NEED TO KNOW
Comedian Matt Hyams had no idea his posts about his perimenopausal wife would go viral, but says she’s cool with it
He tells PEOPLE his biggest fans are women, who say they feel seen and validated
He also gets notes from men, thanking him for the posts and saying the comedy scenes are familiar to them, too
If you’re a woman of a certain age, it’s likely that lately your social media feed has been filled with clips of comedian Matt Hyams, 53, impersonating his perimenopausal wife, or posts like, “Tips for men whose wives are entering perimenopause.“
(“Rule No. 1, stop chewing your food,” he says in one clip. “OK, just swallow it whole. You don’t need to chew that much. But then you’re thinking, ‘Then I might choke and die.’ Good. Even better. Two, stop being around so much. Why are you present all the time? Go away…but also, don’t never be around.”)
Some of the clips have been shared millions of times, with women commenting things like, “I feel seen!” Hyams tells PEOPLE he had no idea that they’d take off the way they did.
“I’ve been posting things, you know, weekly, multiple times a week for the last eight years or something, doing all kinds of trying different things, standup clips, other, other comedy ideas. And that video I posted, Tips for me whose wive are entering perimenopause, I didn’t even think anything of it. I just was like, “Ah, it’s been a while since I posted. I should post something,” he says.
“And I woke up and next thing I knew, it was going viral on TikTok and Instagram, and everyone was like, ‘Ah we love the wife stuff!'”
His next super viral post? About what it was like living with his entrepreneurial wife (she’s the founder of a parenting app called HeyKiddo), where he wore a brown wig and impersonated what it was like to live with someone who “always had to take a call.”
“I actually posted that a couple of years ago, but then decided to repost it, and then the ball kept rolling,” he says. “I then posted one about what my wife was like when she was in the passenger seat while I’m driving. And the messages I’m getting are mostly from women who are like ‘Oh my God, are you spying on me? This is exactly me.'”
Matt Hyams/Instagram
He even has celebrity fans.
“Sarah Blakely, who founded Spanx, reposted my entrepreneur wife video and said, ‘How did you get this footage of me?’ It’s weird, I just posted them because it’s what my wife does, but I guess it’s universal. Which I think has been validating for her and for everybody else!”
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He says the response from women who tell him they finally feel seen has actually opened his eyes to a woman’s “mental load.” (Which is also the subject of one of his more popular videos.)
“I started it to just kind of make fun of my wife and be funny, but the response has been so nice. And men have been writing me and thanking me for the vids, and being like, ‘Now I don’t feel so crazy because my wife does this too.'”
The stand-up comedian and social media manager wants everyone to know his wife does not mind the jokey posts — and that he runs them by her first.
“She’s an executive coach, a leadership development, an entrepreneur and just an ass-kicker and go-getter and very ambitious,” he says.
Matt Hyams/Instagram
“Luckily, we’re still married. And I think every day of our marriage will give me something to joke about.” Next, he even hopes to bring her into the fold with a podcast about love and marriage. “I think it would be so fun to do that with her,” he says.
He also jokes that with the newfound popularity, he’s just finally playing catch-up. “I’ve been on the 30-year plan,” he says of his comedy finally taking off. He adds, “But I’ve been waiting for this for years. And my wife has also very patiently been waiting for me to make money. So the attention is a welcome reward.”
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