Absurd characters: an impossible being in an ordinary life
We studied 33 absurd videos with 2.7M to 57M views, and 14 flops from the same creators. Every hit follows one recipe, and every flop breaks one part of it. Here is the recipe, and how to make your own in ViewPress.
The recipe
An impossible being does something very ordinary, in a familiar internet format, in a real and boring place, and nobody in the video finds it strange. A log with a face renovates a room like a DIY video (41M views). Two yetis film a normal outdoor vlog (17M). Babies with grown men’s voices host a podcast (12M). The being is new and could not exist. The action, the place and the format are things you see every day.
Why it works
The clash makes the joke, so the video never explains itself. Viewers finish the joke in the comments: they talk to the being as if it is real, invent its backstory, or ask what they just watched. On one Bigfoot vlog, 76% of comment likes went to comments that talk to Bigfoot as if he is real. “What did I just watch” is the only kind of comment that rises with views.
What breaks it
Any part that matches the being. The same dancing gentleman got 13.9M views in a plain kitchen to French drill, and 1.7M at the Eiffel Tower to a French love song: a romantic man in a romantic place to romantic music. A muscle monster lifting weights is doing muscle things. Seagulls stealing chips is what seagulls do. Check four things: the being, the action, the place and the sound. All four must clash.
Make one in ViewPress
Start with the first frame, because the being must read in one glance. Type: “Make a start frame: a shaggy Highland cow in a navy suit and tie sits on a London Underground train at rush hour, reading a free newspaper, commuters on both sides looking at their phones. Filmed secretly on a phone from across the carriage, flat fluorescent light. Nobody looks at the cow.” Ask for Standard quality so it looks real. When the frame is right, ask for the clip: “8 seconds: the train stops in a tunnel, the driver announces a signal failure, and the cow sighs at the same moment as the man next to him.” Then save the cow as a character, so the next video has the same cow.
Prompts that keep the joke
Describe the being in five words first, then its ordinary clothes, then the place. Add real, current details: a meal deal, a self-checkout, a delayed train, a hot desk. Ask for phone footage, not a film look. Write “nobody reacts” into the scene. Give the being a small, modern self-image in its one line: a giant toddler working as a club bouncer only says “Not tonight.”
Add a multiplier
A multiplier turns one clip into a series: a second being, a line people repeat, or a current event. Every Friday the toddler bouncer has a new queue. Every week the cow has a new commute. Two characters together often beat one: the dancing gentleman’s couple dance with his “girlfriend” got 4.6M views, against her usual 1.3M.
Frequently asked
Should I say it is AI?
Yes. One pigeon sitcom has every recent video labelled as AI by TikTok and still gets a median of 417K views. The “is it real?” argument in the comments happens anyway.
How long should a clip be?
Short. In our sample, series clips of 15 seconds or less got 4.2× the account’s usual views. For a single character, one still phone take works best: more than 4 cuts in 10 seconds went with a third of the usual views.