TV review: The 2 Johnnies talk to Matty Gilbert — a Dublin guy who chopped wood with his top off
The 2 Johnnies and Matty Gilbert. Picture: Peter Houlihan / PH Photography
The Two Johnnies are good at playing young guys acting as old lads.
It was kind of the idea behind the first episode of (RTÉ2 Mondays and RTÉ Player). The Johnnies, two Cahir guys behind the No 1 Podcast in Ireland (having just signed a deal with Spotify), boasting more than 200k followers on Instagram, are on the road to learn about TikTok.
In case you don’t know, TikTok is an app designed by the Chinese to make you feel old. Unless you’re in your early 20s, the attraction of short TikTok videos featuring viral dance moves, cute cats, boiling kettles, and people showing what they bought in Penney’s is going to leave you scratching your head.
Where’s the story or the joke here you wonder, still stuck in YouTube and Facebook mode, while a young guy videos himself picking his nose? The 2 Johnnies, the 30-something masters of YouTube and Facebook skits are here to find out what’s going on with the 20-something generation.
I like the way they did it. The 2 Johnnies can come across as Ant & Dec in Tipperary jerseys sometimes, but there’s a lot more to them than that. Here they talk to Irish TikTok stars such as Lauren Whelan and Matty Gilbert without patronising them. Instead of ‘the young people are all crazy’, there’s a sense of respect for what these young people have achieved. And just in case it gets too serious, one of the Johnnies shoves two cloves of garlic up his nose, which is some kind of life hack on TikTok.
There is another strand to the episode, where they are trying to make a viral TikTok video to raise funds for their local GAA club in Cahir. They did a short insert of a pitch to a corporate client looking for sponsorship — it was a clever send-up with a laugh-out-loud moment or two.
This was followed by an informative chat with a woman who explained how to approach TikTok as a first-timer. I learned something and then they made me laugh at the end by trying to act like 20 year-olds.
TikTok isn’t exactly BBC Four. The next bit has the lads talking to Matty Gilbert, a Dublin guy who chopped some wood with his top off. He seemed as surprised as anyone that this carry-on attracts a worldwide audience, but it seems the key to TikTok is to avoid asking too many questions and go along for the ride.
In the end, The 2 Johnnies made a parody TikTok video in Cahir that didn’t do very well on TikTok because young people don’t like being mocked by their elders. But that wasn’t really the point.
This was 50 minutes of decent telly: you learn a bit, you laugh a bit, and move on to the next thing. The main thing I learned is that I’m too old for TikTok.
