Webdriver Torso

A typical Webdriver Torso slide. Quality loss is visible in the text and along the rectangle edges.

Webdriver Torso is a YouTube account made by Google that posts mostly 11-second videos consisting of blue and red rectangles that change position, accompanied by a series of beeps which change in pitch. As of November 2015, it has uploaded over 420,000 videos,^[1] and more than 70,000 people have subscribed to the channel.^[2] Though initially a source of speculation for viewers, YouTube has humorously acknowledged that the channel exists as an internal testing utility for YouTube's performance.^[3]

Content

Typical videos

The time difference between the uploads is usually between 1 and 15 minutes, and never more than one hour. Most are 11 seconds long, although they can be 1 minute,^[4] 5 minutes, or 25 minutes.^[5] All are slideshows. The 11 second videos have 9 slides. Each slide is about 1 second long, has a solid white background, and contains two solid color opaque rectangles, one red and the other blue. Both rectangles have a random size, shape, and position in the slide. When the two overlap, the red rectangle always appears over the blue one, and on rare occasions, the red rectangle completely covers up the blue one. Each slide has a random computer-generated wave tone. In the corner of each video it says "aqua.flv - slide (number with four digits)". Early videos were called blanglidusbmoseeeeeeeeeeeeecqliycz acGUNC VPuziphfozihfopimbqpiophosvbmioh

Unusual videos

The channel has three unusual videos. In one of the rectangle videos, tmpRkRl85, the red rectangle becomes a silhouette of Rick Astley dancing in the second half of the video.^[3] The video "00014" is a video recorded in Paris that showed the Eiffel Tower being lit up.^[3] At the end of the video, the camera is put down, and the Webdriver Torso Facebook page is visible for a few frames.^[3] The last one, "0.455442373793" is only viewable in France, requires a payment of 1.99 euro to watch, and is only payable with a French credit card.^[6] It shows an episode of the American adult cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force dubbed in Spanish.^[6][7]

Similar channels

The YouTube channels "Webdriver YPP",^[8] "Ekaterina Basic",^[9] and "Webdriver IVPE"^[10] have similar content.

Some of the videos made by "Webdriver YPP" have random phrases, such as "Jim knows about the glass" and "Contact his highness and ask about the pen".^[11]

Subscribed channels

The channel subscribed to eight others channels. Six of them are category channel made by YouTube about music, news,... The others are the channel of the German label Aggro Berlin and the channel of the Joueur du Grenier a French channel based on humoristic retro gaming videos.

Speculation

Prior to YouTube's confirmation of the channel as a test channel, there was some speculation about the identity and content of the videos.

Hypothesis

Hypothesis about the channel included spy messages,^[12] contact by extraterrestrial life-forms,^[13] and construction plans.^[14]

"Matei" speculation

On the video "00014", Webdriver Torso commented "Matei is highly intelligent". The "Matei" being mentioned is unknown. Basarab Matei,^[15] Matei Mancas, Matei Gruber, and Matei Ciocarlie^[16] have been suspected.

Cicada 3301 speculation

The combination of the cryptic videos with the use of the phrase "highly intelligent" in the "Matei" comment led many to believe that Webdriver Torso was a part of the ongoing Cicada 3301 recruitment puzzle. Cicada 3301 had previously posted messages with hidden codes in an attempt to recruit "highly intelligent individuals."^[17]

Solving the mystery

The channel was later revealed to be a quality testing channel (see below).

Soggetto Ventuno's discoveries

An Italian blogger named "Soggetto Ventuno" discovered that Webdriver Torso and all similar channels belong to a network of accounts called "ytuploadtestpartner_torso".^[3] Ventuno then discovered some other accounts with similar videos, many of which were pulled or made private after Ventuno's investigations were published.^[3] The network linked to a Facebook page and a Twitter page, which have now both been taken down.^[3] The Facebook page had mentioned "Johannes Leitner", a Google Zürich employee.^[3] Leitner was friends with another employee, "Matei Gruber".^[3] "Matei" was mentioned on 00014 (see above).^[3] Ventuno then compared scenes from pulled videos with Google Zürich photos, and noticed matching things, indicating that the pulled videos were recorded at Google Zürich,^[3] and that the channel and all similar channels were run from Google Zürich.

Purpose of videos

The videos are made to test YouTube video quality. After creation, the videos are uploaded to YouTube. The uploaded videos are then compared to the videos before they were uploaded, to see how much quality was lost.

YouTube's reply

When YouTube was asked about Webdriver Torso, they replied: "We're never gonna give you uploading that's slow or loses video quality, and we're never gonna let you down by playing YouTube in poor video quality. That's why we're always running tests like Webdriver Torso."^[3] This is a reference to Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up".

Easter egg

When "webdriver torso" is searched into Google or YouTube, the Google logo and YouTube and the search results will both look like a Webdriver Torso video.^[18] Another Easter egg is that in the Android L developer builds, the Android Version Easter Egg is a reference to Webdriver Torso videos.

References