This Terrifying Viral Video Had Everyone Thinking it was Real
Last week, we wrote about a TikToker convinced Dutch Marich’s Horror in the High Desert was real. Honestly, it’s not a terribly unreasonable mistake. There are plenty of times my eyes have glazed over during a late-night watch and I’ve had a hard time distinguishing between what’s real and what isn’t. That’s also kind of the point of horror mockumentaries, right? The impression that they could be real? It’s why The Blair Witch Project endures, love it or hate it (personally love it) decades later. If even one person believes what they’re seeing is real, that’s a win.
The early days of YouTube and the proliferation of digital technologies and creepypastas were rife with unclear boundaries between fact and fiction. I’m kinda dumb, so yeah, I thought Marble Hornets was real for a brief beat, especially because my friends were trying to emulate the style at their own homes (and we all lived along acres of deep, dark woods, prime Marble Hornets territory). Was Candle Cove a real show? Did the Rake really exist? Yes, actually. Pretty sure I saw it on Piney Church Road. One of the earliest digital iterations is hard to describe, so just watch it below. Everyone, say hello to Walter.
I know, I know. We’re all media literate today (sure…), but at the time, yeah, Hi Walter! I got a new gf today! really did seem real. Verisimilitude is challenging, and at times, the more a filmmaker or creator endeavors for realism, the more artificial it seems. The balance is tricky (look to The Poughkeepsie Tapes for a great example), though in the case of YouTube, it’s certainly more plausible that what’s being seen is actually real. For one, it immediately answers found-footage’s most nagging question, namely, who found and subsequently edited the footage. Oh, and there is an entire body of literature on the very real deaths regularly uploaded to the site.
While first uploaded in 2009, the short clip first went viral in 2016 after viewers suspected the clip was connected to the real-life disappearance of Kayla Berg. Police even investigated YouTuber Devin Wolf (Patrick in the video), quickly concluding the video was nothing but a skit and bore no connection to the disappearance.
Novelty and tragedy have a strange way of regularly intersecting. Still, as an artifact of the early internet days, it rarely if ever gets creepier than Hi Walter. What do you think? Were you familiar with the skit? If so, did you think it was real? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
Categorized:News
