In 1908, Harry Houdini stunned the world by escaping from a sealed milk can filled with water inside a padlocked wooden chest while handcuffed. In 2017, YouTuber Gus Johnson did the same by giving his cat 11,453 “stern looks.”
Earlier this week, Johnson posted in the me_irl subreddit that he would give one stern look to his cat for every up-vote his post got. He promised he would upload it to YouTube so as not to be a “bamboozler.” Well, his post got 11,453 up-votes (before being taken down by the subreddit’s moderator) and Johnson, never the bamboozler, followed through on his promise.
The video itself runs nearly 50 minutes, but those who stick with the whole thing will be treated to much more than run-of-the-mill sternness. As Johnson’s neck begins to seize on him, he tries to distract himself with musings on his favorite movies, the fake fireplace he just bought, and why his family calls nachos “cheesy chips.” He also burps (a lot) and says he hates ladybugs because “they smell like pee.”
Best, however, is the cat herself. Wendy is still a kitten and her mews are perhaps the tenderest sound imaginable. She doesn’t register the stern glares until the end, when she tries to escape them by hiding in a set of drawers. Watch the entire thing below:
“Nobody’s gonna watch 20 minutes of you jerking your head around,” his mom says at one point.
No, they’ll actually watch 50 minutes of it. Welcome to the internet.