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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Sidemen video!
Who's who?

The Sidemen, initially formed as the Ultimate Sidemen, are a British online entertainment collective group that was officially formed on 19 October 2013, consisting of seven members since 2014.

The group started out as a collaborative group of video game commentators on YouTube who were then known for playing various games, mostly FIFA. Most of their earliest videos were "funny moments" compilations of their Grand Theft Auto Online sessions, most of which involved wacky races against one another; in fact, the group was formed through the game as a Rockstar Games Social Club crew. They quickly expanded not long after to a rotating selection of other games they often played.

As the group evolved over time, they quickly made various other videos where they did silly challenges and engaged in lots of banter. Their antics caused their popularity to explode just a couple years after their formation; their ascension from beyond the confines of a mere YouTube group first began in October 2014 with a web video miniseries for Comedy Central UK called The Sidemen Experience.

By the end of The New '10s, the Sidemen became a well-managed online brand with one of the biggest followings in the UK YouTube scene, especially among young viewers, and it can be argued that they are one of the biggest celebrity groups in the country.

Their activities and business ventures have included charity football matches against other popular YouTubers annually from 2016 to 2023 (barring a four-year hiatus between 2018 and 2022), a #1 best-selling book, a YouTube Original reality stunt miniseries titled The Sidemen Show, an extensive clothing and merchandise brand (which has included collaborations with famous brands such as Mr. Men, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Topps trading cards), a physical retail store, their own subscription streaming service, and even their own restaurant chain and brands of vodka and breakfast cereal. On Valentine's Day 2024, the group released an autobiographical documentary on Netflixnote  called The Sidemen Story, detailing the group's rise during their first decade together but also each member's personal struggles both before and during their time together as a group and how they overcame them.

The seven-man group still remains pretty tight with one another. Despite often appearing as Vitriolic Best Buds — and usually each other's Butt Monkeys as well — they still show a genuine love for each other at the end of the day. Although the group's name began as a joke about how everyone else in the group was a "side man" to KSI early in their careers, their content is operated such that everyone pulls their own weight and is no more or less important, with strong group chemistry and individual followings to show for it. Not bad for a group of seven guys who just fool around a lot.

As a whole, the group has six YouTube channels as of April 2023 — their main channel, a secondary channel called "More Sidemen", a Reaction Video channel, a channel featuring short clips from their videos, a (short-lived) channel featuring Spanish-language dubs of their older videos, and a tertiary channel called "Even More Sidemen".note  Their official website can be found here.

442oons made the series Frontmen based on that original YouTube channel.

Members of the Sidemen (founding members in bold):

  • Behzinga (Ethan Payne): The most easily-amused and most easily-riled-up Sideman. He was also known for being the heaviest Sideman but is now Formerly Fat and a fitness fanatic. He first met KSI, Simon, Josh, and Tobi the month before the group formed. He was also the one who named the group.
  • KSI (Olajide "JJ" Olatunji): The most popular Sideman, except within the crew. Britain's most famous individual YouTuber. He's a platinum-selling rap artist, part-time boxer, and Large Ham extraordinaire.
  • Miniminter (Simon Minter): The second-oldest and third-most popular Sideman, and the one with the longest-running active YouTube channel compared to the rest of the group. A big-time Competition Freak, he's the captain of the group's football club. He's so close to JJ that they shared a flat after they, Josh, and Vik moved out of the second Sidemen House.note 
  • TBJZLnote  (Tobi Brown): Near-universally considered the nicest of the Sidemen. He's been friends with Josh below since the beginning of secondary school. Also quite open of his faith.
  • Vikkstar123 (Vik Barn): The highly-productive Sideman of Indian descent who's not a FIFA gamer like the others. Runs three channels. A long-time Call of Duty fan, he's in the pro-am eSports circuit as part of the London Royal Ravens. He was also known for his Minecraft content, but he's now branched out to games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone. He officially joined the group the month after their formation.
  • wroetoshawnote  (Harry Lewis): The youngest and second-most popular Sideman, he hails from Guernsey. He was once known for not hanging with the others as much. In fact, he hardly makes his own videos these days. He joined in early 2014 when the group was still informal.
  • Zerkaa (Josh Bradley): The oldest (though only by mere days ahead of Simon) and usually the Only Sane Sideman, he's the group's go-to business manager. He's also the one with the (most prominent) beard.

Got the tropes, boys!

  • Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Tobi ends up playing Rock–Paper–Scissors with Calfreezy in his "WORST DISCARD OF MY LIFE" video. If Cal loses, he has to discard a pack containing not only TOTS Pastore (goes for 80,000 to 130,000 coins on Xbox, and 95,000 to 160,000 on PlayStation) but Messi (goes for over 1 to 1.5 million on PlayStation and half to three-quarters of a million on Xbox). Cal loses both the "best 2 out of 3" game and the "try to win 3 times in a row" game, and has to discard the pack.
  • Aerith and Bob: Most of the Sidemen incorporate parts of their real names in their online identities (KSIOlajidebt, miniminter, Tobjizzle, Vikkstar123), but Ethan Payne, Harry Lewis, and Josh Bradley (Behzinga, wroetoshaw, and Zerkaa, respectively) do not.note 
    • Looking at their first names, we have the Western names Ethan, Harold, Joshua, Simon, and Tobi, and then there are the definitely un-Western Olajide and Vikram.
    • Simon is the only Sideman whose usernames on Xbox Live and Steam are unrelated to his normal online identity.note 
  • Affectionate Parody: The Sidemen have done parodies of game shows Deal or No Deal, The Weakest Link, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Family Fortunes/Family Feud, 1 vs. 100, The Chase, and The Wheel, among others, for Sidemen Sundays. They've also done their own version of Hot Ones as well for a Sidemen Sunday.
    • The Deal or No Deal parody was actually semi-serious as they had Callux and Jme play for charity (since it was partly made as a lead-up to the Sidemen charity football match).
    • The Weakest Link parodies, mainly the first one, was basically a fancy bet between them with Ethan as the Game Show Host. The first one actually used the show's intro, graphics package and music, albeit clearly lifted from YouTube uploads of such. The second parody used an original graphics package and intro.
    • The Millionaire parody (known as either Who Wants to be a Billionaire?,note  Who Wants to Win Bare P Fam?: Sidemen Edition,note  or Who Wants to Make Bare P's, Fam?note ) had six of the Sidemen playing in pairs because none of them are all that smart.
    • The Family Fortunes parody has JJ reprising his role from the Sidemen Spelling Bee as a host with a stereotypical African accent and the other Sidemen playing against some YouTubers they are known to be affiliated with, specifically Jme, REEV, Calfreezy, JMX, Randolph, and Ali-A.
    • The 1 vs. 100 parody involved each of the Sidemen (sans Simon) playing against the other five competing Sidemen and 95 of their fans (via video conferencing, since it was held during the COVID-19 Pandemic) for pounds.
    • The Wheel parody goes above and beyond the other parodies by actually using the set of the show itself (a necessity considering how the show works), as well as using its title sequence, graphics package and catchy music. It helps that Vik actually appeared as a celebrity expert in the show's sixth episode. The only thing that would've made it even better if they got Michael McIntyre himself to host it (he at least appears in the said reused title sequence), but fellow British YouTube comedian Stephen Tries does an admirable job in his place.
  • The Alleged Car: Vik has been in the butt end of this twice, once in his old VW Scirocco and once in his Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
  • all lowercase letters: wroetoshaw and (previously) Miniminter.
  • All for Nothing: In "SIDEMEN $100,000 MYSTERY BOX CHALLENGE (YOUTUBER EDITION)" 7 youtubers were tasked with making a mystery box and had a budget of $10,000. Harry opened the mystery box of callux which was revealed to be a bunch of concrete and inside the concrete was a briefcase "filled with money." Harry then spends a lot of the video breaking the concrete to try and find the money. Near the end of the video... Callux revealed that he spent $9,900 on the block of concrete and $100 on the briefcase. So even if harry found the briefcase there was going to be no money inside it.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • Played for some very dark laughs. In one of Simon's Q&As, he imagined a scenario in which he is laying on his bed and every body part except his head was rendered immobile. Then JJ, wearing his rape face, slowly approaches him...
