Since the conception of social media, we’ve all at some point or another, lived bizarre double lives. There’s the “real you” who operates in the material world, and then there’s your online persona, an image of ourselves that we’d like to project unto the digital world, even to those who know us personally. Our internet personas become filtered, fantastical, and idealised versions of ourselves - ones that we can never live up to. One might be forgiven for assuming this phenomena is limited to the people that grew up in this environment, but increasingly you find older generations performing the same masquerade. In Hey Guys, we will explore how insipid and seductive this can be as Nick, a man once alien to this world, quickly falls in line with these expectations as his chosen personalities shift along with his fickle audiences.

Another recent online trend is the rise and celebration of hyper-masculinity, which has been preyed upon in response to the progressive ideals that have become a mainstay of western society. Figures like Andrew Hubermen, Joe Rogan, and Chris Williamson have capitalised on male audiences who feel alienated by the status quo through propagating supposedly traditional male values of strength, logic and gender roles. The popularisation of such ideals has led to figures like Andrew Tate who take such principles to the extreme, provocatively espousing that men should embrace their aggressive natures and view women as prizes to win. This theme will be present throughout Act 2 as Nick’s audience shifts following his streamed humiliation of a woman he asks out on a date at the close of Act 1.

Our morbid curiosity has been a part of humanity since crowds of thousands gathered to watch crucifixions, public hangings and “witches” burning. We’ve all participated, whether by “rubbernecking” when passing a car crash, or pausing to witness an altercation on the streets, or simply watching disaster reports on the news. The dawn of the internet injected new life into this morbid curiosity. In I.T. classes at school, before the dawn of “content filtering” restricted such access, we would explore websites such as “LiveLeak” which hosted videos of executions, torture and murder. The phenomenon grew alongside the internet, with social media allowing us to sit on our sofas to witness and participate in falls from grace by popular figures, egged on by anonymous trolls. This sensation will be forced upon cinema audiences as they are unable to look away from the spiralling Nick of Act 3, fraught with tension as his behaviour becomes erratic and self-destructive. But by this point in the story, just like the trolls, we revel in the downfall of Nick as we seek to distance ourselves from his problematic behaviour displayed in Act 2.