Pressure Washing Videos Go Viral??!!

Warning: If you don’t have 20 minutes to waste, you may want to skip this post; I can’t take responsibility for your getting sucked into watching pressure washing videos.

Today’s Wall Street Journal had a cover page story about how popular pressure washing videos have become.

Let me repeat that.

Today’s Wall Street Journal had a cover page story about how popular pressure washing videos have become.

Add it to the list of strangely popular videos such as watching people eat, play video games, or unpack a new purchase.

Here’s an 11-minute video of someone pressure watching a lawn chair; it’s been viewed more than one million times.

The same guy has a video of him pressure washing his driveway; that video has more than 500,000 views,

Keith Rossiter, owner of Rossiter Exterior Cleaning in Racine, Ohio, last year spent $1,500 on a drone to film his pressure-washing jobs after spotting some amateur pressure-washing videos online. “They weren’t that good and they weren’t time-lapsed,” says Mr. Rossiter.

Here’s one of Rossiter’s videos:

I’m not sure what the appeal is of the videos, especially considering that I’ve never had anything pressure washed. I will admit that the videos are somewhat mesmerizing; you want to watch until the end, until the job is completed.

As another pressure washer noted, “You can see your progress so obviously. There aren’t many things in life that you can start and finish and get that feeling of accomplishment.”

And as Fred Stoverink, who doesn’t own a pressure washer but likes watching online posts of other people using them, says “There’s a sense of catharsis.”

A couple of the commenters to the WSJ story noted how dangerous these pressure washers can be, telling stories of people losing their toes because the water went right through their shoes.

So perhaps part of the appeal of the videos is that they serve as a way to watch someone else take such risks while you just hit the play button.

If you want to watch a compilation of several pressure washing videos, here’s one that has over one million views:

And if that still isn’t enough for you, just go to YouTube and type in pressure washer. Just be aware that eight hours could go by in a heart beat, and you’ll have nothing to show for it, not even a clean patio.