If horror movies are anything to go by, everyone knows you should never play an old VHS tape you find in a junk shop… especially videos that aren’t clearly labelled.
Foone Turing went viral for ignoring that advice, however, when he found a tape simply labelled “A Surprise!” in a California junk shop and decided to treat Twitter to the contents of the tape.
He seemed a little exasperated by the results. As for the content… well, just watch for yourself.
I found a VHS tape at the junk store that just had the label "A surprise!"I thought I'd check it out, since I have a VCR & TV hooked up after all.
Just… Just watch. pic.twitter.com/Rj1n5aUVB2
— foone (@Foone) March 25, 2018
That’s right, the video, which now has more than 26,000 retweets, turned out to be Rick Astley’s 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up.
Foone said: “There’s a local junk shop I go to a lot, they sell a lot of old tech like this. I collect old computers so I’m there a lot. I thought I’d get some VHS tapes while I was there to test out a ‘new’ VCR, so I grabbed a box of unlabelled ones.
“This one was the only one that was labelled in a unique way (most were just like Disney films or hand-written notes like ‘M*A*S*H finale’) so I tossed it in the box with the unlabelled tapes… It was a surprise for me too.”
Social media users were both tickled and annoyed with the surprise case of “Rick Rolling”, but some seemed to be relieved that the video didn’t contain something more sinister.
I wouldn't even be mad I'd be on the floor dying https://t.co/WdCFG554p4
— Brian (@Brian_Brigham) March 27, 2018
I know what I'm doing with the 30 blank VHS tapes in my basement now. https://t.co/xBBFXLuxRC
— Jeph Lewis (@jephlewis) March 25, 2018
Urging people to watch strange, unidentified videotapes is EXACTLY how the Ring curse spreads!
— Jorge APB (@ZefMex) March 25, 2018
Foone said: “I was definitely surprised it blew up this much. I thought maybe a few of my friends would find it funny.
“It clearly went viral as I think a lot of people were going ‘this is horrible, I hate you for posting this, and I know exactly which of my friends need to be annoyed by this too’, and retweeting it at them.”