Meet Mr. Cian Twomey...
He is the king of making sides split from laughter in less than a minute which makes him the master of internet comedy at the moment.
Cian Twomey is an Irish Facebook comedian who makes videos starring his alter ego, “Emily”, who is inspired by his real-life girlfriend. Cian transforms into Emily by donning a middle part in his hair as well as a forced smile and irritably shrill voice.
The first video I ever saw of Cian’s is “When Girls Rush Their Eyeliner”. The minute long video involved Emily applying make-up, struggling to make her eyeliner wings identical. My own eyeliner started to run from tears of laughter as Emily becomes overwhelmingly devastated from her eyeliner wings looking more like “sisters” than “twins”. I was hooked after that minute long video made my sides split uncontrollably in laughter.
"Emily" and Cian
Similar to me, about three million followers watch videos of Emily as she struggles with Cian’s shortcomings and actions in their relationship. Emily often provides the audience with a tragic and hyperbolic response to Cian’s actions.
In one of the internet star’s most recent videos, "When You Don't Notice Your Girlfriend Got Her Hair Done", Emily arrives wearing extensions and approaches Cian, asking whether or not he notices anything different. Cian, typical of the "oblivious guy stereotype" imposed on society, admits he has not noticed anything about Emily. To this obliviousness, Emily irrationally goes ballistic on Cian, informing him that he should have known because it's their eight month and two week anniversary and she wanted to look special for him. Cian tries to explain that such an "anniversary" is not important. To this, Emily closes the video by telling Cian to go f*** himself; "Go f**** yourself" being Emily's trademark line in most videos.Watch the video mentioned above here:
I love this video. I love how ridiculous and silly Cian's interpretations of his girlfriend are. I love how composed he tries to keep his face as the character turns comically manic. I love this video so much that I proceeded to show my best girl friend the video, and then my guy friends. Upon showing my guy friends the video, comments such as "That's so true! Girls always obsessing about dumb sh** like their hair and anniversaries." That's so true.
That's so true? I suddenly felt simultaneously defensive of Emily and offended by her. Emily in every video is portrayed as an irrational, demanding, materialistic, and possessive woman.
But... it's not true. This behavior is not the truth of the majority of women.
Cian, watched by 3 million viewers, depict girlfriends and women as paranoid and emotionally-driven beings through the character of Emily. Exaggeration is the heart of comedy. However, many viewers agree that the depiction of Emily is how the majority of women exist. Enforcement of the female stereotype that connotes women as hypersensitive and irrational is damaging to women and their perceptions of themselves. Stereotypes directed towards women are just as harmful and non-progressive as male stereotypes of being cold-hearted, aloof, and thoughtless. In fact, most arguments against those in favor of women leaders revolve around the fallacy that women are too emotional, and their emotions interfere with their logic. The character of Emily supports such stereotypes and false perceptions of women when viewers do not recognize that she is merely an exaggeration of Cian's real life girlfriend.
In fact, many things Emily does to Cian are offenses or ridiculous acts that boyfriends could too be accused of doing. However, Cian is never portrayed as irrational, possessive, needy or hypersensitive, only Emily.
Let's take a look a video that examines such stereotypical behaviors deemed exclusive to women:
Here, Emily gets angry that Cian got a cake for his birthday and didn't tell her. As a result, Emily is jealous that she is not getting as much attention as Cian, the birthday boy, and is also paranoid that not being told about the cake is Cian's way of keeping information from her.
Let's put this into perspective...
In my life, I have witnessed way too many guys act in the same toxic and suffocating ways that Cian's followers have witnessed through Emily's behavior. I once had a boyfriend made me feel bad about myself because his mother asked for me to help her prepare meatballs instead of him....he was 22 at the time, yet couldn't deal with not having his mother's attention on him. Another man-child ex-boyfriend would take it upon himself to out-shit my bad news with news of his bad day, week, or life, because he couldn't handle the attention being off himself for one moment--even if it meant consoling someone else. A friend of mine would track his girlfriend's phone calls on their joint phone plan as a means of seeing if she was flirting with someone else. Additionally, I've dated chronic-criers and needy man-children who didn't understand that my even temperedness did not make me less feminine or a heartless robot. We could get some coffee and dissect the irrational, possessive and emotional ways of men all day. So please do not think such behaviors with negative connotations are exclusive to women. Women are capable of the same emotional strength that is stereotypically expected of men; men are capable of the same erratic and emotional impulses that are stereotypically expected of women.
Though I love Cian Twomey and Emily for their exaggerated behavior, and some times the relativity of their staged conflicts, it is important realize that Cian's videos do teeter on the edge of being sexist and that not all women act as Emily does. I'm sure Cian Twomey's real girlfriend, Emily, is not as emotionally and illogically driven as Cian's comic portrayal of her. However, not every viewer watches with the understanding that Emily is a character. Emily's character is not a means criticizing all women or an enforcement and encouragement of unrealistic stereotypes that are applied to women who all do not behave the same. Emily is a humorous interpretation of a real person and not a symbol for negative views toward women.
I enjoy Cian's videos very much so. But I don't enjoy men laughing at women through Emily. I don't enjoy how men see the video as critiques of women to be laughed at. I rather they laugh with us at how ridiculous Cian's interpretation of his girlfriend is. Perhaps, Mr. Twomey will one day make a video of himself being the irrational or emotional one in the relationship to even the scales.
