YouTube has made a name for itself as a platform that can catapult its users to new heights of success and fame. With the video sharing site now a staple of social media, it’s hard to avoid.

YouTube is everywhere. Whether you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed, or just browsing the internet, most of us watch more videos than we even realize. It’s made viral sensations out of stars for a variety of reasons.

We’ve seen heart-warming proposals at Coldplay concerts reach millions of views. We saw 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin break into a jaunty jig with Barack and Michelle Obama. But, on the flip side, have you ever wondered what lurks in the dark corners of the video sharing site? After all, anyone can create a YouTube channel. You don’t really think it’s all make-up tutorials and cute animals, do you?

From creepy niche films that make you question your own sanity to pranks gone wrong and ramblings from serial killers – there are just some things that you can’t un-see. And because I can’t, I have great pleasure in knowing that after this article, you’ll be forever haunted too.

If you’re brave enough, let me introduce you to 20 Weird Corners of YouTube You Wish You Didn’t See.

20. DANCING MAN WEARING A HORSE MASK COOKS MUSHROOMS

Sometimes, it’s seeing the horror in everyday things that can really stick with you when you’re trying to get a decent night’s sleep. The reasoning behind this video is pretty unclear, which makes for even more unsettling viewing. Imagine getting up for your midnight glass of water and being met with this guy prancing around in your kitchen, shaking his butt and cooking you up a late night shiitake snack. I wouldn’t be surprised if the makers of American Horror Story were behind this one. If they aren’t, maybe they should look this guy up. He’s probably lurking around somewhere.

19. UNIP***

There are more elements of weird in this than you can shake a stick at. Don’t let the jaunty country music intro fool you, this is the place where fetishes come to die. It’s really all in the name, 3 minutes 20 seconds of a guy pretending to shoot an adult film with unicorns. I won’t ruin it for you, but terms like ‘big sausage’ are used. If that doesn’t sway you, there’s a live audience to this show looming sternly in the background, watching the unicorn get the horn. It’s pretty hard to escape unicorns these days. Unicorn pj’s, unicorn pillows, unicorn t-shirts. This unicorn film was way ahead of its time.

18. THE TREADMILL DIARIES

The subtly changing multi-colored mood lighting. The headband. The beads of sweat. The intense stare. This is a lesson in self-realization that we could all use to keep our social media addictions in check. All together now – I AM NOT FACEBOOK! User Goof100 has a whole series of The Treadmill Diaries, and I implore you to watch each and every one. There are fewer things more weirdly fascinating/disturbing than watching a guy in a headband asking life defining questions like, ‘Am I wearing pants?’ This is a lesser known corner of YouTube where few venture. Until now.

17. GENOCIDE SCHOOL

Jared Lee Loughner is a mass murderer responsible for the shooting at a constituents meeting in Casas Adobes, Arizona in 2011. Loughner killed 6 people, including 9-year-old bystander Christina-Taylor Green. Diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic after his arrest, Loughner had a history of drug abuse and erratic behaviour. This video, released after the shooting, shows the rambling of Loughner as he stalks a school campus at night, a few months prior to the shooting. The video lead to Loughner’s suspension from the community college when it was discovered by college police. A truly terrifying insight into the mind of a deeply disturbed individual, this isn’t easy viewing and is very hard to forget.

16. CROOKED ROT

If you grew up in the 00’s, the chances are that you may be familiar with David Firth’s previous works, namely Salad Fingers (which is also available on Firth’s channel and definitely worth a watch). There wasn’t an adolescent with MSN messenger that didn’t have Firth’s weird creation sent to them at some point. In this experiment with stop motion animation using an SLR camera, Firth reaches a whole new level of disturbed – in an eerily hypnotizing way. With a haunting soundtrack, mannequin heads on wheels and some really questionable sounds, this is a short film to rival Tim Burton, the master of macabre himself. The strangest thing? It leaves you wanting more.

15. THE BIGGEST PIMPLE IN THE WORLD

I used to date someone who got an odd satisfaction from popping my zits. I’m pretty certain that he’s out there somewhere right now, watching pimple popping videos in a darkened room. Believe me, there are hundreds. This one has gained over 200k views since being published at the end of 2016. If you’re like me and have a weak stomach for this kind of thing, I’d maybe avoid this one and go back to the fluffy world of Uniporn at this point. Not for the fainthearted or squeamish, this sebaceous cyst pop is one of the worst things ever to abuse my retinas, and I’ve seen a lot of things.

