An Unlikely Model for Male Friendship
The last memory I have of a certain former friendship, one of singular intimacy and closeness, involves watching an episode of the FXX show Dave. It was two summers ago, and a few of us had gathered for his birthday. As the night waned, slices of cake crumbling and cans of beer warming, we watched the show. We guffawed and recognized bits of ourselves in the group of strivers who were all trying, in some form, to make it. At the time, I was ignorant of the fact that my friendship would end abruptly the next day. But in the aftermath of that breakup, as I attempted to cope with the pain, I was surprised by how much Dave would also illuminate my notions of friendship—and its complications.
is a loosely autobiographical show about Dave Burd, a.k.a. Lil Dicky, a white magazine’s influential “Freshman Issue” alongside Lil Yachty, 21 Savage, Anderson .Paak, and Lil Uzi Vert, among others. The show is also, more absurdly, one that focuses on Lil Dicky’s small, deformed penis (the result of a rare birth defect and several surgeries), which the artist fully embraces both inside and outside the series for body positivity as well as schtick. (Just consider his moniker.) Assembled in the show around Dave are friends who have been absorbed by his ambition to become a global star. Imagine combining Larry David’s neurosis with Kanye West’s hubris with a lighthearted genitalia fixation and you might conjure a decent approximation of the protagonist.
