2006 / Video / Deadpan product-demo comedy
Will It Blend?
A lab-coated blender founder built a series around a simple question: will it blend?
The original is hosted off-site; this page provides context and a link to it.
What was this?
Tom Dickson drops roughly 50 marbles into a Blendtec and calmly demonstrates that the answer is pulverized glass, delivered with the calm delivery of a conventional product demonstration.
Why it spread
The first batch made an ordinary appliance demonstration into an early viral-video series, with reports from the period recording six million views in its first week.
What happened
Tom Dickson drops roughly 50 marbles into a Blendtec and calmly demonstrates that the answer is pulverized glass, delivered with the calm delivery of a conventional product demonstration.
Where it came from
Blendtec posted “Will It Blend? - Marbles” to its official YouTube channel on October 30, 2006, later identifying it as the series’ first episode.
Why it mattered
It made the product demonstration itself into the joke: meticulous deadpan, an absurd object, and a payoff people wanted to forward before branded internet comedy became standard practice.
How it spread
The first batch made an ordinary appliance demonstration into an early viral-video series, with reports from the period recording six million views in its first week.
Keep going
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