Who are the Anime men?
The whole anime men group consists of 8 members but I had the opportunity to speak to the main 3 being Gianni, Jeremy, and Kaide. @Theanimemen in Gianni's words are "A group of friends who make anime videos". Growing up in the same area Gianni, Jeremy, and Kaide all met each other through school. They have 490k+ followers and over 19 million likes on Tiktok. The group is mostly known for their viral videos on TikTok where they lip-sync the song "Fugashi no carte" in a variety of different places such as a park, a grocery store, and even a school!. With their page growing as it is they are now exploring new ways to show their creativity with new types of videos and collaborations.
How it all started
As I said before the anime men have gone viral for their funny videos where they lip-sync the song "Fugashi no carte". How those videos came to be is what I wanted to find out.
"How did this all start?"
G(Gianni): "Jeremy was on a grind for losing weight so me, him, and J-Cruisin (another member of the anime men) would go on a walk every day and I would always listen to this song "Fugashi No Carte" and I love that song. So one day we're waking and I pull up my TikTok and I hated TikTok but I was like, as a joke 'yo guys let's try lip-syncing this but let's try looking really hot whole lip-syncing as part of the joke'. We did the first one and nothing happened then we did another one and nothing happen and then another day when we were walking I was like ok let's put a little bit more effort into this."
J(Jeremy): "As in someone else filming instead of a first-person POV."
G: "Yeah exactly. We did that and it did pretty well, it had 15k-20k likes... the one that really really really blew up is the one where we film through the drive-through while Kaides is at work. So he's working, while we're in the drive-through, singing "Fugashi No Carte" and that one, that one went crazy. Yeah, anyways that's how we got started."
(fart goes off during interview)
K(Kaide): "Gianni just farted."
"That's ok as long as I can't smell it we're good."
Supporting the Anime Community and their fans
Most if not all people who watch anime have experienced negative judgment from other people who frown upon it. To some that negative judgment may make someone who loves and enjoys the genre feel "weird" or "different" for doing so and puts them in an odd place. The anime men have shown that that shouldn't be the case anymore and that you shouldn't have to hide something that should be open for everyone no matter what anybody says. They explained...
"Do you guys feel like you are a relief to the part of the anime community that has felt harsh judgment and can now feel like they can express themselves freely?"
G: "You know what I'm about to explain bro" *points at Kaide* "I used to watch Naruto in middle school and this guy bullied me."
K: "I clowned him so many times. So many times."
G: "For A lot of people if you watched anime early it was shunned...So it's just nice cause we've gotten lotta texts that make us feel really good like 'Hey you got me out of my shell and now I can tell people I watch anime without getting embarrassed'. That's one of our objectives, showing people that it's not embarrassing to show what you like. It's just nice to see people showing that they actually like anime."
"How do you guys deal with hate? Is it something you brush off or laugh at?"
K: "It's like comedy."
G: "It's so funny."
J: "The way I think about it is, there's one negative comment and like 2000 positive comments. Most of the people who comment that type of stuff, you go on their page and it's just way more cringe stuff than ours."
G: "Yeah don't let that stuff get to you, we're not doing anything bad. I get why people think we're cringe and they have a right to hate on us but it doesn't affect us to stop making videos."
K: "We're having fun like who cares? Hate on me for having fun and your weird bro."
"I see you guys have a discord. How is that going for you guys?"
J: "We spend a lot of time on our discord. I feel like compared to other influencers who have discord, we spend a lot of time on our discord."
K: "We're really interactive."
J: "Honestly I Feel like they don't even see us as TikTokers they just see us as friends... I'd say our community on discord is pretty strong compared to others."
To check out and join their discord click this link Discord
The rise in Popularity/ Goals
5 years ago Gianni posted a video on what is now the anime men main channel, Gmoney_swag12, titled "NEW CHANNEL IM FAMOUS NOW". Now they have almost half a million followers on TikTok and 13.9k on their YT channel. I brought it up to them and asked
"How does it feel to have that video posted and now have this success?"
G: "It hasn't hit me yet, I don't feel like a celebrity. Even though today we went to the mall and had people come up to us like 'yo are you the anime men? Can we take a picture?'. It's cool though."
K: "It just doesn't feel like we made it."
"So do you feel like there more progress you need before you start to feel that way?"
G: "Oh yeah 100%. A goal I have is to be one of the biggest anime TikTokers. If it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. We made Gmoney_swag12 in 6th grade so we always made videos for fun. A Goal we have and a goal other people should pursue is to do what you love. I don't really want to work sitting at a desk job,9-5, just sitting down. We just wanna pursue what we love, making videos. That'd be the goal."
J: "Also bigger goal, anime house."
"Are there any more achievements or checkpoints you'd like to reach such as reaching a certain amount of followers in a certain time?"
G: "I'd say in a year if we reached a 1mil we would be in a good spot."
J: "We had a goal for the summer."
G: "Yeah 500K for Tiktok and 150K on instagram. which is pretty close, like surprisingly close. If you're saying lifetime goals like numbers I really want, I want 10MIL on Tiktok, 1MIL on YT, and 500K on Instagram. Those numbers would be beautiful."
"Do you guys plan on doing this full-time?"
J: "If it happens it happens. As of now I definitely don't see myself doing this forever, ill just ride it out until it dies. If it goes somewhere then I'm happy but in terms of seeing it as a career no not at all."
G: "How about you Kaide?"
K: "The same as Jeremy"
G: "I'm different. I think we have a lot of potential as people and if we have enough of a following we can definitely make it a full-time job. It has potential it's just probably not gonna work out, but it definitely could."
Collaborations/Future Collaborations.
In the past, the anime men have collaborated with other social media stars such as Shlatfish and Edward from Arcade Craniacs. I wanted to learn more about their interactions and how their collaborations came to be.
"How did you guys end up collaborating with Edward and Shlatfish?"
J: "We didn't know we were gonna collab with him (Edward) until an hour before we met him. Shlatfish said he was gonna come but then he canceled. Then shlatt surprised us."
G: "Not me just you."
K: "Yeah I knew too."
J: "Oh yeah, so he didn't tell me that he was gonna come. So he showed up and we were like ' oh it's Edward. So after he came we met up with him at a mall and then that's when we went to a little park and that's where we filmed the video."
"So everything was pretty quick?"
J: "Yeah it was pretty spontaneous."
G: "It was really cool to meet him. it was a bit awkward at first, just cause Shlat was a little immature about it when he saw Edward and he didn't tell Edward that 8 people were gonna be there (the whole anime men group) so he was about to leave actually, but we're human too so we treat him human. He ended up liking us, we're all chill, and we ended up making videos."
"Besides working with Edward and Shlatt, are there any other collaborations you working on currently?"
"If you've seen our series (on TikTok) we're tryna collaborate with Vinnie Hacker, but what people don't know is within 5 hours of making the first video I actually facetimed him and he was willing to make a collab so we're doing that Saturday. It's not 100% but we're pretty sure he's gonna do it. That should go very well and bring us into mainstream sort of."
"Do you guys have any Dream collaborations?"
G: "Yeah, there's King Chris, Bella Poarch would be funny, KSI is probably the biggest, or joy the anime man. If we go to Japan and go do a podcast with them that would be sick. Those are the ones we really want."
What lies ahead
Only time will tell where their anime journey will leave them but what thing is for sure, they are adding more to a growing community in their own funny and creative ways and freeing those who have felt held back in expressing their love for anime. Make sure to go check out their TikTok- @TheAnimeMen, YouTube- @Gmoney_swag12 ,Instagram- @TheAnimeMen , Merch- TheAnimeMen.com , and discord- Discord more future and exciting content.
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