In March of 2021 idubbbz went to Massachusetts to film a documentary on Sam Hyde. Since that documentary never got released, the Hyde Wars guys decided to release their own version last month.
That video, which is over 1.5 million views as of the time of writing, prompted me to write a piece on it. And then another, and another, and another. Yesterday I wrapped it up. It had been unfinished work for a while, and I thought it would end that way.
And then idubbbz released his documentary, to everyone’s surprise. Credit where credit’s due, the first minute collage of Sam Hyde is arguably better than anything Hyde himself has ever put out. And I say that as a fan.
You may remember from my very first part of this series that, while I don’t think very highly of idubbbz, his production values were clearly high even in the 2016 era videos that I watched. Again, in fairness, idubbbz video is very well produced again.
But also as predicted, he does have this weird NPR-like affectation where he does this low-energy monotone narration of the documentary. Ironically early on in the doc, as they’re driving into Massachusetts he turns to the cameraman and says, “I hope that… this isn’t going to be a struggle.”
Which immediately turns out to be some sort of variation on Famous Last Words. After meeting Sam he is immediately thrust into the office scene that we saw in our previous articles on this.
Idubbz has very little social charisma, and is clearly uncomfortable in crowds. It’s his most forgivable trait, but holy shit. Man you’re like 35 years old, how hard is it to go and introduce yourself to everyone instead of awkwardly standing in the corner and being a wallflower. You have the perfect excuse to introduce yourself to everybody, you’re literally doing a planned documentary.
After the brief office meeting, Sam claims that he needs his mechanic to teach him how to top up the car’s oil. A car that I might add, is obviously a passion project. Idubbbz does an impromptu interview of Hyde during this car ride.
You need to know that Sam’s “girlfriend,” Dani, was not there for the first office meeting. Idubbbz has yet to meet her. This is important later.
In another Idubbbz narration cutaway he says the following.
Another Sam Hydeism is that when he’s being serious or geniune for too long he will undercut it by saying the exact opposite of the point of view he was expressing before. It makes it very confusing to have a conversation with him and get his actual feelings about a particular topic.
It’s probably some kind of self-awareness that Sam has where he realizes that in front of a camera he needs to bring his brand of comedy out. But because so much of Sam defaults to sarcasm and irony, it was really hard to know if I was getting genuine responses to the serious questions I was asking.
Okay fag. Your girlfriend has an Onlyfans and you’re apparently cool with it.
Ultimately his doc shows how justified Hyde was in trolling him. Frankly, Sam wasn’t even trolling him all that hard. If the guy didn’t have the goal of making Sam look like a washed up loser then he could easily have played along and made an epic doc. Instead this nerd is whining about Sam Hyde not wearing a mask when he’s ordering food at the drive through.
One of the few things I was actually looking forward to on day 1 was meeting Sam’s girlfriend Dani. Because, you know, if I was gonna have a hard time breaking through Sam’s comedy wall, I knew that Dani would be the solution to that. She could give me honest, truthful answers to how Sam really is, and all the other questions that I had. At least, that’s what I hoped would happen.
Oh I dunno bro. Good luck with that.
If you’ve seen Hyde’s version and are a bit confused, so was I. Since Sam didn’t have any footage of the car drive he edited that out, and it was never mentioned by him. In any case, it doesn’t change too much. We’re back at the office.
We do get to see some of the interviews that Hyde couldn’t release, since he didn’t have the footage. Watching these guys troll idubbbz is pretty funny.
1MAN/Joeyy: What I do? I’m a rapper. Like I’ve been doing the rap shit for *inaudible. I feel like I’m on some fed shit, like this is crazy. Where I’m from how that fucking shit’s like money talks, no what I’m saying. So it’s like he’s got bread and he’s winning this shit out for me, know what I’m saying. And that propels my shit.
That guy pretending to be a rapper was some of the funniest, yet also the cringiest shit in the documentary. He’s so bad that it’s hilarious and yet I can watch either. The same is true for them showing idubbbz the “funniest viral videos,” which are just super cringey garbage.
And then they had really nasty over the top commentary, like “look at these dumb bitches,” when referring to 14 year old girls. Idubbbz keeps trying to signal to the camera that he’s not okay with any of this.
Hyde: We don’t back down. Become a wolf. That means evolution. That’s how evolution designed you to be, so you need to be it.
And with that we’re on to boxing.
I’ll leave this with idubbbz own narration for his first day.
Idubbbz: Uh day 1 was very rough with Sam changing the oil in his car. Going to Chick Fil-A. Meeting his team of like 10 plus people. And, uh, boxing.
It was scary when we started boxing and he said shit like “hit me. Hit me.” ‘Cause I feel like it’s one of those things where it gives him permission to go crazy if I do hit him in the head.
I think it’s always a little emasculating when you’re boxing someone who has more boxing experience than you do.
You don’t say?
And I know Sam was doing a bit of a gag. To have everyone there. Chanting things. It’s kind of a very exciting way to start the documentary.
I guess it feels more like a cult, when they’re doing this chanting and everything. And Sam gets to be the leader of the cult.
And with that, we end Day 1. I’ll blitz through the rest, but trust me, it only gets better. And far more political.
