The Try Guys: Making Their Brand Through Direct Address and Cancellation With Feelings

Abstract

The Try Guys’ “what happened” video, which appears on their YouTube channel, narrates their cancellation of colleague Ned Fulmer because of an extra-marital relationship with an employee. Some literature suggests that cancel culture offers disempowered individuals and groups methods of identifying and correcting hateful practices. However, I employ the humanities practice of close reading to demonstrate how emotional cancel practices can elide intolerant systems and sustain norms. I analyze The Try Guys’ content, reportage about the group, and YouTube. As I argue, The Try Guys’ claims about enacting an ethical cancellation displace their reliance on “humorously” sexualizing women’s bodies and mocking femininity in videos about incongruously wearing women’s clothing. I also elaborate on direct address literature as a method of articulating cancel culture’s “direct addresses with feelings,” how The Try Guys use the cancellation to render the brand and connect with fans, and how my analysis contributes to related scholarship.