2 Girls 1 Cup. That is a name that should bring back feelings of repulsion
you thought you had repressed long ago, as well as a revitalised dose of spite for your friends who tricked you into watching it. For those who are unaware, let me paint a vivid description of what this video is.
Two women make out, poop in a cup, proceed to eat said poop and then vomit everywhere including in their mouths, all while a classical tune plays in the background.
The video was produced in 2007 and was initially nothing more than a one minute trailer to a longer, presumably even more disgusting film titled Hungry Bitches. Somewhere along the way, the clip leaked and quickly went viral as the internet couldn’t get enough of this scatological monstrosity.
However, 2 Girls 1 Cup‘s popularity was not because of the video itself but all the videos about it. This gross one minute clip had not only made millions ill, it inadvertently popularised a genre that still dominates video sites like YouTube today: the reaction video.
Reaction videos have been around on Japanese variety shows since at least the 1970s. This format made the jump online around 2006 when a couple of notable reaction videos were uploaded onto YouTube, the most noteworthy of which was a recording from 1998 of a kid unwrapping a Nintendo 64 on Christmas Day.
But when 2 Girls 1 Cup was released, the reaction video genre took a stratospheric leap forward. The novelty of the video itself quickly wore off and was replaced with getting unsuspecting people to watch it while filming and gauging their reactions.
Many people likely don’t have the ironclad stomach to watch 2 Girls 1 Cup, but watching other people watching and reacting to it with disgust? Totally doable and almost certainly more entertaining than the actual disgusting video itself.
Plus it allowed people to join in on the fun without actually, you know, watching two women poop and vomit all over each other.
For better or worse, 2 Girls 1 Cup popularised reaction videos and pushed the genre into the mainstream. These days you can’t go on YouTube without being recommended reaction videos for literally anything and you can thank the crazy person who thought it was a good idea to get two women to eat poop and vomit all over each other for this annoying trend.
In a way, 2 Girls 1 Cup was a lightning in a bottle moment for online video. Internet videos were still in its infancy back in 2007 and its highly unlikely that this clip would’ve had such a long lifespan if it were released today.
Who would’ve thought that having actual human beings eat poop would go on to forever change the internet?