A YouTube creator is trying to livestream himself in solitary confinement for a month to see if he “goes crazy.”
Norme is a content creator who has gone viral for his shocking feats, such as staying awake without sleeping for 12 days.
Now he’s locked himself in a small storage area with nothing but a mattress on the floor to see if his sanity can survive a month in total isolation.
And to make the challenge even more difficult, plan to spend the entire time in total darkness. A ceiling-mounted camera provides viewers with live footage of the stunt 24/7.
He also makes some income by asking viewers to pay him to perform different challenges.
For $5 you’ll do a handstand, $20 for 15 minutes of wearing a straitjacket, and $50 for an hour of wearing duct tape on your mouth.
Just over 100 hours into the experiment, it has already begun to exhibit strange behavior, causing concern among its more than one million subscribers.
YouTube creator tries to livestream himself in solitary confinement for a month to see if he “goes crazy”
Norme began live streaming on October 16 and this marks the fifth day of his isolation.
So far, he has been seen and heard rambling about “intergalactic aliens,” making “demonic” noises, and standing with his forehead pressed against the wall in a dejected posture.
“Needs help,” one viewer wrote in the chat as the clock passed 133 hours. Another viewer wrote: ‘STOP TORTURING US TO GET VIEWS!’
Solitary confinement takes a significant toll on physical and mental health and can be as distressing as physical torture.
This is because humans are very social animals that need stimulation and interaction with other humans to thrive.
This practice is commonly used in prisons and jails throughout the United States and refers to the physical isolation of people who are confined to their cells for 22.5 hours or more per day.
At least 122,840 people are locked in solitary confinement daily in American prisons and jails, according to a 2023 joint report by the watchdog group Solitary Watch and the advocacy coalition Unlock the Box.
A large body of research has shown that solitary confinement can cause or worsen anxiety, depression, paranoia, panic attacks, hallucinations, psychosis, and self-harm or suicide.
And for people with pre-existing mental health problems, prolonged periods of isolation can worsen their conditions.
As for the effects on physical health, people who endure solitary confinement are known to develop chronic headaches, vision loss, sleep disorders, weight loss, fatigue, heart palpitations, and more.
So far, he has been seen and heard rambling about “intergalactic aliens,” making “demonic” noises, and standing with his forehead pressed against the wall in a dejected posture.
Experts say even a brief period of total isolation can have a significant impact on a person’s physical and mental health.
These effects could explain some of Norme’s abnormal behavior. But some of his viewers are skeptical about the authenticity of the trick and see this abnormal behavior as an act.
“Give my brother an Oscar for going completely crazy,” one viewer wrote.
What’s more, Norme’s experiment does not perfectly reproduce the conditions of true solitary confinement.
From time to time he leaves the room, presumably to eat or go to the bathroom.
Additionally, it has text-to-talk enabled, allowing viewers to read their chat messages through a speaker for Norme and all other viewers to hear.
In true solitary confinement, prisoners are never allowed to leave their cells of their own free will. They eat, sleep and go to the bathroom, all in the same place.
What’s more, they never have access to any form of communication with the outside world.
It remains to be seen whether Norme will be able to spend an entire month in his makeshift cell. One of his previous challenges, in which he tried to break the world record for longest time without sleep, ended in failure.
He remained awake for 264 consecutive hours. But the official record is held by a man named Robert McDonald, who stayed awake for a total of 453 hours in 1986.
Norme also attempted to break the record for longest time without blinking in a previous video.