14. PEEPING TOM

I’ve seen this video a few times now, and it makes just as little sense as the first time I watched it. It’s basically a dude wearing a mask, throwing some shapes to a song about an old lady that craps her pants and spies on people out of her window. The whole scene looks like something out of an early episode of Sex and The City, with some serious 90’s vibes. The song itself is pretty catchy, and will get stuck in your head not only for a week, but will proceed to creep up on you when you least suspect it, like every time you talk to your grandmother.

13. MASS OF DADDY LONG LEGS

Daddy long legs are the devil incarnate. The ultimate death machine, the combination of two of the most annoying and disgusting things in existence, spiders and flies. Whether it’s science or God, someone was having a really good laugh at us humans when these were created. Just one craftily making its way through an open window is enough to ruin anybody’s day. Found by user happysmurfday in Arizona in 2008, you can watch this mass get poked and prodded, before dispersing one by one to do the Devil’s work. The description section is equally as unsettling, with this comment highlighted – I’m a veterinarian, and every so often we need to euthanize a cat and the owner just can’t bear to be present for the procedure. After we give the sedative, I always take the cat to my desk and we watch this video as they fall asleep. This video has comforted many pets in their last moments. Thank you for posting it.

12. I LICK MY CAT

Originally aired on TLC as part of the My Strange Addiction series, Lisa is a woman that obsessively chews cat hair. In this video, she explains the comfort she gets from chewing the hair that she gets straight from the source – her black and white cat. I’m not sure what’s more unsettling, the ‘help me’ look on the face of Lisa’s poor feline, or the idea of a human repeatedly coughing up golf ball sized clumps of hair. Don’t watch this if you plan on eating anything within the next 24 hours. It takes a while for the stomach to settle after listening to Lisa talk about picking the hair apart. Godspeed.

11. EDWARD MUSCARE’S PRETTY WOMAN

Edward Muscare was a television presenter in Kansas City prior to being convicted of sexual battery in 1987. In 2006, Muscare opted to try his hand at YouTube videos, and became an internet sensation. Unfortunately for him, this violated his parole from the 1987 conviction and Muscare was subsequently incarcerated. He died in prison in 2012. Many of the videos Muscare uploaded to his channel from 2006-2009 are very similar to this one. With his straggly grey hair, missing tooth and intense stares into the camera, this is the stuff of nightmares. If you don’t like sleep, there are plenty more where this one came from. You’ll never sleep again.

10. THE WYOMING INCIDENT

This is a compilation of a hacker broadcast that disrupted local programming in you guessed it – Wyoming. It’s a pretty ominous sight. With the promise of ‘You will see such pretty things’, it’s no wonder viewers were disturbed when this rocketed onto TV screens. The origin of the broadcast still remains a mystery today, despite attempts to trace it. The weirdest part? Some viewers had physical symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting and severe headaches. A paranormal effect or just a side effect of how it was shot? Take a look and decide for yourself. Just make sure you have a bucket on hand.

9. BABY LAUGH A LOT COMMERCIAL

When I first saw this, I thought I was watching a trailer for a Bride of Chucky movie. If the whole nostalgic 70s vibe of this isn’t enough to send you into a frenzy, then the fact that this was an actual commercial might. This is 29 seconds of laughter, in the literal sense. If the incessant tyrannical pre-killing spree laughter of Baby Laugh A-Lot doesn’t send shivers down your spine, then I’m betting the voice over guy will. I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly glad that all I had to worry about seeing on TV in my youth was Malibu Barbie. Maybe you’re lucky enough to remember seeing this when it was aired. Maybe you even owned one of these. If the answer is yes, I will pray for you.

