Can I See A Reference? -No
18 January 2022


I hate to be one of them LinkedIn dorks - so I’ll just write my undervalued opinions about the ad industry in the confinements of my own crap blog instead of ripping apart someone’s piece of work publicly.

When I went to Watford, I was introduced to Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. And I will be forever grateful for that because - maybe also due to the fact that I was severely malnourished, sustaining on Nature Valley bars and sleeping 4.5 hours every night - Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared really resonated with the dark side of creativity, selling your soul to the business edition of Unikitty from the Lego Movie


and being content with the fact that you will always have your dark side, your pie filled of guts side, and - most importantly - that if things go right in your career you could always end up making a weird ass puppet show.



But - NOT EXACTLY THAT. See, the point of creativity is to be different. No self respecting creative would rip off someone else’s work.

Which is why I was utterly disappointed to see that a brand that I’ve always admired (Oatly copywriters - I hug you from afar) has shamelessly ripped off most of Don’T Hug Me I’m Scared’s soul while trying to appeal to creative hipsters.  
 
  

And I’m equally happy to see that said creative hipsters have rebelled to such heresy in the form of angry tweets. To which Oatly has tried to kindly reply and list the web series as one of their “inspirations” - and thank fuck that angry creative hipsters have continued to rip into them for that too.

BUT - I SWEAR TO GOD - NEXT TIME A CD SAYS TO ME “Oh - I don’t see what you mean - can I see a reference” I shall say no. Hell no. No. Nein. No. This is a product of my imagination. I will describe it out loud for you. I will give you an interpretative dance. I will get in my underwear drawer and sock puppet the shit out of this script - I will be awake day and night to answer questions from producers on the other side of the globe about which colour coffee table I envision in this script most - but if what you want is for me to go on YouTube and find an exactly identical version of this that some other brand has done before, my answer will be NO.

Because, if that’s what I did, I’d be a fraud. If I straight went out and copied someone else’s work, I couldn’t live with it. So, no. You can’t see a reference.  



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