Oddly Compelling: Cylindrical Objects on Escalators
What is the source of this fascination?
I was exiting an escalator in New York City’s Penn Station last night when I observed the scene documented in the video shown above. For some reason I found something fascinating, even compelling, about the endlessly spinning water bottle. I feel like I could have sat there and watched it all night.
A rotating piece of plastic detritus is admittedly an odd thing to be mesmerized by, but I’m apparently not the only person who feels the tug of this particular spectacle. At least two YouTubers and one TikToker have recorded similar videos (don’t worry, theirs are much shorter than mine):
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In fact, the the spinning bottle is apparently such a phenomenon that you can purchase stock footage of it!
This reminds me of something I used to see back when people were permitted to smoke in places like department stores, malls, arenas, and stadiums. In those days, I’d sometimes see a discarded cigarette butt endlessly spinning at the bottom of an escalator. This too has been preserved on YouTube: