YouTube video is 140 years old.

This YouTube channel has videos with incredible view counts.

In recent days, the global YouTube community has been abuzz with a strange phenomenon. An account named "ShinyWR" uploaded a video with an unbelievable length: 1,234,567 hours (equivalent to over 140 years). Beyond its length, the details surrounding this video also have a mysterious and eerie quality.

In reality, when users click to watch, the actual video is only 12 hours long – the usual maximum limit YouTube allows for verified accounts. However, the content inside is entirely a black screen, with no sound or movement whatsoever.

What piqued viewers' curiosity and fear lay in the video's description. The creator of the clip used Arabic characters, which, when translated, mean: "Meet me in hell." The combination of its century-long duration and the threatening message caused the video to spread rapidly.

Videos on YouTube are currently over 1 million hours long. Photo: YouTube.

Shortly after being posted in early January, the video garnered over 2.8 million views and more than 20,000 comments. According to information from the "ShinyWR" channel, this account is believed to be based in North Korea and joined the platform in July 2023.

Previously, this channel had also uploaded several videos that were 294-300 hours long, but none had created as much of an impact as this one.

This event sparked a wave of debate on technology forums and social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter. Many theories were put forward to explain this phenomenon.

Many tech experts believe this is actually just a system display error on YouTube's part during video data processing. The technical error caused the actual 12 hours to jump to 140 years on the search interface, misleading viewers about the clip's true length.

Besides, many people believe this could be an art project or an augmented reality (ARG) online puzzle game, a common tactic on the internet to attract attention. Such mysterious and intriguing content is a familiar method used by content creators to generate new trends or draw the community into a mysterious story.

Additionally, there is also a theory that this is the result of hackers interfering to show off their skills. Tricking the algorithm that displays YouTube's video duration has happened in the past.

Currently, YouTube has not yet issued an official response regarding whether this is a technical error. Meanwhile, the video continues to attract thousands of views per hour from curious viewers wanting to see firsthand what they consider to be the "longest video in history."