The fall of FailArmy

How a single YouTube channel is spoiling fail videos for the rest of us.

Throughout lockdown, no matter how stressed out or locked-in I’ve been feeling, there’s one form of content that can doubtlessly provide me with hours of mindless, cathartic entertainment: fail videos. God I love them. There’s something about watching people trying and failing at something outdoors that makes me feel a lot better for achieving nothing indoors. From women spilling wine on themselves to monkeys throwing their turd at small children, there’s no recipe for the perfect fail video, it just needs the core ingredients: it has to be authentic, funny, and, for a brief moment, help you feel better about your own life choices.

As you can probably imagine, I’ve become a connoisseur of these videos by now. I’m subscribed to and regularly power through subreddits like HadToHurt, ThatLookedExpensive, AbruptChaos and Dumbasses with Lighters for endless streams of goofs and gaffes. Fail after fail, the little dopamine hit really helps distract me from the horrors of lockdown life, plus it’s easy to just jump in and start watching, whether it be a big-screen compilation you set aside an evening for or a fleeting skateboard fail you watch on Instagram whilst on the toilet. No critical thinking needed.