Running Gag / Sidemen

Amongst the Sidemen's Witty Banter, you'll find the following to occur often:

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Sidemen-Specific Running Gags

• Ethan:
  • His tendency of damaging his desk in bouts of rage, usually signaled by the line "I just put another hole in my desk."
  • His immense love for Dimitri Payet.
  • Being referred to as the gay one.
  • The Sidemen did not waste the opportunity to note that with the success of the Sidemen book, Ethan is now a bestselling author without ever getting an English GCSE.
  • "Is that a fat joke?" since he's the heaviest Sideman.
• Harry:
  • Being the most racist and generally off-color Sideman.
  • Being accused of having sex with goats due to the fact that he's from Guernsey.
• Tobi:
  • Tobi being referred to as JJ or, even worse, Deji.
• JJ:
  • Any rap song, regardless of how bad it is, will be regarded as better than Keep Up EP.
  • Occasional mockeries towards JJ's rapping, with lines such as "Vroom, vroom, in my brand-new Lambo" (from "Lamborghini") being mentioned.
  • JJ has an eerie tendency to win his first games against the Sidemen in various games that he then-previously never played against them in before. So far, it has at least happened in Cards Against Humanity, Trivial Pursuit Live!, Monopoly Plus, and Tower Unite Minigolf (the last one tied with Ethan).
  • Always struggling to read long words.
  • On the games played in the Sidemen's second channels, he would be happy if he did not finish last.
  • In mini-golf games, he has a tendency of performing well at the start (sometimes even leading the scoreboard), only to suddenly performing bad and dropping to last/near-last at the end of the video.
  • Due to the number of things he does off-screen like training and his music, he tends to fall asleep almost anywhere. If another member sees him sleeping, they'll do a jump scare to wake him up or just pile things on top of him and see how long it takes for JJ to wake up.
• Vik:
  • Vik's parents apparently are disappointed because Vik didn't become a doctor.
  • Being called a pedophile or a terrorist.
• Simon:
  • "Hi again, it's me."
• Josh:
  • Josh, the Daddy (AF).
  • Fuck off, Josh.
  • Using the words "Your mum" or "Your mother (insert something here)".
• Ethan and JJ's tendency of laughter.
• "Look at the flick of the X".
• They have a tendency to promote their products in the most absurd ways possible, such as JJ's attempts to promote Keep Up EP and the Sidemen's attempts to promote Sidemen: The Book.

