!
4) Domantas Sabonis looks like a frat boy who showed up to a farm-themed party.
5) Clearly the direction given to Alex Abrines before the show was, “look cool,” and this is what he came up with
6) On the Kanter-Abrines handshake: sure, it was a farmer, we’ll go with that
7) There’s never been a more Oklahoman backyard than what we see in the shot of Nick mowing
8) Not entirely sure Abrines realizes the comedic nature of the show that he is on
There are still so many questions to be answered. How many episodes did they make? When will they come out? Whose idea was it? Who is funding this operation? Will Steven Adams leave the team to go do network late night?
I can’t wait to find out.
