We can only stare at the oddities of today’s humor and fascination on the mundane and the bizarre. We’ve seen how Eugene, an egg, broke the internet with a record-breaking 54.6 million likes on Instagram. And how 8-year-old Ryan Kaji bags the record of highest-earning YouTube star with his toy reviews. But are you ready for a guy who earned 3 million views just by staring blankly for two hours?

Recently, Indonesian, Muhammad Didit, uploaded a video of him staring for approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes in YouTube on July 11 but only made headlines recently for his whopping 3 million views. He shares on Tribun News, an Indonesian news site, via Mashable SEA that he initially planned to do it for only 10 minutes. So he prepped for it by keeping a food within reach and went to the bathroom prior filming. However, he got lost in it and ended with a lengthy, blank stare that eventually got him on the news. 

In a translated version of his YouTube description, he wrote, “Ok, maybe I should share a little bit why this video was made. It all started from the Indonesian society urging me lately to create content that educates the youth – finally with a heavy heart and reluctantly, I did. BOOM, thus the creation of this video but if we were to talk about its benefits, it all depends on you the viewers to filter and that is my only advice to all of you and hope that you will be entertained and benefit from this video.”

What started out as a deviation from his usual content of food experiments became viral for the eeriness he brought among his viewers. He expresses that it was his critics who pushed him to do this act because they wanted to get something positive and educational from his videos. And weird as it is, this is what we got and well enough, it exploded.

The comment section, as is expected exploded with many reacting to the inanity of the video. One user said, ”This guy’s a GENIUS. hahaha beats other YouTubers who thought of their content for 2 hours/days. He did nothing for 2hours and earned a lot of money.”

Others wrote:

While others linked the nature of the video to several things that remind them of:

Today’s humor is very unpredictable. The weirder it gets, the more attention it receives. While the YouTuber life is more geared towards showing a glimpse of their lifestyle and an awe for brand promotions, a portion of the social media users find satisfaction in very unconventional ways. Such is what birthed the memes and all the viral videos that actually have no perfect mold, but a dash of spontaneity. 

While the staring viral video isn’t as profound as a lengthy Lav Diaz film or any experimental film, it still piques quite an interest. With 2 hours duration, killing time may not be as bad for Didit who found fame at a time when we’re all stuck at home.