Game-Based Running Gags

• Monopoly Plus:
  • JJ's ridiculous good luck, especially when it comes to getting the pink set.
  • Auctions being used for nothing but screwing the others over by getting the winner to either overpay for and/or receive an unwanted property.
  • Orange being the last set to be bought.
  • Whoever of the Sidemen who pays rent^note When someone lands on someone else's land during the dice roll, they have to pay some Monopoly money to the person whose land they landed on. the most during a session is called a rent boy.
    • If Vik is the rent boy during a session, expect him to be in extreme anger for most of the session.
  • Vine Street^note New York Avenue in the US version being the one land that the Sidemen lands on the most.
  • If someone gets the dark blue set^note The final set on the board and manages to build one or more houses on the set, especially Mayfair,^note Boardwalk in the US version expect it to become a Game-Breaker.
• London 2012 Olympics:
  • JJ's inability to do water-based events properly (especially swimming) during sessions that has them.
  • Josh being so good at the game that he's called "The Creator" whenever they play it.
  • If there's a diving event, expect at least one of the scores to be ridiculously low (That event's max points is 100. Points considered to be ridiculously low is anything below 20, with 7.5 being the worst you can get).
• Grand Theft Auto Online:
  • Their pronunciation of the acronym for "did not finish" (DNF) as one word in races.
  • Some races containing floating container walls for wall riding. There have been other specific kinds of races that they play on a regular basis, such as parkour races, but this is the most common feature.
  • Also there's the "moist wet waves"; (usually motorbike) races that involve racing on Sprunk water ramps or other platforms that bob up-and-down on water.
  • Difficult turns which a Sideman has to go forward and reverse at several points before completing them are referred to as "million-point turns".
  • If the crew are doing a race using the circus clown vans, they always joke about having kidnapped children trapped in the vans.
  • Tobi and Josh's rocky relationship, with Josh often committing acts of fuckery to piss Tobi off.
  • At the end of a deathmatch taking place in a suspended area, Simon will celebrate victory by leaping off and falling to the ground. It has since been semi-adopted by the others.
  • They also used to yell "Nants ingonyama!" when making a huge jump/stunt in GTA. Comes back on occasion, however.
  • A more recent one: after Rockstar released the previously PC-exclusive in-game record ability on the PS4 edition of the game, Simon and Josh now make a point of using it despite already using their game capture cards to record. This is so they can get screenshots taken using the Rockstar Editor for more dynamic GTA V Funny Moments thumbnails, instead of using regular gameplay footage like before.
  • Ever since the Heists Update was released, Josh has a habit to use the flare gun as his primary weapon in GTA races.^note The race type that allows weapons to be used, vehicles to be exited/dismounted, and provides rocket, boost and repair power-ups.
  • JJ has a very poor finishing record in races, often finishing last. Most of his victories have been earned either by Simon surrendering his lead for him, by pure luck, or by the others crashing into each other and not realizing JJ is leading until it's too late.
  • If someone is being too far ahead and Vik is somewhere near the bottom, providing it's a circuit race and he's ordered by the others, he will go the other way around and attempt to crash into the leader, stabilizing the race to give the others a chance to win.
  • Don't use the Turismo R for any races with huge jumps/stunts along the way, since it will not make it.
  • If it's a race between an Adder and a Zentorno, expect the Adder Gang to lose, mostly because they screw each other's race.
  • If a Sideman's vehicle is on top of another Sideman's vehicle, then he has "hatted" that Sideman.
  • If there's a race involving going down a mountain, expect JJ to actually lead by a rather large margin and not make mistakes in the process.
  • Simon stopping at the finish line in first place to take out the others, which almost always backfires on him.
  • JJ's tendency to chose a car color that is the same with another Sidemen's car color (usually he chose black, which is Tobi's designated color).
  • Thus far, Harry starts a new PSN account whenever he joins the Sidemen in PS4 GTA V sessions. So far, he's gone from "wroetobog17" to "cauezvchyydsfa" to "haroldbog17".
  • Ever since the Sidemen returned to GTA following the Cunning Stunts DLC, Josh has turned from being one of the best to one of the worst racers of the Sidemen. Even JJ, who is a terrible driver and usually only won due to circumstances other than himself, beats Josh quite regularly now.
• Cards Against Humanity:
  • The "jizz" card is treated as a special being of power that works for any black card. Other strong white cards for them include anything involving Auschwitz, Adolf Hitler, and "DEEZ NUTS!"
  • When they used the timer until Harry's first game in early September 2015,^note They've since resumed using the timer. JJ couldn't be trusted as the Card Czar, since he might take too long to pick and reach his time limit, much to the others' chagrin. God forbid it's because he's Googling something in a white card that he doesn't know.
  • Anything read by the Card Czar that sounds like it could come out the wrong way in any other given moment is said to be worthy of a sound bite.
  • JJ struggling to read long words.
  • JJ's obsession with any card with "MATT DAMON!"
  • All of the cards making fun of Josh's beard.
  • Vik being a pedophile or a terrorist.
    • Ethan has recently being included in the pedophile gags, much to his annoyance.
  • If someone plays a card that literally has nothing on it (just a blank), it'll automatically win.
  • Simon's usernames referring to Josh's Illuminate series that he never made.
    • References to Illuminate and its Development Hell in general within the custom cards.
  • Vik going quiet when reading disturbing white cards.
  • If the card played is related to Calfreezy and his plethora of embarrassing nicknames, the Sidemen will say to the viewers to tweet Freezy whatever is said on the card.
  • After JJ announced that he will released a new EP called Keep Up, one of the ways JJ promotes said EP is by his username (e.g. BuyKeepUpEP, or KeepUpEPOutNow).
  • Making fun of JJ's support of Arsenal FC.
  • JJ will never choose a white card that is either too long or mocks his inability to read certain words (i.e. anthropologist, waning, Rolls Royce, squirrel).
  • Speaking of JJ, whenever he is a Card Czar, he almost always chooses a card that allows him to scream (i.e. the "MATT DAMON!" card)
  • Ever since the custom Sidemen cards became commonplace, there is (almost) always at least one card played in a round involving Vik in the card.