    • Discussed in Simon and Josh's Akinator video.
      Josh: That means you're bad.
      Simon: Why?
      Josh: Because you definitely ate a gingerbread man.
      Simon: It wasn't alive.
      Josh: How do you know?
      Simon: Oh my God, you're an idiot.
  • The Announcer: Simon usually reads out the playlist names, event names (often with deliberate malapropisms) and event descriptions while playing GTA V. Usually if the description is in a foreign language, he will ask Ethan or Tobi to read it.
  • Animated Adaptation: In the same vein as Achievement Hunter and Game Grumps, several online animators have animated moments from the Sidemen's gameplay. One animator in particular, Adsapaps, has since been recruited to create official animations for the group. Another animator, smashbits, has also had his content featured on Ethan and Vik's channels.
  • Arc Number: 19, due to the Sidemen forming on the nineteenth of October 2013. The number in Roman numeral form (XIX) has been an integral aspect of their brand, being used in their merchandise and as the name of their vodka brand, XIX Vodka.
  • Better than a Bare Bulb: The Sidemen love to lampshade, especially when strange sentences are said or in moments of Genre Savvy.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: Sometimes in GTA V Last Team Standing matches, if a Sideman believes or knows that he's about to lose, he will deliberately commit suicide in order to avoid giving a kill stat to the opposing Sidemen. Josh even complained about this trend after he and his team was about to win with an RPG to the snipers' highly-explosive platform, only for Tobi and Vik blow it all up themselves first.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Ethan and Tobi have both shown that they can be menacing people when genuinely pissed off.
  • Big Fancy House: From August 2016 to late 2018/early 2019, Simon, Josh, Vik and JJ lived in an enormous mansion that included features such as an indoor pool, a home cinema, a gym and even a beauty salon! They've all since moved out because they wanted to be living in the more lively London, they wouldn't have to drag the other members out of the city in order to do videos together, Josh wanted to live with his girlfriend, and they never even used that much of the space they had anyway.
  • Big "NO!":
    • A staple for both Simon and Harry.
    • JJ in Vik's fifth episode of Cards Against Humanity when Simon deliberately fails to make a choice as the Czar, allowing the played cards to go back to everyone's decks.
    • JJ again in this Monopoly Plus session when he is disconnected from the game on the brink of a Curb-Stomp Battle victory.
    • Vik and Ethan in Josh's "SLIPPERY WHEN WET" episode of GTA V when the tractors they're driving go off the edge of the level.
    • Vik lets out an almighty one in Monopoly Plus when he ends up rolling another unlucky double.
  • Black Comedy: A lot of it in their banter, especially in GTA races.note 
  • Blasphemous Boast:
    • Possibly, but most likely unintentionally. In "WE MUST BEAT ETHAN", after Ethan surpasses Simon's score at practically the last minute in the first round, he says, "Yes, the redeemer! Christ the redeemer, mate!"
    • In Simon and Josh's Akinator video, Josh is asked to choose a random person. He chooses Lord Farquaad, since Josh apparently is a lord.
    • In the READING PERVERTED COMMENTS W/ THE SIDEMEN video of fellow YouTuber Fangs (which featured Josh, JJ, and Simon), Josh ended up claiming that he is Mohammed.
  • Body Horror: One of the white cards in Cards Against Humanity is "An infected testicle making you cum [pus]".
  • Born Lucky: JJ, in almost every Monopoly Plus game he's played, gets the most insanely lucky rolls that allow him to replenish his money or acquire monopolies.
  • Brief Accent Imitation: They sometimes do this on occasion. For example, in Simon's Q&A with JJ where someone requests them to reenact scenes from their favourite films using whatever they have in the Sidemen House, Simon imitates Heath Ledger's version of The Joker, complete with a Fake American accent.
  • Butt-Monkey: Everyone treats everyone like this; no one person is safe.
    • Prominent examples are JJ, Ethan, and Vik.
      • JJ is made fun of because of his lower-than-average reading level that he got from dropping out of school early to pursue YouTube, which is made painfully evident when he tries to read big words in Cards Against Humanity. A lot of people question how someone can own a Lamborghini, make a huge amount of money a year, have a top-charting rap EP, and write an autobiography, but still be unable to pronounce words like "inhabitant", "pharaoh", "anthropology", or even "squirrel".
      Ethan: That's how I know that you shouldn't have a book!context
      • Ethan is made fun of for his Book Dumb-ness, his inability to do well in trivia-based games, and his inability to really kick a ball straight in a real-life football video.
      • Vik is made fun of for several immortalized Running Gags of him being a pedophile (from playing Minecraft) or terrorist (supposedly for being Indian), and for being The Load in real-life football videos, but also gets terrorized frequently by JJ.
    • Josh is also mocked sometimes for his modest beard.
  • Call-Back: Many cards in their CAH videos reference many past events and quotes in the Sidemen's history.
  • Character Catchphrase: Apart from their use of general UK slang, there are a fair amount of unique ones between them.
    • "Got the boost, boys!" — Spoken if any of them gets the head start boost of a GTA race. This phrase is usually spoken in a high pitch.
    • The word "banter" was once frequently used by the Sidemen.
    • Their mispronunciation of the word "swag" as "sweg". Most often spoken as "sweg lines"note  and "swegway".note 
    • "Fuckin' X, mate!" — Spoken in a cheeky accent by Ethan and Vik. "X" is usually "Silver Surfer". They later stopped saying this.
    • "He's only gone and done it!" — One of them succeeded in completing a difficult section. Used most often when a Sideman has completed said difficult section rather quickly.
    • "Squad goals!" — Multiple Sidemen are accomplishing/have accomplished something at the same time or (in GTA) happen to have the same colour of another Sideman's vehicle.note 
    • "That/This is so AIDS!" — Something bad happened to them. This one got some flak from their followers however due to the serious connotations of the disease, so they've eventually stopped saying this.
      • "(I've got/caught) spawn AIDS!" — One of them is caught in a seemingly infinite loop of bad respawns in a GTA Online race that's causing him to immediately fall down a lot. Like the above, they've stopped saying this as well—not to mention that respawns have gotten better in the game since.
    • "I can't believe you've done this!" — First uttered by JJ after Ethan took him out in a GTA race (here), it quickly and instantly became a meme among the Sidemen during videos. Most likely a reference to this video.
    • "I'm so far last!" — Typical to hear in GTA races from someone complaining about being way behind, usually because of a particular event that completely screwed them over.
    • "The comeback of dreams!" — When one Sidemen begins to mount an impressive comeback after being so far behind in a game.
    • "Download the merch!" — A previous ad slogan for The Merch.
  • Christmas Episode:
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Invoked throughout this GTA Online race titled "Bumper Cars".
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Sideman has a preferred vehicle colour in GTA, and these colours are often used to represent themselves in other necessary games as well:
    • Ethan: Red.
    • Harry: Usually light blue. His T20 has a darker shade of blue.
    • JJ: Originally hot pink, but now he's been going with various different colours, often using the same colour as another Sidemen (he usually chooses black, used by Tobi).
    • Josh: Originally orange. In 2018, he switched to green due to Sidemen associate Wizzite taking orange as his colour. Prior to that, he used green in minigolf games.
    • Simon: White.
    • Tobi: Black; though he sometimes changed to hot pink in case JJ takes black.
    • Vik: Race yellow. If he is using a Blazer ATV he will choose purple.
  • Cool Car:
    • Some of the Sidemen have shown off their impressive cars.
      • In September 2014, Harry made a video showing off his setup as well as his new car, which was a chrome-wrapped Range Rover Evoque. Three months later, Harry made a video showing off a rose gold-tinted Ferrari 458. He made a follow-up video stating that the Ferrari wasn't actually his and that he still had his Evoque, but now wrapped in gold. Later in summer 2015, he sold his Evoque to Calfreezy and then purchased a white 50th anniversary model Lamborghini Gallardo.
