If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s these drama videos that pop up time and time again on youtube. I swear I have zero interest in these things but the algorithm refuses to release me from its grips. It’s hard to avoid these days as any channel is likely to talk about some drama going on. God, I’ve seen channels that devote their content to reviews of old nickelodeon shows speaking out on drama in the super smash brothers community.
I just want to hear your thoughts and opinions on The Angry Beavers, I’m not here for this. From streamers to beauty blogs, there is no more surefire way to boost your views than to stir the pot and get your opinion out there. The worst example of all this? These stupid apology videos will show up, usually a capstone to the aforementioned drama. A half-hearted attempt to aside all the previous allegations.
It’s always the same crap though. Sitting on the floor, because if you look too comfortable, no one will believe that you’re sad. Oh, and you should smudge your make-up some too! That way people know you’ve been crying. Don’t forget to start the video with a heavy sigh so it’s clear how much this has all been weighing on your chest. Now spew the most formulaic and buzzword-filled nonsense that you can and wait a month until your fans forget all about it.
Congratulations, you’re a good person again!
Every time I see one of these videos, the person in the thumbnail wearing an oversized gray sweater with their finger wiping away tears, I feel myself gagging. I’m not perfect, I’ll admit to clicking on some of these drama videos. I still hate it, but when it involves a creator that you religiously watch, then hey… I’m human too!
Maybe that’s how I got shoved into this. There was this illustrator that I was a really big fan of. Their art was creepy and so stylized and they started to make videos showing their creative process and I ate them up. Great background noise whenever I was working on something. So I watched all these videos and one day I saw all this news come out about them. Suffice it to say, none of it was good. Turns out it doesn’t matter how creative and talented you are, you can still be a massive mountain of garbage.
Eventually, they came out with an apology video. I was enticed and I clicked on it, part of me just wanted to see their face as they had never shown it before. It was tragically predictable. I swear I could see him reading off of a script that was just off camera. I don’t watch that channel anymore, the evidence was pretty damning. Parasocial relationships, am I right?
This is what likely brought the video into my suggested feed. I was lying in bed bored one night and was just shuffling through video apps trying to find something to watch. As one does. The things I was seeing on youtube just weren’t pulling me in, I wasn’t feeling in the mood to consume anything. I first saw it there. The video is titled “I’m realy sorry”. The thumbnail showed a man with a blanket wrapped around him, his hand lifted, scratching the side of his head.
I rolled my eyes at the typo and the low-quality image. Just another sad sap thrown in the mix. But for one reason or another, what caught my attention was the view count. The video sitting in my suggestions had only 14 views. Something primal activated in my brain. A schoolyard desire to get all the hottest gossip. With a view count so small it seemed like I stumbled upon something very… personal. I had to know.
With nothing but good intentions in my heart, I clicked the video. An ad began playing, giving me enough time to see that the channel only had 2 subscribers and only a handful of other videos. The channel was called “DiabolicMuffinTop”, I don’t know. The soap ad ended and my eyes levitated back to the video. It was grainy, clearly recorded with one of those dollar-store webcams.
There was an intense buzzing that seemed to be caused by the microphone that was likely bought in the same store. The man from the thumbnail stared into the camera, his face being broken up by fidgety pixels. He had one of those faces, where it’s hard to tell if they’re 20 or fifty. His skin was tan, or the lighting made it look that way. His head was shaved. As he sat on the floor trying to get comfortable I watched the white stained straps of his wife beater.
The room around him was particularly nondescript, outside of it looking like a small dorm room with next to no visible furniture. He finally pulled a blanket off-screen and wrapped himself in it. Slowly the fuzz died off as he reached down and pulled the microphone off the beige carpet floor. I cannot tell you how enthralled I was at this point. It was so mundane and vague, I felt like I was in on a secret. This room, this man; could be anywhere in the world.
Microphone hanging mere inches from his lips he began to speak. His voice was full of gravel like he hadn’t slept in a few days. When his voice got to me I could see his eyes looked heavy as well, the way he was hunched like it was a struggle to sit upright. It sounded generic at first, what he was saying. He repeated lines I heard before. Things like.
“It was a stupid mistake.”
“I want to be better.”
“I hope I can grow from this.”
