Skip to main content

2020 Vision and Utilizing People's Knowledge Blind Spot

 

In 2017, a YouTube channel called 2020 Vision uploaded a series of unsettling videos that, years later, would capture widespread attention for their eerie accuracy in the death of celebrities. These videos within the channel, created between June and August of 2017, have garnered massive social media attention due to their uncanny precision: the dates of death in these videos matched the real-life passing dates of several well-known figures, including the likes of Kobe Bryant and Chadwick Boseman.

At first glance, 2020 Vision seems like the work of a clairvoyant or a fortune teller who used their mysterious abilities and foreseen the deaths of these public figures. The videos themselves are disturbingly simple: with each one features an eye blinking three times, with the date of a celebrity's death appearing before the video ends. While this might sound like a strange and unsettling phenomenon, the truth behind the channel's prediction capabilities might be far less mystical.

The description of the YouTube channel is rather cryptic and eccentric, featuring phrases like being “blessed with the visions of the pink eye” and the ominous claim of starting a “death cult.” These  and mysterious elements, combined with the channel's bizarre uploads, have led many to believe that 2020 Vision might be some kind of elaborate alternate reality game (ARG) or a part of a viral mystery. And with that, further investigation into the channel's social media presence, including their Twitter and Discord server, only deepens the intrigue. One particular oddity was a live stream on their Discord channel, which seemed to loop strange static, adding to the eerie atmosphere surrounding the content.

However, the true answer to how 2020 Vision has seemingly predicted these deaths lies not in supernatural foresight, but in a clever use of YouTube’s platform and its editing tools. The creator behind 2020 Vision likely took advantage of YouTube’s video editor, which allows creators to blur and trim portions of a video after it’s been uploaded. It is speculated that the creator initially uploaded a series of videos featuring random celebrity names paired with every possible date of the year. Afterward, they trimmed these videos to highlight the correct names and dates, leaving behind the illusion of prophecy.

Given that the videos are only about five to six seconds long, the unedited versions could have lasted 30 to 36 minutes, filled with countless combinations of names and dates. The process was likely quick and efficient, with the videos uploaded in 720p, ensuring minimal processing time. This method echoes an older viral phenomenon: the Twitter account beyoncefan666, which gained attention for accurately predicting events by posting vague predictions and deleting the false ones once the real event occurred. In both cases, the creators used a blend of foresight and manipulation of online platforms to create the illusion of psychic abilities.

So why go through all this effort? One theory is that 2020 Vision is part of an elaborate promotional campaign, possibly linked to an artist named Elly Space. After discovering a connection between 2020 Vision and this musical artist, it’s likely that the channel is being used to promote their work, albeit in a highly unconventional way. Some of the “cult” language and the discord interactions suggest that this might be part of an ARG, a storytelling method where the audience is drawn into a narrative that unfolds across various media.

In conclusion, the 2020 Vision channel’s death predictions are not the result of mystical powers, but a sophisticated use of YouTube’s less known video editing tools and an understanding the nature of viral content. The channel’s creator seems to have masterminded a phenomenon years in advance, capitalizing on the unpredictability of human attention. Like a magician using sleight of hand to fool and intrigue the audience, the channel creator managed to cause a sense of mystery. While it’s a fascinating case of digital manipulation and viral marketing, it’s also a sobering reminder of how powerful online platforms can be in shaping our perceptions and creating unsettling mysteries in the digital age.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What Is "Internet Horror"?

     Horror as an entertainment genre has persisted throughout the years as something that is enjoyed by the masses, be it in movies, books, or even TV shows. Outside of those mainstream media, some of you may have heard of names such as "Jeff the Killer", "SCP Foundation", and recently "The Backrooms". Said titles and names can often found randomly through social media algorithm, or shared by the people around you. Unlike books, and and movies, Internet horror is a digital phenomenon that is often interractive, collaborative, and immersive. Blurring the line between real and imagined horror, it is able to immerse the audience in a unique way, sometimes even interacting with the audience themselves. Internet horror encompases many different formats such as Creepypastas, ARGs (Alternate Reality Games), creepy websites, Reddit's r/nosleep, horror YouTube series, and the recent trend of analog horror. Each of these forms offers the audience destinctive ex...

Into the World of Analog Horror

Into the World of Analog Horror          If you're an internet user in the confusing year of 2022, you may be familiar with the image above. The view of a dimly lit set of rooms and corridors accompanied by yellow wallpaper and carpet always present no matter where you look. "The Backrooms" is what this picture is known as. Being an internet urban legend, the picture has been recreated numerous times by many different people. One recreation in particular, however, managed to raise the popularity of "The Backrooms" far beyond every other iteration of it. Kane Pixels, a VFX artist, brings the world to life as an analog horror series. This is a series in which the first episode alone has reached 61 million views at the time of writing. And the crazy thing is, it is just one of many in the wave of analog horror series that will captivate YouTube audiences. It is a horror genre that has started discussions, theories, and even other videos talking about it. But before...

Mandela Catalogue and the Fear of the Unknown

              In the previous blog, we have discussed the genre of analog horror. In this one, we will be exploring one of the most successful analog horror series in recent years titled Mandela Catalogue . It is an analog horror YouTube series that is created and uploaded to a channel named Alex Kister. The story is set in an alternate version of the United States where strange events occur across the town of Mandela County. We are soon introduced to creatures named “Alternates,” which are described as shapeshifting entities capable of mimicking human beings. They also possess the power to expose human beings to ‘undesirable’ information, which causes anyone who hears it to end their own lives. The story is delivered through a series of emergency broadcasts, found footage, CCTV footage, and audio recordings in a scattered manner, prompting the audience to piece together the narrative themselves.       Mandela Catalogue m...