      • JJ made a reaction video to Harry's Ferrari video in which he showed off his orange Lamborghini Aventador in an effort to upstage Harry (which in turn caused a small memetic movement of similar videos, including people like Simon and JJ's brother Deji). Around the time "Lamborghini" came out (March 2015), the Aventador had a partial metallic purple wrapping, with the visible original orange showing as Tron Lines, along with a new sound system, orange brakes, and LED lighting. In August 2015, JJ revealed via Twitter that his Lambo was being redone once more, with the final result having black wrapping with red Tron Lines.
      • Vik currently owns an Aston Martin V8 Vantage and a Tesla Model S 90D.
      • Simon currently owns a black Tesla Model X P 100D and previously owned a red Range Rover Evoque.
    • Within GTA V, the Progen T20 has become this for all the Sidemen since its release in July 2015. Up to that point they had been split in teams over whether the Zentorno or the Adder was the best car for races, but when the T20 was released, they all decided it was superior to both of them, and it has since become all the Sidemen's primary vehicle of choice for races.
  • Cool Shades: JJ sports some very often in his videos. In his "reacting to Harry's new car" video, we see him put on a pair of glasses with "DEAL WITH IT" on the lenses. Simon then combated this in his "reacting to JJ reacting to Harry's new car" video, where he puts on a pair of glasses that clearly have paper (towel) wrapped on the lenses with "DEALT WITH" written on it. Both glasses reappeared in their hair dye FIFA wager video.
  • Country Matters: Used frequently among the guys, mostly as a playful insult and occasionally out of pure anger.
  • Cringe Comedy:
    • The 2019 Moo Off had the Sidemen dress in cow costumes, head over to a public park in London, and moo in front of a live crowd. And occasionally smack each other, especially Harry with a bright red ukulele. And they were all very uncomfortable in doing so; they swore off doing any further "Moo Offs" at the end of the video.
    • Their travel challenge videos often have them assigned to do embarrassing tasks in public that they are required to do to make progress, such as playing "Bogies".note 
  • Crossover: The Sidemen have done many videos with several non-Sidemen YouTubers, usually with associates they personally know primarily from their home country. These include Calfreezy, Callux, JME, Randolph, "The Pack" (a multinational group that Vik is also part of), a few members (current and former) of the Vanoss Crew, Randolph, and more. Not to mention, the Sidemen Charity Matches feature the group and several other YouTubers playing for both Sidemen FC and the YouTube Allstars.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • The Sidemen were on the receiving end of one big time in a Rockstar-livestreamed series of GTA V Last Team Standing matches between them (represented by Vik, Simon, Josh, and JJ) and "Mae and the Boys" (represented by MissesMae, Lui Calibre, Mini Ladd, and Daithi De Nogla). The Sidemen only won one fluke round in the last match.
    • As noted in the From Nobody to Nightmare entry below, some of the Monopoly Plus sessions have ended in one Sideman pulling off a ridiculously overwhelming victory against the others.
    • In the Royal Rumble FIFA 16 tournament series, Ethan lost every single match he played, largely due to misunderstanding and poor choices in the construction of his team. He did, however, draw one match against JJ.
    • On 3 June 2016, the Sidemen, as Sidemen FC, held a charity football match against "YouTube All-Stars" at Southampton F.C.'s home ground, St. Mary's Stadium. Sidemen FC ended up winning 7-2. You can watch the full game here. However, it ended up flipping the following year to the Sidemen being shut out by the YouTube All-Stars 0-2. It flipped once again for the third match, with the Sidemen seeing off the All-Stars 7-1.
  • Curves in All the Right Places: In this Trivial Pursuit game, Ethan, Simon, and Josh marvel at the curvy body of Simon's female character.
  • Deal with the Devil: Invoked in this Monopoly Plus game, when Josh decides to do a property-money trade with Vik despite the fact that Vik is dominating the game. In the spirit of this trope, the deal ends up handing Vik even more power over the game and Josh ends up getting royally screwed over.
  • Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: All the Sidemen have been guilty of this at least once in GTA races, but Simon and Vik are the biggest offenders. Vik tends to "stablise" races by pinning and taking out leading opponents, while Simon takes advantage of huge leads in races to turn back and screw with the others. As this trope usually dictates, their decisions to do these things often costs them first place.
  • The Dog Bites Back:
    • In episode 579 of Vik's GTA V Funny Moments, he and JJ end up in a familiar "JJ terrorizes Vik" scenario, with JJ deliberately blocking Vik's path while possessing rockets. However, JJ never actually uses them on Vik, and by stalling too long allows the rockets to respawn, which allows Vik to exact his revenge.
    • In this Dead By Daylight session, Ethan gives one to JJ after JJ baited Ethan to Josh (the murderer) and JJ ignores Ethan's plea to heal him when they found each other after Ethan frees himself from the hook.
  • Double Entendre: All over the place. Their AGAR.IO videos are especially prominent.
  • Dreadful Musician: Much to the Sidemen's chagrin, JJ sings "Car Wash" horribly as they drive through a car wash.
  • Drives Like Crazy: In GTA races, JJ drives so erratically, he usually ends up finishing last because of it.
  • Drunk with Power: In Monopoly Plus, JJ has a tendency of not just getting a lead based off of insane luck, but indulging in his money and power to the point where he regularly boasts, laughs maniacally when other Sidemen fall into his traps, and berates others for trying to continue playing (even if they're the last one standing that isn't JJ), telling them to give up and accept his Foregone Victory.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Their first charity football match in 2016 was held at St Mary's Stadium, the home ground of Southampton Football Club, but they were only allowed to fill that stadium to half-capacity. They were allowed to fill to capacity for all their subsequent matches.
    • The group started out only making Let's Play videos, while their Real Life videos were few and far between. Today, the opposite is true, as their gameplay videos together are now relegated to MoreSidemen and they only release a couple such videos a week.
    • Obviously, their earliest videos did not have Harry; he joined the year after they formed.
    • The Sidemen Experience was made in 2014, when the group were only fairly decently known online, and was a more sparce production made for a TV channel's website. Today, the group's studio productions for their main channel are much more professional and they've even made a couple parody Game Show videos with the sets and crews of those shows.
  • Epic Fail:
    • This Trivial Pursuit game had Ethan, Simon, and Josh flubbing more questions than ever before. All three of them frequently lampshaded how dumb they were.
      • One special moment of stupidity had to be when the game asked to identify between Niagara Falls and Victoria Falls which one was named after royalty. Ethan chose Niagara Falls.
      Ethan: [laughing] I'm a troll!
      Josh: Who're you trolling, yourself?
      Ethan: Yes!
      • In another special moment of stupidity in one of their Trivial Pursuit games, Josh somehow doesn't know that Michael Jordan played for the Chicago Bulls (he chose Magic Johnson instead). The others even noted that the fact that Jordan played for Bulls is more well-known than the fact that Jordan appeared in Space Jam.
    • In this Draw My Thing session, Simon, Josh, Vik and Ethan all fail to identify a drawing of a cell phone. Even when half the words of "cell phone" are revealed.note 
    • Skate 3:
      • The Brute Chute level in "WE MUST BEAT ETHAN", serving as the tiebreaker round. The level starts with the player having to make a fairly lofty jump (and get past some bent railing) without the usage of a ramp. All three of them failed to properly clear it, and an alternative route had to come into play.
      • The Mega Meat Mayhem level in "LEARNING TO FLY" starts with Josh somehow missing the pretty obvious opening that the game provides, opting to slam himself into some railing instead.
      • Also, it has Simon failing to jump over a pretty shallow ledge, instead getting stopped in his tracks entirely by it.
      • The Bruise Cruise deathrace in "WE SUCK" starts with Simon accidentally bailing out.
    • In Soccer Physics, both Simon and Josh score bicycle kicks on their own goals.
    • In Simon's quickfire questions challenge, Vik asks him how many apples would be left if he had 7 and 2 were taken away. Simon says 5, which is the correct answer... but JJ still eggs him anyway, and doesn't realize his mathematical fuck-up until a few seconds afterwards.
