There’s so much to absorb in Mike Schwanke’s video about his weekend as a 28-year-old in Chicago: “Mental Awareness Day,” margarita towers, Lindsey Jacobellis, and her sister Malmo.
These references only make sense if you’ve watched this video half a dozen times or more. And many people have: Since being posted on Monday, it’s clocked more than 6.5 million views on Twitter, and fooled quite a few people who only watched the first minute or so.
Schwanke, who is part of the comedy group Phantasmagoria, is parodying the “Day (or weekend) in the life of a (20-something) in (a big city)” videos that are all over TikTok.
“I don’t usually do parodies like that,” he tells the Daily Dot, “but I was surprised that I hadn’t seen a decent one yet. I think those videos are already kind of parodies of themselves because some of these people are living kind of insane lives to begin with.”
In the Twitter thread are examples of the exact kind of video he’s making fun of. (No marg towers, though.)
So much day- or weekend-in-the-life content seems impossible, both financially and stamina-wise. But often that is the point. The genre has become more specific, too: Adult performers, EMTs, and pregnant Hooters waitresses have all posted videos.
There is some of Schwanke’s footage in the video—”making my bed, taking my dog for a walk, and making a sandwich”—but he found the more chaotic stuff on TikTok, “to fit the script I wrote.” This genre is so pervasive that some people clocked the videos that weren’t his.
“I’ve watched so many sincere what i did in a weekend in chicago that i recognize some of the original videos that he took clips from to make this video,” said @coldhealing.
“The reaction has been pretty funny,” Schwanke says. “I would say 40 percent of the people who have seen it don’t get the joke.”
