This is a very strange one. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the famous Brexit event. How a group of countries that all speak different languages, have different cultures, lifestyles and have very different views thought they could join together and pretend they all live in one community was a huge ask.
The U.K. have never felt part of the EU, we’ve always described the countries on the mainland continent as Europe, we’ve never included the U.K. as Europe. It’s a very subtle thing but it has always existed.
Okay so you’re wondering why I am using the royal ‘we’, seeing as I’m a Dutchman? Well I’ve lived nearly 43 years in the U.K., so all my adult life has been outside The Netherlands. And by the way in case you didn’t know the Dutch and the Belgians have never really seen eye to eye. So leaving the EU has never been an issue for me, seeing as I do not trust Brussels and their unelected officials. In case you’re also wondering, I still have my Dutch passport, which means I’m not able to vote in the U.K. only in the EU elections and for the U.K. they will end soon I’m guessing.
So the other day I was listening to BBC Radio 5 Live, which is a talk and sports radio channel in the U.K. They mentioned that a video mocking the whole Brexit debate here in the U.K. was going viral around Europe. The video was a very badly copied clip, from an old movie by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, aka Laurel and Hardy depicting them with some other folks in a car going on a holiday or picnic. After they load the car in classic Laurel and Hardy comedy style, they stop and say goodbye to onlookers. After saying goodbye many times they drive off and the car tyre is shown as driving over a nail, which means their car suffers a flat.
You can watch the clip below, it is actually quite funny. I recreated the clip myself because I felt I could do a better job compared to the original, that was screen recorded on a mobile phone. Never mind though that badly recorded clip has at the last count (at time of writing) had over 20k+ views. It wasn’t the quality, it was the mocking of the U.K. and Brexit.
[embed]https://youtu.be/ETPN9cFUo58[/embed]
I found the different clip on YouTube and discovered it was slightly longer compared to the original and actually it told a better story. The loading of the car was quite significant in the story and the comparison to Brexit, especially the slapping of each other in the process. Exactly like what is happening in the U.K. parliament. At time of writing my clip has had over 12k+
So I decided to use the longer clip and I added one other thing, the end screen shows a sad emoji. Because although it is a funny comparison, it’s turning out to be a very sad issue here in the U.K.
There also was a major error in the caption on the video, ‘How England plans to leave the U.K.’, the error being ‘England’ of course. It’s not just ‘England’ leaving the EU, it’s the whole of the United Kingdom, which includes, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But Northern Ireland of course is the whole issue of the Brexit debate. I’m sure you have heard everyone mention the backstop and now the border in the Irish Sea.
Below is the original video clip that gave me the idea to produce mine.
Unfortunately there have been many comments on my video and some of them not so nice, so I do feel bad about posting it, because it has invoked feelings in people that might not have been the best feelings, which is not great. But the whole Brexit debate has done that and although we avoid speaking to friends and family about it, the feelings are still there. A nation divided about divorcing the EU, it’s how children must feel when their parents split up. Not everyone can get to terms with the anger on both sides of the debate, quite frankly they are as bad as each other. It’s as close to a civil war we will ever get. A civil war of words that is.
It was an experiment, I wanted to see what happened and now I know. Sometimes recreating something, maybe even copying and improving what someone else has done is a good way to get noticed, a marketing masterclass I guess. I’ve never ever had that many views on a video on my YouTube channel, I don’t even have enough subscribers to be able to monetise it. I need 1000 as a minimum and I only have just over 300.
Who knows where it will all end. One thing is for sure, millions of people in the U.K. will be very unhappy for many years to come.