    • FIFA:
      • In Simon and JJ's red hair-dye FIFA game; Simon was winning 4-1 but decided to score two own goals to level it out, allowing JJ to score the equalizer and then win in penalties. Had Simon just played normally, he would've won without a problem.
      • In a Search and Discard with Simon and JJ, Simon was on the brink of a commandeering victory by sending off JJ's three special players while only losing one of his own. However, JJ asked if he could buy back in by putting one more of his special players up, and an overly-confident Simon agreed. JJ then proceeded to send off Simon's remaining two players in only three guesses and thus win the game.
      • In the 2015 Royal Rumble FIFA 16 series, Ethan created his team under the belief that rare silver players were banned, entering the series with a team of non-rare silvers. Unfortunately for him, they weren't actually banned, and Ethan found himself facing teams filled with rare silvers. Multiple Curb-Stomp Battles ensured, and despite Ethan using what goal points he got to make upgrades, the damage had well and truly been done. Him choosing to add Payet and Mané to his team over Ronaldo didn't help either.
    • In this Cards Against Humanity game, English MC Jme is featured as a special guest...only for him to not score a single point in the whole near-45 minutes of the game.
    • GTA V:
      • In a "Duck Hunt"-styled LTS match in GTA V, we get the runners Ethan and Josh falling to their deaths almost as soon as the round started, and we get sniper Tobi accidentally walking off a platform and smashing his head on a propane tank on the way down.
      • "Dodge the Jet":
      • The first round begins with JJ dying instantly once the jet pilots start circling.
      • The end of the second round: with little time left on the clock, Simon prepares to nosedive his jet into the platform that Vik and Tobi are standing on...only to dive a tad too early and crash into the side of the building mere feet away from them, giving Vik and Tobi the win.
    • In Josh's "Earthquake Jenga" challenge, JJ's strategy of pulling blocks out fast backfires horribly in the final round, where JJ not only doesn't pull the block out, but ends up knocking the tower over from his quick motion.
    • Whenever someone somehow missed their Dead Weight shot during a game of ShellShock Live.
    • In this Monopoly Plus game, Vik is dominating the game thanks to his orange monopoly. In an attempt to "bring himself back in the game", Josh, despite Ethan and Tobi urging him not to, decides to give Vik the yellow monopoly as well in exchange for 800 of his Monopoly money so that he can build houses on his own red monopoly. Vik promptly uses his remaining money to build houses on the yellow monopoly, and Josh - on his very next turn - lands on a yellow property. Josh even realised immediately after Vik accepted the deal that he had actually made things worse, but it was too late.
  • Evil Laugh:
    • JJ does an epic one that borders on Laughing Mad at this point in part of a Monopoly Plus game when Ethan lands on the JJ-occupied Northumberland Avenuenote  and has to pay 700 out of his 781 Monopoly money.
    • Ethan also does an almighty one when he sacrifices JJ to the murderer in one Dead by Daylight session after he's had enough of JJ's antics towards him.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The "WE SUCK" episode of Skate 3 has Ethan explaining deathraces as "races where you die".
  • Exact Words:
    Tobi: I mean, to be fair to him, the place is pretty clear right now.
  • The Faceless: Josh used to be this, often using his then-iconic mask to hide himself.
  • Faux Yay: Played for Laughs from time to time, most notably with Emon (Ethan and Simon).
  • First-Name Basis:
    • With the exception of JJ as his real given name is a bit too much to pronounce,note  they will refer to one another by their first names. This can be a bit hard to follow if you're new to the group's videos and started watching them through their earlier gaming videos (before they used facecams).
    • Ethan does this moreso as he often says their proper first names; he often calls wroetoshaw (Harry) by his real first name Harold, sometimes calls Zerkaa (Josh) by his full first name Joshua, and even sometimes truncates JJ's real first name Olajide as "Jide". The other Sidemen say those three's proper first names (especially JJ) to a much lesser extent.
  • Foregone Victory: At the end of Cards Against Humanity videos, if the time is winding down and someone's on the brink of winning, then there's no possible way that they're not winning.
  • Foreshadowing: In Ethan's guess who challenge, after Ethan reads that someone drank their mum's spit, the first thing we see is a close-up of Tobi's reaction. It turns out that it was Tobi who did it.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you look quasi-closely at this moment in Josh's "SWIRLY RAMP IN VANS" episode of GTA V Funny Moments, you'll see that after Josh gets blasted into the air twice by Tobi, his body remains airborne long enough for Tobi to run into it with his bike, although it's shown very briefly and the game quickly cuts away.
  • The Friends Who Never Hang: Harry is infamous for how infrequently he partakes in gaming sessions with the other Sidemen. JJ and Tobi have also become infrequent players as of 2017. Despite this, all seven Sidemen now come together weekly for Sidemen Sunday videos on the joint channel.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Some of the Monopoly Plus sessions have ended in this way, with one Sideman experiencing a surprise luck streak that completely turns the game in their favor. JJ is the most frequent victor, thanks to his sly tactics and ridiculous luck at the game.
    • Vik in one game between himself, Josh, Ethan, and Tobi. At one point in the game, Ethan lands on a property and decides to hold an auction for it that ended in Vik spending all 373 of his Monopoly money for it. However, as the game went on with trades made and rents paid, Vik ended up gaining a whopping four monopolies with two of them having all hotels. This caused the other Sidemen to mortgage their properties to pay the high rents and eventually go bankrupt, making Vik an in-game Corrupt Corporate Executive.
    • It happened again in another game to JJ. Ethan, having initially decided to support JJ in the game, gave him Park Lane,note  as he had already bought Mayfair.note  Thereafter, JJ embarked on an unstoppable luck streak, narrowly skipping the other four Sidemen's monopolies and making even more money thanks to Community Chest and Chance cards. Despite everyone else trading their properties to Josh in an attempt to keep him from winning, JJ ultimately won the game with hotels on all his properties and over 2000 Monopoly money, making it a total Curb-Stomp Battle.
    • JJ almost pulled it off a second time in another session after gaining the pink and brown monopolies through trades. To that point the game had been reasonably even, but after that JJ used all the money he had built up to almost completely exhaust the house limit on the board, and the luck streak returned as he avoided everyone else's monopolies and racked up big earnings from his own. It seemed another Curb-Stomp Battle was set to happen... only for JJ to be disconnected from the game.
    • In another session, Josh looked poised for a comfortable victory after earning the orange monopoly and screwing the others over with hotels. However, JJ and Vik pulled a X Must Not Win plan and traded their properties to Ethan before bankrupting. Ethan wound up with four monopolies as a result, allowing him to quickly and effortlessly overtake and bankrupt Josh.
    • JJ does it yet again in this session. Right off the bat he is constantly given money, allowing him to have more than the others. He gains the light blue monopoly in a trade and uses it to bankrupt Vik, which then gives him the green monopoly. He very quickly bankrupts Josh and Simon thereafter.
  • Funny Background Event: Many have commented on how out-of-place Ethan looks in the background of JJ's "Lamborghini" video.
  • Good Bad Bugs: In-Universe; the Sidemen get a great laugh out of the infamous glitchy natures of Skate 3, although glitches sometimes come in for malevolent intervention.
  • Grammar Correction Gag: The Sidemen are quick to point out blatant spelling errors in Cards Against Humanity cards (which, in most of their videos, are custom cards made by fans) and jokingly pronounce it the misspelled way. "Likkes"note  is a noteworthy example.
  • Guest Star Appearance: They appear mostly on their football or vlog videos, though they do sometimes appear on their gaming videos as well. Calfreezy is the most often appearing guest, although fellow friends and/or relatives such as JME, Redman (Lewis), FIFAManny, and Callux has appeared quite a lot too.
  • Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Ethan will defend himself if anyone calls him gay, which happens often. This was lessened somewhat with the Emon thing with Simon.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Applies to the entire group as they've been friends for years. This especially applies to the duos of JJ/Simon and Tobi/Josh as they went to school together.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The conclusion of this race. Simon stops at the finish line in first place with a large lead to screw with the others, killing Vik (who was in last place), putting down a mine, then waiting with an RPG. Ethan (in second) runs over the mine, but his exploded car hits and kills Simon as he rushes for the finish. All this allows JJ (in third) to cruise to victory.
