TikTok user @unknown1575489 has posted just one video — and it has more than 5.5 million views.
In the video(opens in a new tab), the cameraperson is across a busy street from a person who is walking away from them on the sidewalk. Except, the person isn’t really walking; they look like they are “frozen” mid-stride while the cars continue to drive on.
“Why’s she frozen, dude? Bro I be trippin,” the TikTok poster asks aloud before the person walking away from them picks up their pace and starts walking once more. “What the fuck?”
The video looks like it was posted to Snapchat first, because it has that classic snapchat text overlay which reads: “She was like that for a minute before.”
Most of the comments are connected to The Matrix, simulation theory, or comparing our world to a video game (“She was checking her inventory????”). The video is captioned with “NPC caught lacking #npc#malfunction” and the hashtag #malfunction(opens in a new tab) has more than 245 million videos. The hashtagged videos run from clothing malfunctions to carnival ride mishaps to other similar “glitches in reality.”
Part of what is so fascinating about videos like this — whether they’re edited or not — is that they push forward the intrigue into simulation theory, which is the idea that all of existence is a simulated reality running inside of a computer or something. Elon Musk is one of the most high-profile believers in the simulation theory(opens in a new tab), but the subculture of believers is so thorough that it inspired A Glitch in the Matrix, a documentary by Rodney Ascher that focuses less on the theory itself and more on why people believe it.
