There are lots of ways to unwind. You can go on a walk, call a friend or read a book. But sometimes it rains, friends are busy or your book is boring. What then?

I have a suggestion: watch random, unrelated objects get mercilessly crushed in the mechanical jaws of a hydraulic press.

I love hydraulic press videos! I like to watch them between meetings, after a busy day at work, when I’m trying to switch off my brain before bed. They’re cheaper than a massage and seeing a Hydro Flask crumple like tissue under the pressure of heavy machinery feels like a warm bath for my brain.

While this may sound like a niche pursuit, it isn’t. There are several YouTube channels dedicated to hydraulic press videos, but Hydraulic Press Channel, with more than 9.7 million subscribers, is the most popular. Its videos regularly rack up tens of millions of views. For instance, Top 100 Best Hydraulic Press Moments | Satisfying Crushing Compilation has over 63m views, and shows a press crushing a stack of sticky notes, a Rubik’s Cube, a pumpkin, crayons and a Furby. The crayons and pumpkin are my favorite because I like how the wax and pulp squelch out the sides.

“Our most popular videos are compilations of random stuff,” says Lauri Vuohensilta, the founder of the channel.

Vuohensilta, a factory owner in Finland, started making the videos in 2015. He says having a YouTube channel was “a longtime dream”. He wanted his videos to reach a huge audience, and knew he would have to appeal to an international audience. But he worried that his English wasn’t strong enough to narrate them. Inspired by videos he saw of a red hot metal ball melting through items like a block of ice or jelly, he realized he didn’t need to talk – he could just film clips in his workshop.

“The press is perfect,” he says. “You just put the items there and pull the lever.” Coming up with ideas for what to film was easy. “There’s so much you can crush,” he says.

He says much of his audience is like me: “people that just want to watch interesting and satisfying clips that look nice. Something easy after a long day.”

But why does watching a Furby get squashed into goo feel so satisfying? And why are so many millions of people obsessed with these videos?

“Oh my God, [hydraulic press videos] are so addictive,” Dr Rosanna Guadagno, associate professor of persuasive information systems at the University of Oulu, says on a video call. “I’m going to watch more after our call.”

There are a number of factors that determine whether content will go viral online, Guadagno says: timing, how many followers the poster has and the emotional response it prompts. “Unfortunately, algorithms have figured out that outrage is one of the things that goes viral and keeps us engaged in social media applications,” she says. But users want to share positive emotions as well: “Things that we find funny, cute and interesting also go viral.”

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Additionally, no cultural context or understanding is needed to enjoy a hydraulic press video. Anyone from any background can take satisfaction in seeing something squished. “It speaks to everyone’s inner child,” she says.

Paradoxically, the fact that it’s a slightly bizarre corner of the internet also contributes to the videos’ popularity.

“People love sharing surprising, interesting or remarkable content because it gives them social currency,” explains Dr Jonah Berger, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, and author of the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On. “It makes them look smart, special and in the know.”

The brutality of watching something get crushed in a heavy machine can also act as an emotional release, says Dr Charlynn Ruan, founder and CEO of the Thrive Psychology Group.

“It makes complete sense to me that these are popular,” says Ruan. “These videos tap into our natural human desire for action and destruction and the cathartic feeling of building or destroying something.”

She says the videos remind her of rage rooms, where you can pay to spend time smashing up furniture or electronics. Ruan sometimes recommends rage rooms to her clients, as a way for them to tap into anger and aggression in a healthy, contained way (and not have to clean up afterward). This can be especially helpful for women, she says, who are often conditioned not to express their anger.

While watching crayons get squished on a screen isn’t quite the same as smashing a television with a baseball bat, Ruan says visualization is powerful, and we can still experience some of the same emotional benefits just by picturing something. She says the videos “aren’t a replacement for physical expressions”, but that they can be “great little cathartic moments in the middle of your day, or when you don’t have time and space to express yourself in other ways”.

So the next time you need to relax or release some frustration, pull up a video of some apples or candles getting crushed. My personal advice: fast forward through the glass smashing parts – those ones actually stress me out.