    • In Josh's "Earthquake Jenga" video with him, Simon, JJ, and Vik, JJ adapts a strategy of whipping blocks out of the tower quickly once you know you've got a loose one that won't knock the tower over. In the ending of the final round, JJ tries doing that but ends up knocking the tower over from the fast motion, not to mention that he didn't actually pull the block out. All of the other Sidemen begin lampshading this, saying that if JJ had pulled it out gently, he wouldn't have lost.
  • Hurricane of Puns: The two Pungeon Masters of the group (Vik and Tobi), with the addition of Simon, had a field day with this picture◊ of the group signing a wall at Insomnia with Harry simultaneously mooning the camera.
    Tobi: butt why @wroetoshaw?
    Tobi: I'm sorry that was asstonishingly bad
    Simon: I can't believe you had the cheek to say it
    Vik: cbanote 
    Tobi: I thought it was a peach at the time :-/
    Tobi: don't lie it made you crack up
    Simon: nah it wasn't the hole package
    Konami UK: You guys... wait for it... crack us up!
    Tobi: already dropped it! Sorry guys ;-)
    Vik: Close to the bottom of my list of good puns :/
    Simon: that BAREly worked
    Tobi: don't lie you loved the bun...I mean pun. Now I'm done. Bye
    Vik: Please leave twitter via the exit at the rear...
    Simon: that's the end of it thanks
  • The Hyena: Ethan and JJ, who laugh about almost anything. Hell, Ethan even made two compilations of his greatest laughs.
  • I Banged Your Mom: A frequent source of banter.
    Simon: I fucked your mum. I fucked your mum.
    Vik: Oh! Shit! Where is the chill?
    (...)
    Simon: I actually fucked your mum, Ethan.
    Ethan: You don't know my mum.
    Simon: No, I actually do. I did. I did, I fucked your mum.
    Ethan: Oh, yeah? I fucked yours.
    Simon: No, as in literally; I went to your house while you were out..and I stuck it in your mum.
    Vik: I can't breathe! I actually can't breathe.
    • In GTA V when JJ notices the wolf mask Simon is wearing has blood on the teeth:
    JJ: Simon, do you have blood on your mouth?
    Simon: Yeah. I licked your mum out.
    • In one Garry's Mod: Murder! game; while the boys are playing on a map with a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, Ethan does a God-awful impression of the dinosaur and Simon quips that it's "coincidentally how Ethan's mum sounds on a Friday." See here.
    • Simon's famous CAH line of "I do love a bit of Ethan's mum."
    • An attempted call-and-response CAH intro between Ethan and JJ:
    Ethan: Today...
    JJ: We...
    Ethan: Will...
    JJ: Be...
    Ethan: Playing...
    JJ: ...your mum.
    • Vik holds his ground when JJ asks him how it's like finally having sex:
    Vik: Your mum's really good at it.
  • Improbable Weapon: In Simon's horror film guide, JJ portrays the killer. His weapon of choice? A shoe.
  • Inherently Funny Words: "Bog", which has been used a suffix for some of the Sidemen's names.
    • JJ = KSIbog/Jidbog
    • Harry = Wroetobog
    • Simon = Minibog/Stimpbog
    • Ethan = Zingbog
    • Josh = Zerkbog
  • Insistent Terminology: The Sidemen fanbase on Vine has committed to referring to ships as "lanes".
  • I Shall Taunt You: A common trope when they played Garry's Mod: Prop Hunt. While both Props and Hunters can use taunts, it is commonly used by the Props. On their games, these taunts can be activated by pressing the F3 button.
  • Keet: In more of the energetic sense. All of the Sidemen have their moments, but JJ takes the crown, considering hamminess and nonstop hype is what he lives for.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Simon has a tendency to get a swift comeuppance for his cheating tactics in GTA races.
    • In this GTA race, Simon is in first place and at the finish line, but decides to turn around and take out Vik, who was in second place. However, he misses and after being pinned by police vans, loses first place to Ethannote .
    • And again in this race. Simon stops at the finish line in first place with a large lead, kills Vik (who was struggling in last) and sets down a mine. Ethan runs over the mine...but then his exploded car hits and kills Simon, allowing JJ to cruise into first place. Simon ended up third as a result.
    • Yet again. Simon finishes a difficult loop-the-loop ramp course, messes with the others, then camps at the finish line with an RPG... only for Ethan to run him over and take first place.
  • The Load:
    • JJ in Cards Against Humanity. If he manages to get through all of the cards without mispronouncing anything or feeling the urge to Google anything, he'll often take too long anyway and have the game time out, forcing everyone's played cards back to decks and having that black card session end with no real winner.
    • Vik is awfully bad in real-life football videos to the point where everyone feels the need to help him out and support him as if he's a child. In one instance in JJ's freekick challenge video, the crowd of people standing in front of the goal immediately dissipated as Vik went up to kick the ball, and he still missed.
  • Made of Iron: Debated in the "FRESH MEAT" episode of Skate 3, considering the game's Hall of Meat level has players doing insane jumps and flips despite having broken their legs.
  • Make an Example of Them: After being eliminated in the first challenge in The Sidemen Experience, KSI got his legs waxed to show the other Sidemen what will happen to them should they wipeout or lose to the others in OlliOlli.
  • Manchild: Or Men Children, we should say. They have a series of videos where they play hide and seek in various public places (and, one time, on a private jet) that they pay to have closed off just for them in those videos. Yes, these are grown men playing a children's game for the sake of their videos.
  • Meaningful Name: "Sideman" is a slang termnote  meaning a relatively unremarkable person supporting a more important/popular individual, usually by copying or getting involved in what they do, and doesn't get respect from their peers as a result. This was a somewhat of a joke among the group that everyone was just there to support the way more popular JJ. Of course, all the other members themselves are now popular YouTubers in their own rights, making this an Artifact Title for the group (even though JJ still is the most popular of them all).
  • Multiple Reference Pun: The #BlameKSI post that Josh posted on his Twitter after England lost to Iceland, of all teams, in the Euro 2016. While JJ's YouTube channel name is the obvious reference; the other reference is the name of Iceland's FA, Knattspyrnusamband Íslands, or KSI.
  • Nostalgia Filter: The boys have played some old games just for this trope to come into play; for example, Tobi finished a series of The Simpsons Hit & Run on his second channel, and here's a video of JJ playing FIFA 97 with his brother.
  • N-Word Privileges: The white Sidemen and Vik don't tend to give themselves this liberty, especially when the two black members (Tobi and JJ) are around.
    • Simon decided to work around this by smearing Nutella on his face, going up to JJ, and saying the N-word to his face (which got bleeped out). JJ promptly broke down laughing.
    • In one of Josh's GTA Online episodes, Ethan casually said something that sounded like "niggas", causing every Sideman playing (white or black) to flip their shit. Ethan then defended himself by stating that he was merely saying "negos" after the race creator's name (XxnegoskxX), and also gave a ridiculous description of what said name meant that caused everyone to laugh out loud.
      Ethan: It's LEGO for black people.
    • In Cards Against Humanity, cards bearing the N-word are usually organized so the Czar won't have to say the word and instead JJ will come in just to say it. If all members present are not black, "Nigel" gets used as a replacement.
    • A specific variation for Vik would be P-word privileges. Either on Cards Against Humanity or Mean Tweets, Vikk is the only one to read out loud the anti-Asian slur "Paki" note  usually directed at him or about him.note 
    • In one of the Golf It videos, Josh appears to say: "Vikkstar is a Paki". Leading Vik to ask Josh what he called him whilst Simon and Ethan are just jaw-dropped over it. Josh claims he actually said: "Vikkstar is a Pikey" not that it explains or justifies why he randomly said this anyways as "Pikey" is a separate racial slur used toward the Romani or other traveller communities.
