There are many ways to relax. You can take a walk, call a friend or read a book. But sometimes it rains, friends are busy or your book is boring. What then?
I have a suggestion: watch random, unrelated objects get mercilessly crushed in the mechanical jaws of a hydraulic press.
I love hydraulic press videos! I like to watch it between meetings, after a busy day at work, when I’m trying to turn off my brain before going to bed. They’re cheaper than a massage and seeing a Hydro Flask wrinkle like tissue under the pressure of heavy machinery feels like a warm bath for my brain.
While this may sound like a niche activity, it is not. There are several YouTube channels dedicated to videos about hydraulic presses, but Hydraulic press channelis the most popular with over 9.7 million subscribers. The videos regularly receive tens of millions of views. For example, Top 100 best hydraulic press moments | Satisfying crushing compilation has over 63 million views and features a press crushing a stack of sticky notes, a Rubik’s cube, a pumpkin, crayons and a Furby. The crayons and pumpkin are my favorite because I like how the wax and flesh express the sides.
“Our most popular videos are compilations of random things,” says Lauri Vuohensilta, the channel’s founder.
Vuohensilta, a factory owner in Finland, started making the videos in 2015. He says having a YouTube channel was “a dream from a long time ago.” He wanted his videos to reach a wide audience and knew he would have to appeal to an international audience. But he was afraid that his English was not strong enough to tell them. Inspired by videos he saw of a red hot metal ball As he melted through objects like a block of ice or jelly, he realized he didn’t need to talk – he could just film segments in his workshop.
“The press is perfect,” he says. “You put the stuff there and pull the lever.” It was easy to come up with ideas for what to film. “There’s so much you can crush,” he says.
He says that a large part of his audience is like me: “people who just want to see interesting and satisfying clips that look fun. Something easy after a long day.”
But why does it feel so satisfying to watch a Furby get squished into a blob? And why are so many millions of people obsessed with these videos?
“Oh my God, (hydraulic press videos) are so addictive,” said Dr. Rosanna Guadagno, associate professor of persuasive information systems at the University of Oulu, during a video call. “I’ll check more after our call.”
There are a number of factors that determine whether content goes viral online, Guadagno says: timing, how many followers the poster has and the emotional response it evokes. “Unfortunately, algorithms have figured out that outrage is one of the things that goes viral and keeps us engaged in social media applications,” she says. But users also want to share positive emotions: “Things that we find funny, cute and interesting also go viral.”
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Furthermore, no cultural context or understanding is needed to enjoy a hydraulic press video. Anyone, from any background, can get satisfaction from seeing something being squashed. “It speaks to everyone’s inner child,” she says.
Paradoxically, the fact that it is a somewhat bizarre corner of the internet also contributes to the videos’ popularity.
“People like to share surprising, interesting, or remarkable content because it gives them social value,” explains Dr. Jonah Berger, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, and author of the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On. “It makes them look smart, special and familiar.”
The brutality of seeing something crushed in a heavy machine can also be an emotional release, says Dr. Charlynn Ruan, founder and CEO of the Thrive Psychology Group.
“I think it makes perfect sense that these are popular,” says Ruan. “These videos tap into our natural human desire for action and destruction and the cathartic feeling of building or destroying something.”
She says the videos remind her of rage rooms, where you can pay to spend time destroying furniture or electronics. Ruan sometimes recommends anger rooms to her clients as a way for them to tap into anger and aggression in a healthy, controlled way (and not have to clean up afterward). This can be especially helpful for women, she says, who are often conditioned not to express their anger.
While seeing crayons being crushed on a screen isn’t quite the same as smashing a television with a baseball bat, Ruan says visualization is powerful and we can still experience the same emotional benefits just by imagining something. She says the videos are “not a replacement for physical expressions” but that they can be “great little cathartic moments in the middle of the day, or when you don’t have the time and space to express yourself in other ways.”
So the next time you want to relax or release some frustration, watch a video of some apples or candles being crushed. My personal advice: fast forward through the glass breaking parts – they really stress me out.