These words felt a little strange to listen to given that I didn’t know what the man was apologizing for. Though as he talked, maybe just because of how exhausted he looked, it started to feel genuine. My excitement turned to a sense of guilt like I shouldn’t be watching. I didn’t leave though, the timeline kept moving on. I watched tears form in his eyes as his words got shaky. “I wish I could take it all back… I miss all of you.”
There was a moment of silence and suddenly he stood up, a few minutes passed with him just standing in front of the camera. Within that time I had found myself leaning in, inspecting the footage and the room. Initially, I assumed it to just be an artifact caused by the poor image quality but the more the pixels shifted, the more it became clear that it was something else.
On the wall behind the guy were shadows. They were soft and hard to make out with the amber lighting of the room, but there were shadows. The screen went black and the video ended. That wasn’t satisfying, not nearly enough for me to have backed out then and there. No, he had other videos, not many but maybe there were some answers in them. Or at least something I could hang my hat on.
Clicking on his profile I navigated to his videos and found that “I’m rely sorry” was the first one he uploaded. The next one was titled “Peeky.” Though my eye was drawn to his most recent video titled “I’m sorry PT2”. I felt it would be a disservice to jump right to it though. Like I was ruining the suspense for myself or something. I don’t know, it’s as I said. I was very bored. So I clicked on “Peeky”.
It was an eye. Just a close shot of a blue eye, took me a while to even make out what I was looking at. I only recognized it as such when an eyelid obstructed the camera for a moment before being pried apart. It was an eye alright but… well there was a camera light illuminating it. The light kind of came and went, shining on the eye and then retreating. It was off-putting because as far as I could tell, the pupil never dilated and I remember thinking that maybe the quality wasn’t good enough to show it. But I don’t think it ever dilates.
And when I say the eyelid was pried open I mean, someone’s fingers had spread them forcing the eye to stay open. The video was only 47 seconds long and that’s all it really was, the eye didn’t even move. It looked glossed over and unnatural like a prop. Going back to the previous video I leaned in and tried to get a look at the guy’s eyes. It was hard to make out but if his eyes were that blue surely I would’ve noticed.
Another video showed him lying in his bed. This one was titled “goodnight”. The room was dim. There was this sense of light. Not like moonlight was reaching the room but there was a natural illumination about it; a haze of sorts. His head was tilted towards the ceiling and I don’t know how I could tell but he was awake. A feeling I guess. This video was long and the audio was rough but I could hear something in the background. Not in the room, it was muffled. A dragging, it sounded like someone moving furniture around. A large wooden dresser being pushed across the carpet comes to mind.
Then the door to his bedroom began to creak open and my suspicion about him being awake was confirmed. As soon as the light from the hallway crept in he scattered like a bug to his headboard. I could see the clump of pixels around him beginning to vibrate, he wrapped his arms around himself and started to shake. The sound cut in and out but he was whimpering like a punished dog. Whoever opened the door just stood there. The arm holding the door remained still, just a dark spot. Pausing the video I couldn’t help but think to myself that the arm was at such a strange angle. Like the person was as tall as the ceiling.
Within a few minutes, the figure starts to enter I think and the YouTuber starts to howl, like really yell, noise complaint-worthy stuff. I was right again, whatever was peeking in was so tall, its head entered first as it had to bend over to get in. A head that was not… not the shape that people’s heads are. It looked like chunks had been taken out of it at a jagged angle. I don’t know how to describe it. Either it had a crazy helmet on or that thing wasn’t- normal?
It leaned in further and reeled its ``Head” back in jittering motions almost like it was smelling the air. The guy backed up on the bed more, it looked like he was trying to push his way through the wall as he could just crack through it. The static caused by the picture quality almost seemed to warp around the figure leaning in the door, like it was trying to avoid touching the thing.
Just as I began to feel my stomach churning, the figure started to rotate its head and look towards the camera, small pin-prick blue lights beamed out from the front of its face, and then that video ended. I sat there for a moment, collecting my thoughts and after watching that video again I couldn’t help but feel nervous.
To clear the air. I’m no stranger to the weird things people create online. Things like ARGs and narrative-driven series. The possibility of this all just being something the cameraman created crossed my mind. This thought, however, felt more defensive than anything. With saliva pooling in my mouth and sweat forming under my fingertips, it was like I was finding something safe to explain it. The more I thought about the video and its contents the more unnerving it became and the more I needed to see the other videos.
