Original Flex Tape Commercial
Long ago in the distant year of 2017, my life was going through a lot of changes. And those changes led me to an apartment in the outskirts of Chicago for the first time. There was very little to do in the unfurnished apartment, but the one thing we did have was antenna TV. And nothing pulled us in like the Game Show Network (GSN). It doesn't matter if it is 1977 or 2017, Family Feud always slaps. But I'm not here to talk about game shows.
Let me set the scene! While watching our very first commercial break, my mom, brother, and I are graced with the presence of a delightful man who introduces himself to us as Phil Swift. His energy exudes so much aura. His smile is infectious. I trust Phil Swift. Maybe we should listen to him about this magical tape!
He demonstrates with such enthusiasm the "power" of Flex Tape. It's strong enough to lift hundreds of pounds, as Swift shows us with his muscles. It can be used to repair leaks of any kind. And it even works underwater!
But then it happens. "To show you the power of Flex Tape…"
"I SAWED THIS BOAT IN HALF!"
The madman did it! He sawed a literal boat in half. And immediately we see him in the swamps driving the boat like he didn't just saw it in half.
After the 2 minute infomercial concludes, we are in awe. Phil Swift; there must be hundreds of memes about this man. I look on Youtube. The only meme I can find is a little amateur remix of him saying "I sawed this boat in half", and it only has 14 views. Maybe he isn't a meme yet, but he will be someday.
Flash forward to a few months later—after having watched the infomercial so many times on the GSN in addition to the ones for other "Flex" products—I see it. A video by the Youtuber JonTron has millions of views, and it's about the Flex Tape commercial.
Say what you will about JonTron. And I will! Definitely one of those content creators that went down the far right rabbit hole and completely tanked his Youtube royalty status. But you can't deny the stranglehold he had over internet meme culture in the 2010s. And no YouTuber did more for Phil Swift and Flex Tape than what he did. The meme truly exploded on Youtube after that.
Infomercials have always been such a large source for memes. I'm sure many people remember ShamWow, the Snuggie, and the Shake Weight. But the Flex Tape commercial felt like it was on some other level. Phil Swift kinda filled the spot vacated by Billy Mays after his passing in 2009. But to me Phil Swift is so much greater than Mays because his genuine passion for the product is so infectious. What a legend!
WARNING FOR HEADPHONE USERS
The Phil Swift memes hold a special place in my heart. A little bit because I felt like one of the first people to realize its meme potential and a little bit because it was genuinely really funny. But mostly because it was something that brought my family together during possibly the biggest period of change of our lives up to that point. We didn't know what the next couple years were gonna bring for us. But it didn't matter, because we still had a silly commercial of a guy sawing a boat in half to make us laugh through the struggles.
