You might have seen them before. And you were probably weirded out. Maybe you watched way more than you thought you would and you could not really figure out why.
September 22, 2016
Satisfying videos have taken over Instagram—pimples being popped, paint being mixed, even cakes being perfectly decorated.
Thousands of accounts entirely dedicated to sharing such videos have appeared seemingly overnight. Instagram has created a subsection specifically for these videos called “Oddly Satisfying.”
At first glance, the proliferation of such videos may seem like just another random, bizarre internet trend. But while it may be bizarre, this trend is anything but random—in fact, it makes perfect sense.
These “satisfying” videos appeal to our subconscious need to find order within chaos.
Some feel it more than others, but it is a quality we all share nonetheless. We chase the feeling of pressure relieved, like a pimple popped, and the feeling of chaos coming together and melding into something pleasing, like a mess of colored paints combining to create a single, homogenous color.
Well, maybe not quite. But there is no denying that the world around us is pretty chaotic nowadays and it is getting harder and harder for everyone, especially young people, to cope with the constant uncertainty.
According to the Nuffield Foundation, the proportion of 15/16 year olds reporting that they frequently feel anxious or depressed has doubled in recent years. This age group also happens to be very active on social media platforms like Instagram.
The increasing rates of anxiety in teens can be credited to a range of factors—from the decline of the youth labor market to the rise of coercive schooling. But they all combine to create a generation of youth tormented by an atmosphere of anxiety and unease—a generation that has perhaps resorted to 60-second clips of things being perfectly sliced into even pieces to cope with the disorder and uncertainty of their worlds.
So, maybe this trend of “Oddly satisfying” videos is really just that—a trend. We could laugh at it, or be alarmed by it.
Is this just the internet being the internet? Or is this some strange cry for help?
Next time you stumble across a video of paint being mixed or hair being perfectly cut, give it a chance, and decide for yourself. iiii
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Senior Karena Tse has been a reporter for the Globe since her freshman year. She joined the Globe for a chance to grow as a writer outside of the traditional academic setting....