The next one was called “Outside” and it started with the cameraman sitting on the floor like the apology video. Like the apology video as well the man offered his sorrows, stating that he didn’t mean for any of it to happen. That he just “Wants to leave”. The lighting was exactly the same as in the first video, with not a spec of natural sunlight to be found. He leaned forward and grabbed the camera.
I paused the video when he leaned in to get a better look. While his face was still rather blurry, I could see darker lines of flesh on him, something you’d expect to see when deep gashes finally heal over. There wasn’t enough quality to definitely make out what I was looking at though. Unpausing he lifted the camera and carried it to the door. His hand trembled as he placed his fingers on the knob.
The view shifted for a moment. I watched this part a few times to try and make out what he was doing, I think- putting his ear up to the door but I don’t know. All I know is his breathing was horribly erratic. It almost frustrated me listening to the man breathing directly into the camera’s toaster-quality microphone. Made my heart start racing in ways I wasn’t comfortable with. He must have been satisfied with his prodding as he pulled the camera back and turned the handle.
A hallway was revealed on the other side. Same canvas brown wall and dim lighting as his room had. He stepped out into the hall and panned the camera around showing me, absolutely nothing. There was maybe a ten or fifteen feet stretch of the hall on either side, it’s hard to define distance on video. At the end of the hallways was just a blank wall. No pictures or other doors to be seen, hell there wasn’t even any molding, just the brown walls, and browner carpet.
The camera focussed on his hand as it ran along the hallway’s walls, just a flat surface with not so much as a seam. Every bit of the hall was the same, not a hint of escape to be seen, he was closed in. His hand shook the whole time making the flecks of static drift around like lightning bugs. After walking around the hall he wound back up at his door and pointed the camera at the end of the hall.
Static from the footage started swirling like a snow storm and from the flat wall, I could see an outline forming. It looked like a pipe had burst behind the wall and started soaking the wood causing a dark spot. This spot became more and more black until it looked like an inky mess. The camera… it was like the poor quality didn’t dare enter that darkness, I could see it so clear compared to the rest of the hall.
It looked as if that darkness stretched on further than the confines of the hallway and from that stretch, fingers laced on the edge. The camera shook as the man contemplated how long he could risk being in the hall. The creature from before started climbing out. It wasn’t the quality of the video that made the thing look so undefined and inhuman, that’s just how it was. Those bright blue beads on its head peered out from the dark spot.
My breathing was matching his at this point, felt like the thing was looking at me like it could see me. I was about to scream at the man to get back in his room and as the monster crawled from the pits beyond the hallway, the video cut out and ended. The way it all looked, the way it made me feel. Shifting in my seat I could sense the cool air pressing on the beads of sweat running down my forehead. There were only two videos left though. I couldn’t just not watch them right?
The penultimate video. I can’t exactly describe how it made me feel. There was an air of triumph, I think. It was just the guy sitting on the edge of the bed with his head lowered and crumbling at his feet was the monster. It was motionless and I could see that the man’s hands were covered in red. He was staring at his own hands, repeating something I couldn’t quite make out.
I watched, expecting the monster to move again, for something to happen, but even those pin-prick lights failed to shine. The longer the video went on the more the static started to cover the creature as if it was no longer afraid of it. And the more static that covered the creature’s frame the more it looked like- Its limbs became shorter and its head started to shrink and smooth out.
The whole time this monster collapsed in on itself to look more and more human all the man did was stare at the mess on his hands. Raising his hands he pulled his fingers down across his face, digging his fingernails through his flesh, re-opening those scars I had noticed earlier. When he did this, it was faint but the static started to drift away from him, showing his face a little clearer. He looked into the camera, got up to walk over, and turned it off. He was angry and frustrated. Eyes narrowed peering through thin rivers of red.
Last video. “I’m sorry PT2”. He must have set up and turned the camera on minutes after the last video ended. He sat in front of the camera just like he did for the first video, his face was still slick with fresh blood, and he was looking more monster than a man. Speaking of which, the creature that was slumped against the bed had been moved, somewhere out of frame.
