'HIKEA' promises to make you laugh the entire time … because you're probably on drugs too …
Probably the worst thing in the world aside from losing a child or accidentally maiming a baby bunny with your bike in 10th grade is IKEA furniture assembly.
The directions look like blueprints to build a nuclear submarine, you need a Home Depot's worth of tools you don't have before you even think about starting, and the finished product lasts for about a month before it crumbles into the cheaply made sawdust pile it was born from. That's a lot of shit to deal with for a product named FLÄRDFULL.
Thankfully, Hunter Fine and Alex Taylor understand this struggle and are making light of it with their new web series called HIKEA.
HIKEA, which premiered its first two episodes Tuesday, is a "social experiment" wherein people attempt to build IKEA furniture the way everyone truly should: while high as all hell on very illegal drugs.
Why, you ask? Well, Fine and Taylor are creative advertising directors who personally know the trials and tribulations of IKEA furniture assembly all too well.
“Building IKEA furniture is hard. Building IKEA furniture under the influence is nearly impossible,” they wrote on the HIKEA website. “So we thought it would be funny to make a web series filming people high on drugs while attempting to build their affordably priced furniture. And it's funny to say ‘HIKEA.’”
In fact, Taylor told the Daily Dot that the name HIKEA is actually what inspired them to follow through with the idea in the first place, something that may or may not have been inspired by the kinds of drugs featured on the show. We feel the same way about the Phoenix airport hair salon of our dreams, Hairizona. HA HA HAA.
Anyway, Fine and Taylor don't actually take the drugs themselves (boo) but they do use Craigslist to find "actors" willing to to experiment with rugs and DJUPVIK. Then, they hire a camera crew and get to work watching people try to do the world's hardest thing while under the influence of the world's hardest drugs. An appetizer for you:
For the first HIKEA episode, a couple named Gianncarlo and Nicole took acid, then spent almost four hours building a small chest of drawers. They're completely delighted with themselves until they realize they forgot three entire boxes from the unit.
Honestly, we've had that exact same experience sober, but it is actually pretty hilarious to watch people on LSD go from "Hand me the screwdriver" to " … The neutrality of any emotion … it just is what it is."
For video number two, a guy named Keith tries to build a desk on shrooms. Fine said they hired Keith because he "had experience smoking pot on the Daily Show," so they felt confident he wouldn’t lose control during filming.
Boy, oh boy, did they think wrong.
Right before he starts constructing the desk, Keith looks at the camera and goes, “I feel like on the shrooming scale, I’m somewhere near bananas.” Poor Keith couldn't even get through the first step, but with some tender TLC from the HIKEA crew, Keith built himself a dilapidated new desk in just under SIX FUCKING HOURS, skipping 12 crucial steps in the process.
“This is a book of lies,” he says, raising up the IKEA manual, and probably invoking the truest words that have ever been spoken.
No word on which drug HIKEA contestants will be taking next, but we're hoping the season finale concludes with the most intense test of IKEA carpentry of all: building a shelf SOBER.
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