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It had been a slow day at the office. Everyone seemed to be extra tired from the past few days’ activities of filming their latest music video and some of the sketches of their upcoming season. And the weather was just a bit…off. Neither warm not cold, it had a rather stupor-inducing effect on the staff at Concorde TV.
Something had gone wrong with one of the sketches which had led them to la det på is the sketch. It just hadn’t felt right. Now they had to brainstorm quickly to think of a new idea as their window for filming ended the next day.
Calle, Bård and Vegard sat around the conference table mutely; their conversation had grinded to a halt when Calle and Bård failed to stifle a yawn at Vegard’s rant about the inefficiencies of a vehicle running on compressed natural gas. Calle’s long stick-like legs were propped up on the armrest of Bård’s chair but Bård didn’t seem to mind. What he did mind was the fact that none of them had come up with a decent idea in the past 45 minutes they had spent cooped up in this room.
“Come on, guys. We need to think of something by lunchtime. A sketch, a prank segment, anything,” he urged. He furiously backspaced the letters “CNG” from the word document on his Macbook, something he’d absent-mindedly typed during Vegard’s intolerable blabbering.
Vegard’s attention was directed towards Bård’s action and he said tentatively, “When I was on the Tørnquist Show, they went through forums on the Internet and found stuff that fans had written about me. Why don’t we try to recreate that? Maybe we’ll find something really funny.”
Bård scoffed. “People will think we’re unoriginal. And I don’t think we’ll find anything we haven’t seen before.”
Calle languidly removed his legs from Bård’s chair and sat up. “You don’t know that. Fans can be pretty fucking crazy. And now that you’ve got international fans as well, who knows what they’re coming up with?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t hurt to try searching,” Vegard chimed in with his finger on his lip, as was customary of tired Vegard.
“Fine,” conceded Bård. He opened up Twitter and started going through his mentions.
@bylvis You should tweet more. You too @vegardino and @hellevanglarsen
@bylvis srsly how do you get your hair to be so perfect??!1
@bylvis Come to Brazil! <3
@bylvis Hvordan har du det, Bård? That’s the only Norwegian I know. Was that alright?
And then...
@bylvis You little shit how could you do this to your brother? bardisalittleshit.tumblr.com/post/539573025732025/bard+is+a+little+shit
Ah, Tumblr. Bård had little memory of Tumblr. It was mostly pictures and moving pictures. The last time he had been there, he’d searched Ylvis and not much had come up. Just standard photoshoot pictures and links to their videos. Maybe things had changed.
As his cursor hovered over the link, he heard his brother snort. “See, they hate you.”
“Only because I have to play the devil’s advocate all the time. It wouldn’t make good TV if both of us were dorks like you.”
Calle laughed. “I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with this shit.”
But Calle had spoken too soon. As Bård scrolled through the blog, they discovered that Calle was not less represented amongst the pages.
Bård gave a chuckle. “They call you ‘the smoke and honey man’. Not bad, Calle.”
Calle leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “I wonder what that’s supposed to mean,” he said, “and look, someone’s called you a ‘stupid solsikke shit’.”
As they scrolled through the blog and followed links, they discovered that Vegard was known as the ‘curly-haired bastard/hamster’. Vegard’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline when he read about fangirls salivating over his apparently divine physical appearance. He was used to all the praise about good looks being directed to his little brother (at least that was the trope: Bard the younger and smoother brother while Vegard was the older and dorkier one) but on this website it seemed that he was the ultimate object of affection.
Bård was also surprised by the disproportionate amour for his brother. Sure, a lot of people were exclaiming about his good looks and smile (there was even one about the gap next to his canine tooth; weird, he’d barely even noticed that) but when it came to Vegard it seemed like they were all creaming their pants. Must be his exotic looks, Bård hypothesised. Vegard probably has more of an ‘international’ appeal than he does. And secretly he’d always thought his brother’s features were more distinguished than his, with a sharper nose and darker eyes. And although he often mocked his jet-black curls, he had to admit that there was an unusually sensual quality to his hair. His dorkiness probably contributed to his charm---so nice guys didn’t finish last after all, huh?
The men’s task lay forgotten as they laughed and joked about the compliments and the frustration they evidently illicited from these girls.
“What’s a ship?” Vegard asked, pointing at the offending word written on a comment under a photo of Raske Menn. “This ship sails itself...what ship?”
Bård shrugged but Calle cleared his throat. “Um, it says hashtag Canders over here, so it’s probably...I don’t know...a pairing? Of Anders and I?”
Bård threw back his head and laughed. Vegard joined in when he’d also spotted the tag. “Well you pretty much brought that upon yourselves, admit it.”
Calle slunk down further in his chair, if that was even possible. Vegard gave him a thump on his shoulder, still laughing.
Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, Bård, who had been scrolling down the page while the other two were distracted, slammed the laptop shut and covered his eyes with both hands.
Vegard and Calle jumped in their seats at the noise and turned to stare at Bård questioningly.
“Don’t ask,” mumbled the younger Ylvisåker, his voice muffled through his fingers. He slowly rubbed a hand down his face as if trying to erase the memory of what he had just seen.
The silence that fell in the room was almost deafening.
Calle and Vegard exchanged glances before Calle spoke up, “What was it, Bård? What did you see?” He said it in a whisper, with affected concern in his tone, as if they were in a horror movie and their lives depended on Bård’s reply.
Bård hunched over in his seat and rested his cheek against the cool wood of the table. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered. “Let’s have a break and then start over with brainstorming. This Internet thing isn’t going to work.”
He wasn’t prepared for Calle’s quick reflexes in his traumatised state when Calle snatched the Macbook off the table and kicked vigorously off Bård’s chair, sending himself wheeling into the far corner of the room, safely out of Bård’s grip.
Bård let out a strangled yelp and reached helplessly after Calle a moment too late. Before Bård could react further, Calle opened the lid of the laptop and, with wide eyes, read the contents of the post that had so shaken Bård.
A moment passed while Bård, resigned, waited for his reaction. Vegard was on the edge of his chair, not sure if he wanted to know what the laptop had in store for them. Just how much harm could a mere wall of text do?
Calle quietly closed the laptop and set it on his knees. Then he looked up at Bård and Vegard, his eyes flitting between them before a huge smile split his face. “I can totally see it.”
Bård flipped him the bird.
Vegard, completely confused at this point, asked, “SEE WHAT?”
“Calle, do not let him see that,” pleaded Bård, albeit weakly, because he knew that Calle wasn’t one to listen to requests.
Calle smirked. “He’s a grown man, Bård, I’m sure he can fend for himself.”
Unable to wait any longer, Vegard got up and walked swiftly over to Calle. Calle put his hands up in surrender and let Vegard pick up the laptop without any resistance.
Opening the Macbook, Vegard scanned the post. Barely a few seconds had passed before he exclaimed, “Holy dritte what in Helvete’s name...I’m doing what to Bård?!”
The smoke and honey man could not rein it in any longer and burst out laughing, the boisterous sound reverberating through the conference room.
A pink-faced Vegard set down the laptop on the table as though it had a disease.
“Now this is awkward,” Bård said with a loud sigh.
Vegard couldn’t quite meet his brother’s eye.
Calle leaned back and watched the brothers’ obvious discomfort with a satisfied smile. This was incredibly episke. He couldn’t remember the last time the brothers had been even slightly mortified. It was like nothing could faze them.
Until now.
“Back to the drawing board, it is, Ylvisåkers.”