With its all-black interior, celebrity clientele and world-renowned trainers, Kensington’s Acero Gym feels more like the after-hours of a nightclub. Michael Clarke squats in a corner while an influencer performs weighted hip-thrusts under the watchful gaze of a trainer. The place should smell of sweat and discipline, of sacrifice in the face of personal development. Instead, there’s only the pungent aroma of olive oil emanating from the figures of two blokes, their tanned skin now glistening like a rotisserie chicken.
As Jack Steele and Matt Ford of The Inspired Unemployed hold shirts aloft to receive a final spritz of cooking spray to the torso, a crowd of gym members has already formed around them. Freshly pumped arms extended, they’re all trying to get the shot. The only problem is, through the laughter no-one can keep their phone-wielding hand steady.
“Don’t act like you don’t know what you’re doing, you do this every day,” Ford heckles from behind the camera, watching as Steele playfully mimics the kind of bodybuilding poses that would see Arnold Schwarzenegger blush. He puffs out the belly, curls his biceps as facial features contort in mock exhaustion. There’s the back- to-camera flex, a swivel of the head over the shoulder as he delivers a pout and fixes the camera with a seductive stare.
“Go on, turn around! Show us the six-pack,” Ford demands.
Though the setting may change, the sea of phones directed towards them is a familiar scene for Ford and Steele, two guys who are famous for their own unique brand of comedy. Theirs is a freewheeling energy, a sort of controlled chaos, and to be in their presence is to surrender to it, knowing you’re part of the in-joke. With their laidback, affable demeanour and an Australian accent thick enough to spread on toast, the pair have become the poster-boys of our national humour. But where Australia has long hailed reticence as a marker of masculinity, theirs is a new breed of male: one who doesn’t take himself too seriously, who understands the pursuit of fitness does not make for an entire personality, and who recognises the value of friendship.
Since The Inspired Unemployed began uploading skits satirising masculinity and Australian stereotypes in 2019, they’ve garnered an Instagram following of 1.5 million. For those under the age of 35, the majority will be able to tell you their favourite video to date (if they haven’t already tagged you in the comments). They’ll tell you about the one where the boys donned satin shorts and headbands as they skipped through the streets of New York. Or the one where Ford, Steele and their close friends, all dressed in various styles of crop-tops, showcase the kind of dance moves best described as a full-body dry-heave to La Bouche’s “Be My Lover.”
In eschewing the pursuit of ‘cool’ for authenticity, The Inspired Unemployed have captured the world’s attention. Fashion shoots with luxury brands Fendi and Louis Vuitton followed, then came a spread in Vogue, and celebrity endorsements alongside Shaquille O’Neale. If it used to be the case that their appeal was confined to millennials, their presence at Acero suggests otherwise. Not surprisingly, life for these former tradies has changed dramatically since going viral, but as they’ll be quick to tell you, ambition has always been a driving factor. Now though, the road before them isn’t well-travelled. There’s no career trajectory or blueprint to consult. Much like the content that’s made them instantly recognisable, theirs is a future governed by instinct and gut-feeling, and a certain alchemy that exists between Ford and Steele alone. One they can only bring out in each other.
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After what Ford describes as the “biggest week of our lives,” the pair have lost all sense of time and geographic location. Just two bodies hurtling through an itinerary that’s taken them across Australia for the Grape Vine tour, New Zealand for the launch of their very own Better Beer, and a brief stint in the UK to meet adoring fans. Having arrived back in Australia this morning in time for today’s shoot, the pair will later travel to their home in Kiama, where they spend two days a week if they’re lucky.
Still, it’s a welcome change to the fast-paced nature of Sydney and work commitments. Having grown up in the coastal town, Kiama presents an opportunity for the boys to get back to their roots, hang out with mates, go out for a surf – all those things that first brought Steele, 28, and Ford, 27, together when they met at high school. Both left school early, with Steele working as a plasterer in his father’s business, while Ford was soon to take up an apprenticeship as a landscaper. They were jobs the pair saw as a means to an end, with the money acquired affording them the opportunity to travel and pursue various interests without the pressure of feeling confined to one career path.
But even with this freedom, the future still felt out of arm’s reach. As Steele explains, “Since we were younger, we always wanted more. We just didn’t know what it was. That’s the thing, it’s so hard to pinpoint what you want to do with your career, ‘cause you know if you find it, you’ll go all in. But we just didn’t know.”
As school friends embarked on university degrees and apprenticeships, Ford began to internalise this feeling of languishing, as though he’d arrived at adulthood with nothing to show for it. “I remember being super self-conscious about going to my friends’ parents and they were like, ‘What are you doing? And I’m like, ‘I’m just working in a surf shop,’” he says. “I was just super lost. I didn’t want to do Uni, I didn’t want to do an apprenticeship. My dad was a bricklayer and his body was just fucked. I was just in this spot where I was like fuck. I don’t know what to do.”
They may not have known what it was exactly they were searching for, but they knew what they didn’t want: to be stuck in a job devoid of all passion. So, in January of 2019, they booked a trip to Europe. But unlike those escapades enjoyed years prior, this trip was going to be different. “We’re going to go over there and we’re going to start a business, we’re going to find what we want to do for the rest of our lives,” Ford recalls. “That’s what our mission was: to go there and not just piss up the wall and have fun – like, do that as well. But really, just try and work out what it is we want to do and work towards it.”
It was while staying in “the worst AirBnB ever” in the French Alps, that the idea of The Inspired Unemployed was born. “Everyone was back home, it was summer and they were all having fun and we were stuck in this shitty, wet, cold, fucking AirBnB with no friends. It was dark, there was a snow storm,” says Ford. “I remember sitting down, we had a notepad and no WiFi. And we were like right, let’s really try to give this video thing a crack and see where it can go.”