    • This trope toned down over the years as they've become an established, world-famous group with a lot of young fans. This trope also likely stopped dead in its tracks in April 2023 after they garnered serious controversy for KSI speaking "Paki" (which was bleeped) in a since-removed Sidemen Sunday video where the group and several affiliates played Countdown.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Simon in "WE MUST BEAT ETHAN" once Ethan starts leveling his score out with Simon's, and then surpassing Simon's.
    Simon: Oh my God! Oh my God! Yo, what the fuck — stop!
    Ethan: 'Ay! YES! GO! (jumps over railing, effectively overtaking Simon's score) YES!
    Simon: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
    Ethan: YES, YES, THE REDEEMER! CHRIST THE REDEEMER, MATE!
    • In "STUNTERS VS WINDMILLS",note  Josh (as a sniper) endlessly mocks Ethan (as a driver) for not being able to hit him. To bait him more, Josh climbs on top of Simon's nearby exploded car to become an even clearer target.
    Josh: I'm even more [of] a bait target, you can't hit me. (Beat as Ethan approaches) Oh, shittin' Hell. (Ethan's car hits Josh off the platform; the Sidemen laugh in response)
    • This happens all the time when the Sidemen are going through an extremely difficult race... and then realize that it's a lapped race.
    Simon: Oh my god. Guys, you know when you see "Current Lap"?
  • Overly Long Gag: In Simon's "IF HORROR FILMS WERE FOR KIDS", the Psycho scene contains a number of instances where Simon is in the shower and Tobi's shadow appears behind the curtain with a knife, only for the curtain to be pulled back to show Tobi holding something else. The fourth time around, Simon gets bored of it and pulls the curtain back...at which point Tobi actually is holding a knife.
  • Painful Body Waxing: The punishment for wiping out in OlliOlli or losing the second challenge in The Sidemen Experience was a leg waxing, which involved both legs getting fully waxed for the two losing Sidemen eliminated in that round. KSI got his leg waxed by Lucy as punishment for losing the first challenge to Make an Example of Them. Harry, Ethan, and Simon each got a leg waxed for wiping out, while Harry and Ethan were given full leg waxings for losing the challenge.
  • Painful Rhyme: Discussed in this episode of Cards Against Humanity when a black card using lyrics from Shawn Mendes' "Stitches" requiring the white card to rhyme with "kisses" is used, and the card "a giant penis" was played. This sparked a legitimate argument over whether or not "kisses" and "penis" rhymed, with Vik and Simon claiming that their last syllables rhyme and Ethan shooting them both down.
  • Perfectly Cromulent Word: About halfway through this game of Cards Against Humanity, JJ comments on the "Monica Lewinsky choking on Bill Clinton's dick" and "David Cameron balls deep in a pig" cards, describing them as "bestiality" and..."presidentiality".
  • Person as Verb: Josh refers to the common event of his controller dying during games as "doing a MattHDGamer", referring to the FIFA YouTuber who once had his controller die during a FIFA game.
  • Precision F-Strike/This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Ethan, Josh, and Simon towards Vik's worm Dora in a game of Worms 2: Armageddon, where they each spend a turn air striking the one worm on the top of map that's away from the other clustered worms on top. They proceed to insult her with Dora the Explorer references mixed with the latter trope after she's dead.
  • Product Placement: As you can see on their image captions on the Characters sheet, almost all of the Sidemen promote deals to get FIFA Ultimate Team coins on the cheap (Vik being the obvious exception, though he has partnered with Lootcrate), and some of them have done promotions and videos for other various companies before. They also wear their own merchandise when they make public appearances.
  • Purple Is Powerful: To Vik, a purple ATV gives him "twice the fastness" compared to motorbikes.
  • Put on a Bus: Harry in terms of non-FIFA game participation for a time.
  • Rage Quit: Vik rage-quitting this Monopoly Plus session. Partially because he was pissed off about being the rent boy for most of his turns, and partially because he needed to record a Minecraft video for his Minecraft channel.
  • A Rare Sentence: All the time, with the Sidemen frequently joking and lampshading when a strange sentence is said, suggesting that someone take a soundbite of it. Vik once commented that if someone took all of the soundbites, they'd make a hell of a compilation. (Spoiler alert: they do.)
    • One of the main shticks in Agar.io/Blob Wars videos, considering the strange (and potentially dark) names some online players give themselves. Tobi has milked this trope for all its worth when playing Agar.io by himself.
    "You're just watching deez nuts grow."
    "Eminem just ate my blue waffle!"
    • From Cards Against Humanity:
      Simon (Czar): I do love a bit of "Ethan's mum". (picks card saying that, giving a point to Ethan)
      Ethan: I committed to that, I used my own mum!
      Simon: Ethan just said the words, "I used my own mum."
      • From another Cards game:
      Vik: Ethan missed out on a proper Cards session right now. He's too busy looking for children; I mean, what?context
      • JJ chooses very strange names when playing, which leads to moments like this when JJ beat Vik, Josh, and Simon on his first time playing:
    Vik: We have been defeated by DickFiddler.
  • Reaction Video: SidemenReacts is dedicated to them reacting to other YouTube videos.
  • Rock–Paper–Scissors: The Sidemen held a competitive rock-paper-scissors tournament on the MoreSidemen channel.
  • Rule of Three: This game of CAH starts with three black cards making jokes at the expense of Vik in a row, reducing the playing Sidemen to hysterics.
  • Running Gag: See here.
  • Sadist Show: Can cross into this territory at times, especially during challenges like JJ's "Shocking Football" and his videos with Joe Weller.
  • Say My Name: Harry did two absolute epic ones in rage towards Vik during a go-kart race (warning: loud sound in link) in GTA Online when the latter rear-ended him into a car chassis and a building, completely stopping his momentum. Harry screamed so loudly that his microphone clipped, making him sound like Godzilla; in fact, his scream along with a clip from Godzilla (2014) has been used as a logo for later MoreSidemen videos.
  • Schmuck Bait: In this game of Cards Against Humanity, JJ is confused when he reads the "royal afterbirth" card, and decides to search "afterbirth" on Google Images while the other Sidemen playing egg him on. Judging by his reaction, it wasn't a pretty sight to behold.Want to know what it is?
  • The Scrappy: In-Universe examples:
    • Among others, the "The basic suffering that pervades all of existence" card in Cards Against Humanity.
      Vik: Has this card ever won anything in Cards Against Humanity? I don't think it fucking has, ever!
      • That being said, a Sideman might pick a Scrappy card anyway out of spite and banter.
    • Motorbike races on water in Grand Theft Auto Online, especially since they are usually in normal, non-GTA races.note 
    • The blue, pink and orange sets in Monopoly Plus are considered by the Sidemen to be the biggest game-changers of all the sets. Vik and Josh have had several victories credited to the blues and oranges, and JJ has a tendency to repeatedly earn the pinks and use them to his advantage.
    • In Bully, Tobi holds a special torch of hatred towards Gary due to his obnoxious and bossy persona, and frequently voiced his lack of enjoyment while doing a mission in episode 6 that required the main character Jimmy to be ordered around by Gary.
  • Screaming at Squick: JJ made the big mistake of searching "afterbirth" on Google Images during a Cards Against Humanity game. Here's his reaction.
  • Seinfeldian Conversation: A specialty amongst the Sidemen.
    • Specifically invoked by Josh in "THE QUADRUPLE SPIRAL", where he encourages a conversation between him and Ethan about chicken nuggets.
  • Sixth Ranger: Harry, being the last person and only non-original person to join the group and whatnot, who joins in on the Sidemen's antics the least and currently lives with two non-Sidemen YouTubers, Calfreezy and Callux.
    • As of 2017, another gaming YouTuber, Wizzite (James White), has begun regularly playing games with the Sidemen on their second channels, though he has never appeared in any of their real life videos.
  • Shameless Self-Promotion:
    • JJ and Simon at the start of this video, advertising their Sidemen clothing. It was purposely made to be extremely awkward.
    • JJ has a habit of promoting his Keep Up EP, especially with his CAH usernames (e.g.: "KeepUpOutNow", "BuyKeepUpEP").
