The Coolboy Family
Introduction
The Coolboy Family is an experimental video work that pays homage to the visual language of the 1980s. Drawing on the era’s popular one-man show format—where a single performer plays multiple characters—the film constructs an exaggerated, distorted portrait of a family, set within the hyperactive world of retro TV shopping ads.
Inspired by the flamboyant aesthetic and performative intensity of 1980s infomercials, the piece features a parade of characters enthusiastically pitching products with absurdly exaggerated lines and overly cheerful tones. Every item is framed as a cure for emotional lack, a solution to familial unease—turning consumer objects into symbols of desire, identity, and social cohesion.
Through repetitive gestures, garish lighting, and scripted enthusiasm, The Coolboy Family doesn’t merely replicate the past—it satirizes the emotional machinery of consumer culture. It reveals how individuals are cast into roles, oscillating between joy and exhaustion, in a system where consumption becomes both entertainment and a surrogate for intimacy.
Far from mere nostalgia, this work stages a sharp commentary on how identity is performed, marketed, and commodified in the everyday theatre of capitalism.