For eight months to a year, The Inspired Unemployed worked tirelessly on creating content. Known as natural performers around their friends, they fine-tuned their comedic skills and took the observations they’d made on work sites as tradies, to dating dilemmas and encounters at the local pub or cafe, to use in their scripted skits. It was constant and daily work. And yet, the narrative that surrounds them is one of an overnight success story, undermining the relentless grind that continued as months accumulated on the calendar during which videos gained little recognition and limited likes.
Eventually, the followers came. First by way of family and close friends, and then strangers on the internet. After Brown Cardigan shared the “Be My Lover” video, they suddenly jumped from a following in the hundreds to over 35,000. “Honestly, it was like I’d been knighted by the King,” Steele recalls. “When that happened, it was ‘cause we just worked so fucking hard and I remember losing sleep for a long time over that page. Our lives genuinely changed after that. Fully. Job offers were coming in, everything changed.”
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While it would be easy to reduce the success of The Inspired Unemployed to forces outside human control – like those of lockdowns that saw entire populations confined to their homes where any source of laughter served as a salve to the pervading sense of global doom. The fact is that almost three years on, the growth of The Inspired Unemployed is only increasing. Their content gains consistent traction on platforms notorious for their constant noise, demonstrating a staying power where viral popularity is otherwise quickly mutable. In their content, we see ourselves: generations that aren’t so much directionless as they are striving for greatness but unsure of the path.
If their Instagram handle reflects this desire to find a passion that captures your imagination, it also betrays their intense work ethic. The boys admit to working harder now than they have ever done before. In November of 2021, the pair joined forces with Nick Cogger of Torquay Beverages Co, to launch Better Beer, a zero-carb beer brand that has since become the fastest-growing beer brand in eight years. From January 1 to March 31 of this year, the beer generated sales of $7.8 million according to Financial Review, reflecting not just a growing movement towards healthier beer options, but also the influence of Ford and Steele. “The number one thing we’re grateful for is our audience. They just feel like mates and, I don’t know why, but they’re just so loyal and great and somehow we just built this community and when we launched Better Beer we were like, is it going to sell? We were actually worried,” says Steele. “It sold out in the whole country in four days or something, and just hasn’t stopped from there.”
Despite the constant stream of job offers and endorsements that compete for attention in their Inbox, Ford and Steele are discerning about who they partner with. For them, it’s not a matter of who or how much, but rather freedom: permission to be creative, permission to be themselves. It’s why the launch of The Inspired Unemployed Podcast in 2021 is a venture they’re most proud of. “I feel like people draw a bigger connection to you, ‘cause on the videos we’re kind of just acting and stuff, where the podcast is more real and people resonate with it,” says Ford.
For two people who transform into the ultimate class clown as soon as a camera is directed towards them, the podcast has allowed Ford and Steele to showcase other sides to their personalities – those that are more earnest, vulnerable, less likely to attract laughs. In one episode, the boys speak candidly about mental health and Steele’s struggles with anxiety. Talking about it now, he says it was sparked in 2017 after a bad breakup he had while travelling, a time when he was partying a lot and felt like “everything was just tumbling down.” As he explains, “Looking back, I still get rattled thinking about the dark time I was in, without really even knowing at the time. I felt anxiety for the first time and was like, what the fuck is this? Because no-one was really speaking about it that much.”
Ford, who is perpetually animated with the kind of unbridled enthusiasm you’d expect from a child, is quiet in this moment, granting Steele the space to talk freely. “Especially with this job, we put ourselves in a lot of vulnerable, scary situations which is great, because that’s how you grow. But it’s about being aware of it, and knowing when to step back and breathe and just relax a bit,” says Steele.
It’s hard to imagine The Inspired Unemployed finding these moments of reprieve. But somehow, just like Ford and Steele are able to bring out the entertainer within the other, the other’s presence is also a sense of comfort amidst the chaos. “It’s hard, ‘cause your mates and everyone gets it, but they don’t get it…if that makes sense? It’s not like coming back from a job site where you’re like, ‘fuuuuck, big day on the tools, boys.’ And everyone’s relating and stuff. It’s like, ‘Oh, big day performing in front of a camera.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh yeah? Was it hard, aye?’” Steele muses.
“It’s hard, because you don’t want to complain ever because our life is so, so good. It’s just different. There’s no book, there’s no apprenticeship, there’s no blueprint for this. You go off your instinct, and that’s what we’ve done from the start.”
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On set, the photographer barely needs to offer instruction. Ford and Steele simply turn to each other and, as though rehearsing a choreographed routine, produce a number of poses that speak to their unique bond – something almost brotherly; affection punctuated by a healthy roasting. There’s a flourish of snaps and suddenly Ford walks off with tentative, angular strides, like his own muscular frame is also cringing as he expels the words ‘oh my god’ like a deep exhale.
The photographer checks the monitor and finds the last shot: a nipple grab from Steele, delivered swift and stealth-like. Framed by thick eyebrows, Ford’s eyes appear wild and slightly anarchic, and as he walks back towards Steele it’s clear he’s thinking just how to get one over him in the next frame. For much of the shoot, the pair are doubled over, stomach muscles groaning against the laughter that never ceases. But as the morning rush fades and the gym floor empties of all members, it becomes clear that the pair were never performing for the cameras. Theirs is a healthy competition, a desire to get the other one laughing, a never-ending quest to bring levity to situations that might otherwise prove anxious.
