“What does your ‘best self’ look like? How can you be a better friend? How do you challenge your assumptions?”
These questions might seem a bit loaded, but Flex Mami (aka Lillian Ahenkan) reckons they’re just the right level of blunt and personal. And she wants you to not just answer them for yourself, but to share your answers with loved ones, too.
“I think people underestimate how much of getting to understand yourself better happens through understanding other people,” she tells Broadsheet. “A lot of us have this idea that we should know ourselves by virtue of just living in our bodies, and it’s really not that simple.”
The DJ, TV presenter, podcaster and entrepreneur (not to mention one of the most charismatic Aussies on the internet) released her parlour game Reflex in 2020, after noticing how hard it was to have genuine conversations online. It is all about encouraging bigger chats through a range of topics, including love, life, religion and politics.
Questions include “What is the one thing you wish people would talk more about?”; “Is your political correctness more motivated by judgement or empathy?”; and “Do you believe aliens exist?” She’s now collaborating with premium chocolate brand Hey Tiger on a boutique version.
For some people, it’s just a fun little card game; for Flex, it’s the first step to authentic discourse.
“We both totally understand that sometimes you have to use these … I don’t want to say ‘novelties’ exactly, but sometimes you need something like that to have the greater conversation you want to have,” Flex says. “It only made sense to join [with Hey Tiger] in a way that felt really genuine to the both of us.”
The brand alignment makes sense – Hey Tiger is a decidedly transparent, do-gooder operation, which sources its ingredients ethically and use chocolate sales to fund development projects in Ghana.
The collaboration involves three chocolate bars, each with three new Reflex question cards included. The themes run the gamut from friendship and self-awareness to how we interact with the world around us, and can be played with friends or explored alone.
Full Flex is a new flavour that’s simple (“Anyone that knows me knows that I am a picky eater and I have a palate that I will say is comparable to a toddler’s”) but looks extra. It’s a milk chocolate bar with sprinkles on one side and edible glitter on the other, with questions for self-reflection and developing a deeper understanding of who you are – one of Flex Mami’s foremost advocacies.
Coconut and caramelised popcorn are encased in milk chocolate for the Best Mates bar, which is aptly paired with questions on friendship and social connections. Game Changer is a plain vegan hazelnut butter chocolate bar that comes with what might be the toughest set of questions: challenging our relationships with the world, how we’re influenced by it and the assumptions we hold.
“We were able to trial questions between us and actually ask each other the questions to see what resonated, if I got them to open up enough to me and share, and vice versa,” Flex says. “I think we’re pretty confident of the questions we arrived at are ones anyone can answer quite comfortably, while still giving or getting an answer that would teach them something new about the person they were playing with.”
The collaboration is out now – just in time for Valentine’s Day – but Flex stresses this isn’t reserved for couples.
“I love this idea that on this day in particular we’re celebrating intimacy, connections and love – whether romantic or platonic or otherwise,” she says.
The Reflex x Hey Tiger collection is out now.
