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Watching a microwave countdown – Art or useless time-waster?

If you were really hoping you could stay in tonight and stare at the timer on your microwave, there's no need. You can just go to YouTube and watch mind-numbing videos of microwaves for hours instead.

And if that's actually how you were planning to spend your evening, STOP IT.

If you want to waste away watching the numbers on a microwave timer slowing count downward, then that’s fine. Just remember, every minute you stare at that microwave is one you’ll never get back.

Maybe someone should inform their creator Vi Hart of this, who decided it would be the most amazing thing in the world to sit there and watch a microwave, counting down the seconds as they pass.

A self-described “mathemusician,” Hart enjoys making videos that utilize the virtues in numbers. Okay, cool. But what’s with the microwave?

In January, Hart realized that it was inefficient to use round numbers on the microwave keypad, so she tweeted out this piece of her knowledgeable microwave life-hack.

Her simple idea birthed this weird chain of microwave videos. After documenting her strange obsession with the kitchen appliance through videos, tweets and blogs, she made this, the microwave masterpiece titled "9:99."

I’m going to warn you now, it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry…and by that I mean, I am angry I just lost the last 10 minutes of my life staring at a microwave.

“This is the sort of daring art stuff I do just because I can. Yes, I can make a close up of a microwave timer counting down, and people will watch it. My life is awesome,” she wrote.

What’s even more mind-blowing than the actual microwave video (aside from anything else on this planet) is that people actually watched it. More than 45, 000 people in fact! After she released 9:99, her YouTube channel gained hundreds of followers over the following days.

Many praised Hart for her artistic microwave work (don’t worry, she was just as surprised).

Many sent her satire tweets about the piece, playing along as if it were all just a joke.

A few days later, Hart thought she’d try to top her first microwave video 9:99, only this time…drumroll please…she made "9:98."

And oh yes, it’s the exact same. Only instead of sitting through 9:99 minutes of this nonsense, Hart has spared you one single second. Thanks.

She uses different microwaves, different voices, special guests, but the videos are essentially all the same. Counting down on a microwave…

Soon, she began to release a new one every week or so. 9:97, 9:96, and 9:95…the list goes on.

Spoiler alert – they all end the same way; with you wishing you had those 9 minutes of your life back.

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