  • Only JJ and Tobi (or JME if he makes a guest appearance) will be allowed to say the N-word if that word appears in a card. If the card czar is not either of those three, they will temporarily let one of them say that word.
    • If any of the three doesn't make an appearance in the video, the N-word will be skipped altogether.
    • Lately, the non-black Sidemen have been pronouncing the word as "Nigel" instead.
  • If a card contains a misspelling, the Sidemen will point it out and the Card Czar will read it as it is. This is how we got stuff like "likkes".^note The word "likes" with an extra k, pronounced by the Sidemen as "lickies".
  • Month.^Explanation In one CAH game where the Sidemen had many cards that didn't make much sense, Ethan told everyone that he had a white card that literally just said "Month." Not "a month" or "the month", just "Month." Despite the stupidity of that white card, he later played it for the bants and got an Awesome Point, and it's now been included in several custom Sidemen-themed decks ever since, along with other length of time-based variants such as "Day." and "Fortnight."
  • Ever since Pretend You're Xyzzy (the online version of Cards Against Humanity that the Sidemen play on) added proper HTML support for custom cards, cards with images or GIFs have become increasingly common. This would later include sound effects from Soundcloud.^note Although they have to time playing the sound effect together at the same time when a sound card is played, since the sound only plays on a client system's side and not through the game's server.
• Giving incorrect names for almost all the Peggle Masters in Peggle 2,^note Bjorn the Unicorn is the only one they get right. especially "Spunk the Chipmunk" (veteran Peggle Master Jimmy Lightning).
• In Rocket League, don't get paired with JJ during a match. He plays so bad, he has a higher chance of scoring an own goal instead.
• Who's Your Daddy?:
  • In the videos released since the V0.9.0 update is released; there will be one baby death involving the baby driving their parents' VW Beetle to the wall, exploding it in the process.
  • If someone fires a taser, the shooter will be tasered regardless of whether it hits or not. Anyone who get tasered will get their body to "spazzing out".
  • In almost every session, one baby death involves the dad assisting the baby to kill himself.
• In Garry's Mod:
  • Prop Hunt:
    • The Sidemen who was hiding (i.e. the Props) almost always plays a taunt music, which on their games can be accessed by pressing the F3 button.
    • Said taunts inevitably led to the Hunters to locate the Props, forcing the Props to run and most of the time resulted in their demise.
    • After they added custom taunts, whenever Ethan (as a Prop) gets spotted by the Hunters and forced to run, there's a good chance he will taunt the Hunters with the Benny Hill theme as they chased Ethan.
    • Whenever Simon is a prop and he plays the Mortal Kombat theme taunt, he will jump his prop up and down over and over during the duration of the taunt; or as Ethan said it, Simon is "warming up".
  • Death Run:
    • Josh seems to have a habit to activate the Cheats and uses noclip to skip the map.
    • During the first few rounds, expect the Sidemen did not progress to the end of the first room.
  • Murder!:
    • If JJ is the murderer or the bystander with the gun, expect him to be killed quicker than the others.
    • Josh recently have did what Sea Nanners used to do, i.e. having control of who is going to be the murderer. Unlike Nanners, Josh never does it constantly; usually it's just once per video.
  • In general:
    • Whenever the Sidemen tries to dive in any GMod session, it often starts with this line: "And now, diving for Great Britain, [insert the name for who is diving]."
• Trivial Pursuit Live!:
  • The X Must Not Win strategies.
  • Their constant mention to not look at the comments whenever a Trivial Pursuit video is released, because the comments will roast their idiocy.
  • Sometimes whenever a particular Sidemen gets out in the final round, the next question is ridiculously easy and one that they would've gotten.
  • Whenever the Sidemen is choosing between one of two categories for the next question/round; if their favorite question category is there, expect that category to be chosen.
    • Speaking of their favorite question categories: Simon has Arts & Literature, Vik has Science & Nature, Josh has Geography, Ethan has Entertainment, while JJ and Tobi have Sports & Leisure.
• ShellShock Live:
  • Whenever someone in the Sidemen fire the Moons: Moooooooooooooooooooooooooons^Explanation Moons is a weapon that shoots 5 moon-like spheres that if it didn't hit anything after a certain amount of time (around 2 seconds), it will fly to whatever direction the moons want. While it is a strong weapon if all 5 hit their target (especially if the target is close enough), oftentimes the moons will fly out of the map. Because of the random nature of the Moons, everyone in the Sidemen will say "Moooooooooooooooooooooooooons" (this is just an example, they can say that shorter/longer than the example) to emphasize that one of them will fire Moons.
  • If someone uses the Bounsplode, and because of its unusually strong bouncing ability; there's a good chance that the Bounsplode will bounce back and damage the one who fired it.
  • Their gentleman's agreement rules: Never kill anyone with either a Dead Weight or Earthquake unless you have no other option or you simply want to troll someone.
  • Somehow missing a Dead Weight will be considered as an Epic Fail and Never Live It Down moment for the one who missed it.
  • Some moments after Sidemen: The Book is announced, they start promoting the book whenever they kill someone by typing sidemenbook.co.uk in the in-game chat. This has escalated to the point that their chats during a session is mostly filled with sidemenbook.co.uk in a large quantity.
• Dead by Daylight:
  • In the start of every round, the murderer will spoke in either a creepy tone or a hilariously cheerful, child molester-like tone.
• Overwatch:
  • Expect the Sidemen to play as the character(s) mentioned below during their sessions. Please note that Tobi rarely plays the game, while Harry never uploaded an Overwatch video so far (hence why both of them are not mentioned below):
    • Ethan: Zenyatta.
    • Vik: Pharah, Junkrat, Winston, Reinhardt, Zarya, or Lucio.
    • Josh: Soldier: 76.
    • Simon: Genji or Reinhardt.
    • JJ: D.Va., Genji, or Soldier: 76
• Minigolf games:
  • In any minigolf games they played, whoever was leading in the scoreboard (often by a significant margin) will be called "The Golf King" to apply them some pressure with them being in the lead.
  • "Leave the map!" when one them plays poorly, especially if the keep going out of bounds.
  • Usually only in Golf It, anytime they get an eagle, they will sing "An eagle can save us!"
  • In Minigolf Mania, referring to the snow power-up as "cum".

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