    • The Sidemen have been shamelessly plugging their upcoming book to no end, finding the most ridiculous scenarios to mention it.
    • In Simon's "IF HORROR FILMS WERE FOR KIDS", one of the parodied films is The Sixth Sense. In this scene, Simon plays the little boy Cole, and instead of saying "I See Dead People", he says "I see new Sidemen merchandise".
    Tobinote : In your dreams?
    (Simon nods)
    Tobi: In real life?
    Simon: In the description.
    (the two turn and smile at the camera)
    • Their earlier videos together often had them saying, "Download the merch!" partly jokingly, and their Sidemen Sunday videos have one of them saying a discount code for their Sidemen Clothing website. All their group videos end with graphics promoting their clothing brand.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: When they want to express themselves, they won't bowdlerise or censor anything.
  • Skewed Priorities:
    • When JJ breaks his phone falling off a penny board (his phone was in his pocket and smashed on the floor) in Callux's seven-second challenge, one of the first things he does is mourn the loss of all of the porn that he had on that phone.
    • Vik once rage-quitting a Monopoly Plus session partly because he needs to record a Minecraft video for his Minecraft channel.
  • Spit Take:
    • Simon and Ethan enforced this so badly on themselves in the Sidemen Try Not to Laugh Challenge that they cause a stream of them.
    • JJ and Callux also did a "try not to laugh challenge" that inspired the above example, also causing a bounty of these.
  • Squad Nicknames:
    • Similar to how Achievement Hunter used to split their main group into two main teams, the Sidemen usually divided themselves into two main groups in GTA races. Their team names were based on their preferred supercars, the Adder Gang (Vik, Tobi, JJ, and Harry) and the Zentorno Gang (Ethan, Simon, and Josh, a.k.a. the "Zentorbros"). They mostly stopped doing this for a while after the move to Xbox One, especially considering that Harry and JJ would stop participating in GTA for a while, which left Vik and Tobi on their own for Adder Gang. Those two did not play GTA as frequently as the Zentorbros (although it's by no means infrequent), which left those races lob-sided. With the shift to PlayStation 4, the Sidemen have largely stopped using Zentornos and Adders, preferring to unanimously use Progen T20s.
    • There are also preferred teams for GTA deathmatches, The Ultimate Sidemen (Simon, Ethan and Tobi) and Team 2/The Dribble Squad (Josh, Vik, Harry and/or JJ).
    • Recently, there have been two new teams formed in GTA last man standing events, Team Eleven Years (Josh and Tobi) and The Division (Simon, JJ, Vik, and Ethan, though not involving all four at once for obvious balancing reasons).
    • There's also other pairings such as Emon (Ethan and Simon).
    • In Sidemen Sunday videos prior to the end of the Sidemen House, the standard teams for challenge videos are The House (Simon, JJ, Josh and Vik) and The Rest (Harry, Ethan and Tobi). For balancing reasons, one random member of The House does not contest and instead judges the challenge.
  • Shout-Out:
    • In Simon's "HOW TO MAKE A HORROR FILM" video, we see Vik (playing the dumb cheerleader) running from JJ, who is the killer. We see Vik approach two signs showing "DEATH" and "EXIT", and he chooses the "DEATH" path.
    • A bunch of The Matrix references at the start of Simon's "ENTER THE MATRIX" Q&A.
      • He starts the video by doing the Whip and Nae Nae to "Clubbed to Death".
      • "Neo Simon" comes in and start shooting at him with a Nerf gun, causing Simon to re-enact the famous "bullet dodge".
      • "Neo Simon" gives Simon the choice between a red pill (ends the video) or a blue pill (continues the video). Simon goes for blue.
    • In the aforementioned "ENTER THE MATRIX" Q&A, Simon states that he got his Twitter hashtag ("warm water") from a gag on an episode of New Girl that he saw on a plane (the result of combining fire and ice).
    • In this Trivial Pursuit video with Ethan, Simon, and Josh, Ethan ends up calling Simon Matilda based off of his dorky-looking young girl character.
    • In another game of Pursuit, when Vik manages to correctly identify the South African flag, he proclaims, "THANK YOU, BASED GODS!"
    • Ethan's online handle of Behzinga is a reference to Sheldon Cooper's famous "bazinga" punchline.
    • In one Trivial Pursuit game, all of the Sidemen playing guess the same correct answer, leading Vik to say, "Flawless! I woke up like this.", which is a nod to the Beyoncé song "Flawless".
    • At the 6:55 mark in this Skate 3 video, Simon starts singing 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready for This", famously used in films like Space Jam.
    • In another Skate video, Ethan starts chanting the lyrics to Limp Bizkit's "Rollin" as his character is perpetually doing flips and jumping through the air.
    • While doing a fairly intense game of FIFA 15 with KeanuBoss, Harry states that his hands are sweaty, but then goes on to add "knees weak, arms are heavy".
    • As Josh gets out of his car high in the air at the wind farm in GTA Online as he could not hit Ethan on a platform, a blade from the wind turbine hits him and he gets knocked higher into the air. He laughs and says, "I'm flying! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I'm falling with style!"
      Josh: I'm just fucking falling!
      Vik: With style.
      Josh: I'm not flying, I'm falling with style.
    • Vik's video of Geoguessr with JJ has JJ quoting the famous chorus to Linkin Park's "In the End".
      Vik: We tried so hard.
      JJ: And got so far. But in the end, it doesn't even matter.
    • JJ's Running Gag of shouting "MATT DAMON!" comes from Team America: World Police.
    • In Josh's "RACING ON WATER" GTA V video, he randomly began singing "One More Time" by Daft Punk when Vik said that he needed to get past to JJ one more time.
  • Stage Names: Josh and Tobi claimed that their last names are "Zerker" and "Lerone", respectively, and had been very adamant about this. Both have since let this trope go, though, and now acknowledge their real surnames.
  • Staying with Friends: From 2014 to 2018, JJ, Simon, Josh, and Vik shared a house together, moving into a large mansion in 2016. They have since moved into their own places, although JJ and Simon continued to live together until 2022. Harry also lived with two close affiliates of the Sidemen, Calfreezy and Callux, for some time.
  • Take That!:
    • It's fairly memetic to refer to any rap, no matter how bad in quality, as better than the Keep Up EP.
      • In one choice moment during a GTA V race where Harry inexplicably made a short Piss-Take Rap:
    Nobody is as quick as me
    This one verse is better than the Keep Up EP!
    • When Josh and Simon reacted to fanmade videos, the first video happened to be a rap made about the Sidemen that happened to be quite awkward to listen to. Josh still quipped that the rap had better flow than JJ's EP.
    Simon: Mad!
  • Tempting Fate: Whenever the Props taunt the Hunters during Garry's Mod: Prop Hunt, this always results in the Props being located. And 9 times out of 10, said Props will be killed by the Hunters.
  • The "The" Title Confusion: The group's official name is just "Sidemen", as seen on their logo and their official channels.
  • Those Two Guys: A case can be made for lots of different Sidemen pairings, as the fanbase has shown, but here are the most concrete couples:
    • Ethan and Simon, who've been partaking in some famous Faux Yay, creating the power of Emon.
    • Josh and Tobi.
    • Simon and Josh, who have a series of playing random games together. They are also the only two Sidemen who consistently appear in nearly every GTA V session (largely due to their respective roles as the event announcer and game host within sessions).
    • JJ and Simon, on the account that they were the only two members still living together after the end of the Sidemen House era. They eventually moved into separate flats in 2022.
  • Token Minority: Vik is the only Sideman who is neither black nor white. Also, if you were to ignore race or ethnicity, Vik is also the only one in the group who is not primarily a FIFA YouTuber.
  • Troll:
    • Vik is seen as the biggest troll in the group, especially in GTA, where Vik is known as the "stabilizer" for being skilled at ramming other racers off-course with his vehicle. He has also sacrificed many a win just to troll someone.
