Posted by - What it is: a creepypasta, an internet horror legend.
- The video: 20 seconds of a man staring at the camera and then smiling, uploaded to YouTube on 18 April 2008 by the user erwilzei.
- The legend: anyone who watches the full version meets a terrible end.
- The truth: there is no “full” version and there were no victims.
There is a video on YouTube called “Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv”. If you look for it you will almost certainly not find anything, but if you manage to find it you’ll see a 20-second video of a man on a white undefined background staring at the camera, without showing any emotion. Then in the last seconds of the video he smiles.
This is only a part of the video, the complete version lasts two minutes but has been removed from YouTube, and the reason is uncanny.
According to the legend, the video was removed after 153 people, immediately after watching it, did terrible things and sent gruesome packages to YouTube’s offices in San Bruno, California.
Then they took their own lives.
It is still unclear how they managed to send packages to the well-known company. Also, on the arms of the victims an enigmatic inscription was found, still undeciphered.
YouTube periodically uploads the first 20 seconds of the video to avoid arousing suspicion, so people who are interested in watching the video will see that and not the entire recording.
The original video was also seen by a YouTube staff member, who after the first 45 seconds, began to scream. Colleagues intervened but to date this person is constantly sedated and does not remember anything of what has happened.
The person who uploaded the original video “Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv” was never found, his IP address turned out not to exist and the character in the video was never found either.
Although YouTube has removed the original video, someone has uploaded it again and as long as YouTube doesn’t delete it again, it is still visible.
I have posted here the video, but I did not have the courage to watch it. Will you?
What is really going on
The 20-second video really exists: it was uploaded to YouTube on 18 April 2008 by a user called erwilzei, and has since been removed and re-uploaded many times. The story of the victims, the YouTube employee who went mad and the untraceable uploader, however, is a creepypasta, born soon afterwards and spread on forums and blogs such as Creepypasta.com. The name first appeared on Urban Dictionary on 3 August 2008.
What makes this legend unusual is that normally the story comes first and someone then makes the video. Here the opposite happened: the video came first, and someone built the myth on top of it. There is no “full” two-minute version, and nobody has ever died from watching it. Over the years the video has been remade and imitated dozens of times.
If a story like this has upset you or you are going through a difficult time, you don’t have to face it alone: in the UK and Ireland you can call the Samaritans on 116 123, and in the US call or text 988.
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