Featured Image Credit: YouTube/@barockhill
Topics: Viral, Weird, YouTube, Twitter, Social Media
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Viral, Weird, YouTube, Twitter, Social Media
Many of us late 90s/early 2000s kids have our fair share of childhood trauma from the early days of the internet but there's one particular video that really takes the biscuit.
Yep - you guessed it - the viral car video that provided the jump scare of a lifetime has clearly seared into all of our memories with many adults now revealing it caused them to have 'trust issues'.
Talk about a lasting legacy.
This year marks the exciting anniversary of 19 years since the greatest jump scare in history and it has definitely sent us all on a trip down memory lane.
And the video?
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The infamous 'Ghost car commercial' which is not actually a horror blockbuster smash but an advert for an energy drink of all things.
If you need your memory jogged, the video follows a car driving through a picturesque countryside complete with long winding roads, lush greenery, and some trees that would later go on to severely deceive any viewer into thinking they're simply watching a scenic joyride.
But everything takes a turn - quite literally - when the car disappears underneath some trees.
Naturally, at this point, viewers lean into their pixellated YouTube screens intrigued by the mystery, out of nowhere, the mother of all jump scares tears through the screen.
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It's clear the sight of the now-famous zombie-like figure unexpectedly popping up right in front of the camera has cemented itself in all of our brains along with the slogan: "You've never been so wide awake," fading away as a can of the drink pumps like a heart.
Like it or lump it - you can't deny that's some pretty outside-the-box marketing.
The clip has been shared and reposted all across the internet for years now with the latest being uploaded to X (aka Twitter) where it has already clocked up more than 1.6 million views in just a day since it was posted.
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The account, @NoContextBrits, captioned a screenshot from the advert: "Where my trust issues began."
Clearly striking a chord with hundreds of people online, many couldn't wait to share their reactions to the blast from the past.
One user revealed: "God damn it, I suppressed this memory. Now I’m gonna have to deal with it."
A second admitted: "12-year-old me was terrified of this."
"My chest hurt looking at this pic," penned a third, while a fourth added: "Scared the c**p out of me 20 years ago!"
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Still scares me to this day to be honest...