He began speaking. Tell me, or the camera I suppose. That it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He meant for it to be simple, that he intended for no harm to come. He also said, with a laugh, that it was too late for all that thought. That he had crossed the line and he has to deal with his decisions. It was so strange, hearing all the jargon I had seen Youtubers use before to passively handwave their actions off. To hear him saying all this stuff in the context of what I had just seen.
Heard him talk about how he wants to “Be better” and that all he needs is a chance to prove he can do it. What could he possibly have done to have wound up there? Did he deserve it? Was it a punishment? For all the apologizing he did, clearly, he did something that put him there right? I can’t wrap my head around it. Or anything I had seen involving his channel. I could only watch as he continued barfing out the same script I had heard from others.
He stopped talking, mid-sentence and looked into the camera lens, the camera’s focus on him going in and out. God, it felt like he suddenly became aware of my existence, he could feel I was watching him. That look wrapped around my heart and squeezed, a pain in my chest and a churning in my abdomen. Fear blanketed me like cellophane. “This is the last time, I promise.” He said sullen and ethereal words that cut grooves into my ears.
Reaching forward the man grabbed the camera and picked it up, standing up off the floor I could see the blanket drop from his shoulders. He was shirtless and his chest was littered with those scabbed-over scars that created pathways in the static. He was mangled, you’d have thought a pride of lions just finished throwing him away. “I’m sorry to all of you.” He whispered, something in his eyes. I could feel he had finalized on a choice, something he had been mulling over for quite some time.
Slowly, very very slowly he started turning the camera around. It was here that I realized I had only seen one portion of his room, never what was beyond the camera. As it turned I wasn’t surprised to see the walls were devoid of decoration, just the same spoiled milk color until the lens was met with a black mass. It was like a dense forest of thin trees. I struggled to make out what I was looking at.
He started backing up offering more and more of the view in front of him. Bodies, I hate to cut to the chase but I don’t know what else to say, they were bodies. All of them were so tightly packed together it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. Their frames were dark like the creature that came into his room. All of them hung from the ceiling like ornaments on a Christmas tree. They gently swayed bumping into each other, thick ropes strung around their necks to keep them suspended.
They looked closer to people shaped than the monster that I had seen a few videos ago. But it didn’t stay that way. He kept the camera on this scene for a while. More than enough time for me to see that now and then their bodies would shift. They would begin to transform and crack back into the jagged and lengthy shape of the monster. Their bodies would rattle and moan as their skulls snapped and twisted into horrid silhouettes. There they would bounce around trying to be free of the noose.
Every Time though, their body would go limp and give up before slowly reverting into the humanoid shape. It was a cycle, they would transform, struggle and revert. Brief moments of consciousness and a desperate fight for air only to die once again. 12 minutes of this. Seeing those blue eyes open and shut. I couldn’t tell how big the room was or how many bodies total there were. It seemed like well over a dozen, all fighting for a little more space. After twelve minutes, from behind the camera, I heard “I’ll find a way to fix this.” And then the video just ends.
I sat in my seat for a while, I felt like I couldn’t move. Or rather I didn’t want to? Like if I moved it was confirmation somehow of everything I had seen and I just didn’t want time to move forward, I didn’t want to come to grips with it. The sun had started peeking through my window at some point, I must have been sitting there for a few hours. I’d occasionally view the videos again, trying to find some kind of credits. Or even coded messages, anything to show me that what I witnessed was a fabrication.
After enough clicking back and forth, searing the images of those videos in my mind, I’m only left with questions. A thousand “Whys” were implanted into my head. Ones I’m sure will never vacate. Now for the part, you’ll hate. Upon trying to revisit the user’s page I’m only met with a deactivated account. I discovered this when it dawned on me that I should have somehow documented what I had seen. Funny how that works, now this is all I have of it. This written recounting of it.
All the time it’s there, scratching at the back of my head. I’m trying to connect the dots where there are none. Just one meaningless question pulling to another. This is easily one of the most abusive parasocial relationships I have been pulled into. I keep an eye open. Maybe I’ll see his face on my screen again and finally, I’ll be able to get it out of my head. I’m always afraid I’m going to leave my room to find that it’s all gone, that I only have a hallway. That fear feels like it’s closing in. Maybe I’m paranoid. Though. My eyes are blue.
Sorry, I don’t have more answers or information.
I’ll try to do better.