It’s quite frequent that a video from a YouTube from Hydraulic Press Channel hits the top of /r/all on Reddit. A man from Finland runs the channel and makes videos that consist of one thing: crushing things with a hydraulic press. The variety of objects that are crushed are widely varied from diamonds and golf balls, to smaller hydraulic presses. The channel is so popular that it has spawned copycat channels such as PressTube.
Another popular channel, carsandwater, posts simple destruction videos that feature a red-hot nickel ball. The premise is just as simple as the Hydraulic Press channel: destroy various items with a red-hot nickel ball. Usually the objects that come in contact with the nickel ball melt or react in unpredictable manners, but the result is almost always the same in that whatever object dared to face the red-hot nickel ball will be unusable by the end of the video.
However, it’s not always physical objects that YouTubers love to destroy. Sometimes destroying things that don’t physically exist is just as fun. danooct1 is a channel that showcases videos of various computer viruses destroying an older machine running Windows 98. Now while computer viruses can be a serious threat, especially with some of the viruses that spread today, the worms and Trojans of yesteryear present virtually no threat to today’s machines, which makes these videos an interesting watch. Some videos are scary and others are mesmerizing, but they all end up with the same result: a broken operating system, and in some cases, a computer that can’t even be turned on.
Now, why do we watch these videos? Most are predictable and after binge watching them, they become uninteresting. Perhaps it is the closest way to fulfill a fantasy. Most of us have no means to melt things with a red-hot nickel ball or crush objects with a hydraulic press, and in our technology-driven age we certainly don’t want to inject our computers with a virus, but watching videos of others doing it is the next best thing. Perhaps it is a release of the stresses of everyday life. No matter what it is, people will watch and these content creators make YouTube royalties, so it’s a win-win situation for all.
Now please excuse me while I go start my new YouTube channel, "Melting Things With Acid". Oh wait, never mind, someone beat me to it.
