Oddly satisfying home renovation TikTok’s are going viral. This is why they feel so great. – Insider – INSIDER

One TikToker, @Squiglez22, picked up over 70 million views cleaning her Grandmother's pool. Fans of the videos are obsessed, Kacyee Stroh of the High School musical series even commented "I am committed to this series!"

TikTokers behind the oddly satisfying videos are thrilled, but surprised their videos are getting so much attention.

Stuck in quarantine and without access to a gym, Eddy Deluca (@eddydeluca_) had nearly lost all motivation to work out. It wasn't until he stumbled across rusted workout equipment from a neighbor that Deluca realized all those nights he had spent watching DIY videos would finally pay off.

With little building experience, Deluca took action and started building a home gym, documenting the process for TikTok to see. The first upload of his four-part series received 2.5 million views and over a thousand shares in twenty-four hours. The videos aren't complex, but they are visually mesmerizing. In a 30 second time-lapse, Deluca is seen carefully submerging rusted weights through an acid wash, slowly scrubbing away the rust with a wire brush, and perfectly covering each weight with a new coat of black spray paint.

In another upload, he records the day-long process of building a bench press from scratch and even includes a moment for those looking for the oddly mesmerizing moment: peeling tape from a freshly painted piece of wood. The post has garnered dedicated fans, with multiple commenters writing "so satisfying!" and another writing "I don't even workout out, but I'm invested in this series!"

Deluca isn't alone in his overnight virality, TikToker @squiglez22 has taken the platform by storm with a series titled, "Cleaning My Grandma's Pool that Hasn't Been Open in 11 years." The series has tens of thousands of comments and over 70 million views, however, the biggest hits from the series contain what can only be described as the oddly satisfying. On a video posted on May 18th, she can be seen power washing mud from the bottom of the emptied-out pool. The series is resonating with users too, with one commenter writing "This is the most satisfying thing to watch." The series even garnered attention from Kaycee Stroh of the Highschool Musical Series who commented "I am committed to this series!"

Whether it's rust removal, washing, or painting, an entire genre has emerged, hypnotizing viewers with oddly satisfying videos of household and outdoor chores that leave us wondering why are we watching it?

Evan Malone, professor of Art and Film Philosophy at the University of Houston, describes the phenomenon as "bursts of cinemacity" in our everyday life. Malone watches these ordered experiences like watching a James Bond film, "Bond doesn't fumble through his pocket when he's looking for keys. He's very precise in his movements. When I clean things nothing works, I sit there scrubbing for minutes at a time. With pressure washing it just comes right off it's like the James Bond of cleaning." When we see dirt being washed from pool tiles we get to witness an ordinary action executed perfectly. "We don't think about aesthetics in our normal lives, and what art or an aesthetic experience does is this refamiliarization with the normal, it's an invasion of the cinematic in our everyday."

The phenomenon isn't limited to cleaning either: user Breanne Malonis (@bretomolonis) has been documenting a home renovation. The most popular videos in the series are usually timelapses of the step by step process of building furniture around the house. "The process of building a home and watching all of it come together from nothing can be very satisfying...every time we posted a before and after so many people seemed to be amazed by the process."

There are other elements at play in the success of oddly satisfying, yet ordinary, videos, according to Malone. Describing what psychologist and philosopher, George Herbert Mead calls "Symbolic Self Completion," Malone explained, "if I have all these things on my mental checklist of things to do around the house, I can get the satisfaction of crossing things off my checklist from watching videos...instead of just showing us before and after of rusty weights and then a gym, you can get the same sense of satisfaction and sense of self-completion watching each step as you would doing the whole project yourself."

This experience isn't just for audiences either, creators receive added benefits separate from shares and likes. Malone likens this to when someone posts pictures of themselves working out. "They take a picture of them at the gym on day one and people comment 'you go!' or 'that's awesome!', and in that moment you already have the benefits of working out. People are already congratulating you for your willpower so then you feel like you don't need to actually complete it, you've symbolically self completed."

Deluca, for his part, was shocked to see his videos gaining so much attention, but recognized the pleasure people derive from his videos and those like them, "it's a sensory thing, like cleaning the rust off the weights. I'm just like everybody else, I watch it, but I don't know what it is." He also added, "I think it's wholesome content and people like to see that you are working hard and putting effort into something."

With large parts of the world still stuck in quarantine, Malone wonders if all this attention might simply be a form of escapism. "The picture that is emerging from media studies and psych literature is that this is self-soothing the world is getting more chaotic, there is this desire to see something ordered and familiar, or more ordered." With uncertainty lurking, the hypnotizing moments tucked inside these TikToks holds a promise of order and perfection that keep us coming back for more.

Malone's simplest answer could explain why Emily Bennett (@emilyy.nicholee) was able to acquire over 400,000 new followers. Bennett used the quarantine as an excuse to turn her lakeside beach into a small oasis. The majority of the videos consist of tedious outdoor work: raking sand, pulling out weeds, and laying down bricks. "I think the series got popular because so many people are stuck at home right now. Everyone just wants to be able to get out of the house and be at the beach themselves, so seeing us at our little beach made people happy.

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Oddly satisfying home renovation TikTok's are going viral. This is why they feel so great. - Insider - INSIDER