Indonesian YouTuber garners over 2.8 million views for video of himself staring at nothing for 2 hours

Thanks to the current age of weird internet humour and an ongoing pandemic that’s causing everyone to seek out distractions in any way possible, an Indonesian man got his brief moment of fame in July for simply looking at nothing for two hours. 

Featuring nothing else but himself sitting on the floor, in front of his bare mattress with no background music playing at all, Indonesian YouTuber Muhammad Didit managed to garner nearly three million views on a video of himself staring into space. 

This, despite his YouTube channel Sobat Miskin Official only having over 35,000 subscribers for random videos about life in rural Indonesia. 

And since YouTube is stricter in counting video views by filtering out fraudulent clicks by malware and spambots, getting more than 2.8 million genuine people watching someone do absolutely nothing at all for two hours and 20 minutes is a pretty impressive feat.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8zFL-0rBAw[/embed]

The YouTuber explained in the description of his video that the concept originated from “some elements of Indonesian society” who had asked him to create educational content for young people. Feeling pressured, he went ahead to make a video about literally nothing at all. 

Speaking to Tribun News, Didit explained that he originally wanted to shoot the video for just five to 10 minutes but got so absorbed in the moment that he continued on for much longer. Prior to hitting the record button, he said that he had a meal and went to the bathroom to avoid interruptions during the shoot. 

Commenters from all over the world have pretty much hailed the feat as one of the best things on the internet, and are themselves surprised that a video of a random guy doing nothing for two hours is interesting enough to get millions of hits. 

Funnily enough, the longest video on his channel became the most viewed one. Subsequent videos he made — including tasting weird food and beverage combinations like a bread bun with Indomie seasoning as well as spicy Samyang noodles with flour — have failed to garner as many views as simply staring into the camera. 

ilyas@asiaone.com