The addict-ability of these videos is down to the element of surprise; objects shred so much differently than we'd imagine them to. They're very relaxing 'ASMR' type clips that role and role and role with items we'd just never think of shredding.

But shredding of marbles and squeaky chicken chew toys is not a thing of 2022. YouTube's father of shredding Gjozer has been on the go for five years now.

But of course, you can't have shredding videos without the invention of the paper shredder. Let's take things back to 1909.

Let there be shreds

An inventor called Abbot Augustus Low patented his shredder idea back in 1909. But! Scandal! He died before the patented machine was ever able to be manufactured.

So, when was the first paper shredder actually invented? 1935. Inspired by the hand-turned pasta maker, Adolf Ehinger designed and manufactured the first ever paper shredder for an allegedly very unique purpose.

The inventor supposedly wanted to find a way to shred illegal anti-Nazi documents in an effort to fall under the raider in the face of a Nazi regime. He even went on to sell the machines to governments and financial institutions.

The birth of a trend

In the beginning of his YouTube career, daddy destruction Gjozer focused on electronics, which garnered him views in the tens of thousands. Appealing to people's curiosity about the very sensory experience of shredding, the keyboards and vintage Nokia phones made way for even madder experimentation.

He started to branch out into the business of shredding toys; Stretch Armstrongs, Thor's hammer, and even a wee Thomas the Tank Engine. His channel began to pull in viewers in the millions with videos when he tested the likes of bowling balls, jelly, and litre bottles of fizzy drinks.

What makes shredding so trendy?

We're certainly not psychologists, but if we were to hazard a guess at what makes this kind of video so popular is that it's very easy to consume. Synonymous with mindless scrolling, mindless watching is a huge selling point of these YouTubers.

But unlike scrolling, loop-watching when it comes to this kind of trend has a mindful quality to it. It entices us with its unpredictability — we really don't know how anything will fair in the metal shredder. The element of surprise is a kind of currency.

The videos have an ASMR quality to them; we hear the crackle of the 50 biros that are thrown into a giant metal shredder. We listen to the soft mulch of a big bowl of jelly down the shredder cracks. It's all very satisfying.

The shred king

Gjozer

Things that we never thought would crunch, are crunching. Thing that we imagine would struggle to be gobbled up by metal claws, go down very easily. We could watch play-doh get chewed by a metal shredder for hours on end. It's addictive.

Hop or flop?

It's so easy to get lost in these videos — they're so uniquely fascinating and have a calm but speedy pace. However, it's worth noting that these videos can get a little bit repetitive, so we wonder about the shelf-life of such a trend.

But, undeniably, we rate this trend as a "hop". But fair warning: this isn't the kind of thing that warrants a binge-watch. We recommend dabbling little and often to really savour the thrill of the shred.

Kickstart your Rabbit Hole journey with shredding on YouTube.