The Hidden Power of F*cking Up is the debut self-help book from The Try Guys, a comedic quartet featuring Keith Habersberger, Ned Fulmer, Zach Kornfeld, and Eugene Lee Yang. They rose to fame on YouTube for their hilarious attempts at trying new things. One week they may be experiencing simulated childbirth pains and another they’ll be ordering everything at Panda Express. One thing’s consistent though: they mess up. A lot.
They’ve decided to focus their first book on their “failosophy,” and it has a great core message: too many people are afraid of failure, and as a result they don’t reach their full potential. To The Try Guys, failure is a part of life and should be embraced. To many of their fans, The Try Guys might seem like the epitome of success, but they credit all of it to their many failures which they don’t shy away from highlighting in their book. The Hidden Power of F*cking Up helps readers get to know The Try Guys on a candid level just as much as it tries to motivate them. They avoid sounding dry by having an introductory chapter outlining their philosophy followed by them putting it into action in countless detailed anecdotes of their partial and complete failures.
Where I don’t agree with their “failosophy” is that it isn’t always grounded in reality. Rejection can be crushing even if we’re expecting it. To always greet the latest failure with a smile and a can-do attitude isn’t realistic. I was hoping the book would address this somewhere, since this was my first concern, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem so self-aware about this aspect. It also encourages readers to essentially set themselves up for failure instead of setting goals that are reasonable and achievable. Where some self-help books might encourage someone to build their confidence by starting their goals laughably easy to accomplish, The Try Guys instead advise to set the bar too high, then strive to reach it anyways. In my experience, this is a quick way to feel unmotivated or just plain overwhelmed.
From a design standpoint, The Hidden Power of F*cking Up is extraordinarily crisp and vivid. It incorporates photography, bright colours, and clever design to reduce walls of text and ensure that the visuals alone will hook readers. Even with some pages being text heavy, the narration adopts a casual tone that incorporates slang and isn’t afraid to acknowledge when it’s cheesy. The book reads like a pep-talk from your older brothers rather than preaching from your parents. This is a great move on the part of The Try Guys, since their YouTube audience is already used to this casual atmosphere and will mostly likely make up a large portion of their book sales.
Once again though, their design choices mixed with their informal tone can miss the mark. Entire pages will consist of drawn caricatures of The Try Guys engaging in mock conversation filled with quips and banter. If readers wanted that type of content, it would be more effective to direct them toward their YouTube channel where the chemistry between The Try Guys feels organic and real rather than heavily edited. It does help break up the monotony of reading anecdotes for the entirety of the book, but it doesn’t do it well. At one point The Try Guys follow a CEO’s schedule for a day, and almost 30 pages of the e-book version were filled with them commenting on how ridiculous each hour’s task was. They tried to emulate the tone of their videos within the format of a book, but it doesn’t always translate well.
In today’s cultural landscape, “YouTuber” and “influencer” are both valid job titles. In fact, plenty of prominent YouTubers are millionaires, and the idea of how a celebrity is made has never been so blurred. The Try Guys have their own podcast and their own live show, so The Hidden Power of F*cking Up feels like a natural next step in their careers. While The Hidden Power of F*cking Up may not be the next literary masterpiece, it does show yet again that The Try Guys practice what they preach: even if their first book isn’t a total success, they weren’t afraid to try.
Chandy is a biology major/chemistry minor who's been a staff writer, Arts editor, and Managing Editor at The Cascade. She began writing in elementary school when she produced Tamagotchi fanfiction to show her peers at school -- she now lives in fear that this may have been her creative peak.