8. LITTLE BABY’S ICE CREAM – “THIS IS A SPECIAL TIME”

In the same vein of commercials gone wrong, here we have an adult male made entirely of ice cream, eating himself. This shit show was presumably formed by the guy in marketing that spent the majority of his youth tripping balls on acid. An advertisement for aptly named Little Baby’s Ice Cream makes little to no sense whatsoever. Is it supposed to make us want to eat the ice cream or a lesson in how to put someone off ice cream for life? Maybe there is some sort of reverse psychology here that I’m not picking up on, akin to ‘Don’t press that button!’ Icky and repulsive, this ticks all the boxes to land itself at number 8 on this list.

7. ME PEARL PRESENTS PROPER OPOSSUM MASSAGE

Concerned about your opossum’s declining health? Has their flexibility gone downhill as they’ve moved into old age? Let ME Pearl help you with that. Full of handy hints and tips for caring for your opossum and what to do should you ever stumble across a sick one, this video will leave you wondering how you’ve lived your life so far without knowing. Presented by a toned down version of Joan Collins, ME Pearl provides a whole repertoire of curious videos. You can check out their channel for my other favorite, Proper Opossum Alien Alert. With uploads from as recently as 2 months ago, you and your opossum are in good hands.

6. I FEEL FANTASTIC

The room is weird. The strange angled windows are weird. The singing giant sex doll-come-robot is really weird. What is it? Where does it come from? Is it an alien? Why is it wearing our grandmother’s Christmas jumper from 1988? So many questions, and so few answers. The uploaders, Creepyblog (Creepy? You don’t say), include a detailed description that rambles on about a Greek sculptor who created a statue bride after being put off women by a prostitute curse. Or something. The description ends asking the question, ‘Well, how does she feel?’ We think we know. We think we’ll never be able to stop knowing.

5. HOW TO MAKE ICED TEA

Iced tea. That magical elixir of dreams…and sometimes nightmares. Well, you got that right. If you’re expecting Martha Stewart to pop along and give you a good old fashioned cookery lesson, you’re sorely mistaken. Steve Sutton is no Martha Stewart. What is it about this tutorial that can be so creepy, you ask? I think it has something to do with the dead, emotionless tone. There’s also something really unsettling about someone doing the dishes willingly whilst watching squirrels out of a window. Make sure you watch right until the end for the best up-lit close up you’ll ever see.

4. A FURRY RE-BIRTHING

Out of all of the videos on this list, this is the one that really messes me up. As one user points out, ‘This is the kind of video that plays on the news after a killing spree.’ A guy cuts up a mannequin he claims to be his daughter in order to give her a new identity – AKA put her head on top of a furry stuffed animal. Out of all the deep, dark corners of YouTube, this is the one where nightmares go to die. There are so many frightening elements to this video that it’s hard to recount. Go ahead and take a look for yourselves. Rest assured, almost a million other people have done the same thing and lived to tell the tale.

3. POODLE EXERCISE WITH HUMANS

Have you always thought you’d actually take up exercising if there was something interesting about it? Like an army of small humans dressed as poodles perhaps? Well, where have you been hiding? This video has been up since 2006, released as a parody workout video for the 2004 Athens Olympics. Created by the late Japanese pop artist and director Nagi Noda, this will have cat lovers running for the hills. Quintessentially Japanese, there’s nothing the world needed more than Lycra clad poodles showing you how to burn fat. Best part? The chair exercises as part of resistance training. You are very welcome.

2. THE ADVENTURES OF WHALE MAN 1

‘Son, what are you doing up there?’

‘NOTHING MOM, DON’T COME IN.’

There’s a dude inside an inflatable whale, dancing around whilst Tina Turner plays in the background. Whilst it may be one of the most pointless things you’ll ever see, it deserves to be on this list for that reason alone. Did I just waste 28 seconds of your time introducing you to a man-whale’s favorite activities in their natural habitat? Whoops. My bad. Bet you wish you didn’t see that. You’ll also wish you didn’t see it when summer rolls around and you’re looking at the pool inflatables in an entirely new light.

1. HAND THING

A guy dressed as a blonde woman that resembles a type of lamb. A weird mannequin head on a human body. Lots of hand slapping. What exactly the hand thing is still remains unclear, as do the strange moans, and why the hand thing is such an important driving force behind this entire video. One thing is for sure, the video has accumulated over 5 million views since its debut in 2007. Apart from showing us that there are some really bizarre minds in the world, this video goes to show that we just love to look at random crap on the internet – the weirder the better.