    • Simon is probably the runner-up, having a tendency to stop at the finish line in first place during GTA races to leave bombs and mines for the other Sidemen to run into. This also leads to many a moment of Laser-Guided Karma when his schemes backfire and result with him being killed.
    • Josh also enjoys messing with people in games like Golf With Your Friends. Here's an example.
  • True Companions:
    • A huge part of the group's appeal; no matter how much they take the piss out of each other, they're mates at the end of the day. They've even made it clear that even when they make diss tracks against each other, or when four of them were not going to share a house anymore, they're still sticking together making YouTube content.
    • This is also why they've managed to succeed for so long without losing popularity or their friendship; there is no one single leader of the group, so all seven members have equal say in the decision-making for their business. Also, each member is responsible for coming up with a new Sidemen Sunday video, with one member being designated the leader each week, and everyone gets their turn. If a member has been making too many Sidemen Sunday videos at once, then they must wait a while before their next video to give the others a shot, but if they're not pulling their weight and are behind, then they are expected to make up for that deficit. This keeps everything fair and their videos fresh, avoiding the faults that have ruined other YouTube groups (both professionally and personally) that have come and gone over the years.
  • Visual Pun: In Tobi's "THE SIDEMEN ARE LIARS" video, there's a zoomed shot of Tobi, Simon, and JJ, and during this shot Tobi briefly flashes a picture of an Oreo.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds/With Friends Like These...: They love screwing up one another, but they get along pretty well.
  • Wacky Racing: Most of their Grand Theft Auto V videos involve this.
  • Waxing Lyrical: In Vik's video of Geoguessr with JJ:
    Vik: We tried so hard.
    JJ: And got so far. But in the end, it doesn't even matter.
  • Who Writes This Crap?!: The Sidemen are not afraid of making fun of really bad Cards Against Humanity cards their fans made and sometimes picking them anyway out of banter. (e.g. "Month.")
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: The group consisted of young adults when they were founded, and yet grew into one of YouTube's biggest groups because of how savvy they are with Internet culture.
  • Witty Banter: You'd better believe it. Expect the Sidemen to exchange some banter towards one another and laughing about it as they play.
  • World of Snark: Rather, a world of banter.
  • X Must Not Win: There will always be the Sideman who's doing a bit too well, forcing the rest of the players to team up against them to prevent them from winning. Bonus points if the targeted Sideman starts fucking up, allowing another to win.
    • Unless it's an Adder vs. Zentorno race (of if they are just stuck with him), the whole group is willing to do anything to stop JJ from winning.
      • In Vik's CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY #3, everyone teams up against JJ with JJ winning nonetheless.
      • In this race, Simon and Vik team up to stop JJ from finishing in second place. They succeed.
    • In Ethan's IT JUST DOESN'T STOP! game of Cards Against Humanity, JJ started off with an insane lead, getting 7 points compared to everyone else's 1 or 2 while Josh had 0. However, the tides turned around halfway into the game; Simon started gaining an upper hand most significantly trailing very closely behind JJ, and everyone else had 4 points, so they weren't too far behind. Ethan ends up making the final Czar decision that, in its total number of outcomes, could give JJ the win or tie him and Simon together, and he chooses JJ's card. As shown by his immediate reaction ("FUCK!"), he quickly regretted the decision.
    • Ethan also gets this in games without JJ, mainly in games he's either never won or won very few times in. Josh also gets this treatment due to his reputation as The Ace.
    • All the time while playing Trivial Pursuit, usually come the final round.
      • In this game, Josh and Ethan team up against Simon with Ethan winning the game.
      • In this game, Vik and Ethan team up against Josh with Josh winning nonetheless.
      • In this game, Vik and Simon and Josh team up against Ethan with Josh winning the game.
      • In this game, Tobi, Simon, and Josh team up against Vik (who is trying to pull a Dark Horse Victory) in the final round with Vik winning nonetheless.
    • Monopoly Plus also sees similar team-ups, with the success varying depending on personal luck.
      • In this game, Simon, Josh, JJ and Tobi team up against Vik with Vik winning nonetheless.
      • In this game, JJ, Ethan and Vik team up against Josh with Ethan winning the game.
      • In this game, Simon is at a comfortable lead and Vik rage-quits the game. In seems like Simon is going to win the game, but then Ethan decides to declare bankruptcy and give Josh all his properties. Josh builds houses on his monopolies (especially the green set) and eventually causes Simon to declare bankruptcy.
    • The aptly titled "WE MUST BEAT ETHAN" episode of Skate 3. The motion to beat Ethan came into play after Ethan pulled the rug from underneath Simon at the last minute in the Crystal Crashers level, provoking him to successfully claim revenge on him in the Kubic Khaos level.
    • In this race, Simon manages to build a strong lead through the races' first two laps. However, halfway through the second lap, Josh, Vik and Harry all blow him up near a certain checkpoint, allowing everyone to catch up to him. Simon continues to be blown up and overtaken throughout the remainder of the lap, and ultimately finishes in last place.
    • In Vik's GTA 5 Funny Moments #514, Simon, Josh, and Ethan team up against Vik when he starts doing exceptionally well on the Devil's Mountain race. Vik holds the lead for a bit after the plan is put into play, but then things start falling apart; he has a particularly nasty fall that allows Ethan to take the lead, and his car is then smashed into from above by Simon, putting him in third. Eventually, in midair Josh passes Vik by, putting him in dead last, which is the place that he finishes in.
    • In the "Concerto Por Auto" race, Vik and JJ give up halfway through and target Simon and Josh, who are in the lead. Due to this, first place constantly fluctuates between the two of them, as they order the others to take the other out. At the very end, Josh is taken out of his lead, allowing Simon to take first for a very brief moment... until JJ pins him to the walls, allowing Josh to take the victory.
    • Golf With Your Friends:
      • In this game, Simon, Tobi, and Josh team up against Vik (considering he got four hole-in-ones consecutively at the start) with Tobi winning the game.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain:
    • Ethan abruptly robbing Simon of his victory on the Crystal Crashers level of Skate 3 in "WE MUST BEAT ETHAN", outdoing his score by a few thousand points.
    • Whenever Skate 3 glitches, which usually causes some unruly intervention with the gameplay.
    • Near the end of "FRESH MEAT" in the Human Confetti level, Josh manages to cannonball over some rocky terrain and all the way into a faraway tunnel. Yet for all his work and effort... he falls 309 points shy of 100,000.
    • In Monopoly Plus, after having a Curb-Stomp Battle the last time he played, JJ gained the pink and brown monopolies through trades. To that point the game had been reasonably even, but after that JJ used all the money he had built up to almost completely exhaust the house limit on the board, and the luck streak returned as he avoided everyone else's monopolies and racked up big earnings from his own. It seemed another Curb-Stomp Battle was set to happen... only for JJ to be disconnected from the game.
    • Ethan in his final Royal Rumble FIFA 16 match against Tobi, having lost every single match he played, makes a goal in the last minutes of the match after narrowly keeping Tobi out for the majority of the time. However, Tobi proceeds to quickly make two goals soon after, robbing Ethan of what could have been his one win in the tournament.
    • Simon suffers a brutal one at the end of this GTA race. After spending the entire race in last place, he suddenly manages to overtake everyone and enter first place while approaching the finish line... only for Ethan to knock him away, causing Simon to finish in last place regardless.
    Simon: I was so far last... and I got taken out. I went all the way into first... and now this.
    • In this Monopoly Plus session, Simon seemed poised to win for the first time after earning multiple monopolies and making lots of money. However, a combination of Ethan bankrupting to Josh, continually high rolls and unlucky Chance cards eventually results in Josh winning the game.
  • Versus Character Splash: In the Sidemen's rock-paper-scissors tournament, these are featured for every match. As a Shout-Out, they're based on the ones from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: In the boardwalk race in Vik's 376th GTA V Funny Moments video, Vik decides to become the "gatekeeper" and deliberately prevents Simon from passing and causes him to fall into the water. When Ethan comes along, he's able to knock Vik out of his way.
"Great banter."

Alternative Title(s): Ultimate Sidemen, The Sidemen

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