Blank Room Soup

Blank Room Soup, starts quite innocently. A man in a whitewalled room hunched over a table eating a bowl of noodle soup. The only feature other than the table, the striplight and chairs is the jet black door on the left-hand side of the shot. The man is wearing a white vest and for some reason is shoveling the soup into his mouth with an oversized ladle-like spoon. After a second or two, however, it becomes obvious that the man is crying, sobbing into the bowl and that some of the bowl’s contents are spilled around the table before him as if he has eaten sloppily or in a hurry. 

Suddenly a figure spears at the door and enters. Looking like some kind of strange team mascot or oversized POP! Doll. Clearly, someone wearing an oddly disquieting costume.  The silent and ominously cartooned humanoid figure is black and white, wearing a black polo neck with perfectly symmetrical black hair. The only features on his otherwise pure white face are two widely spaced button eyes. Approaching the sobbing man the strange figure rubs his shoulder and back, comfortingly. 

The pair are joined by a second strangely suited character, identical to the first and he joins his companion in seemingly comforting the man. Throughout the video, the only sounds are the man’s sobbing and indistinct sound of snickering giggles, mixed with the sobs so that it is difficult to tell what is laughter and what is anguish. 

Further videos have been released over the years, showing the man retching as if about to vomit, as he forces the soup down. In one, the camera cuts out just as one of the strange figures rushes toward him, whether to help, or harm is unclear. The original short clip, with the man ‘comforted’ as he appears to be force fed was uploaded in 2005 and is the original ‘Freaky Soup Guy’ video, better known now as ‘Blank Room Soup’. 

Cannibals, Creepypasta and other Sinister Interpretations

Many of the more sinister and gruesome interpretations of the video seem to have originated in the comments sections themselves, with viewers, either alarmed or entertained by the out-of-context and inexplicable video, venturing their own suggestions or backstories based upon the meager evidence of what is on screen. 

The same process of fictionalizing or developing a narrative based upon the stimulus of a single video grows out of discussion groups and chat forums where users enquire as to the origin of the video and others reply either with stories of their own invention or urban myths they have heard in other forums, with each new version or twist adding to the mythology. The range of horrific backstories and explanations is quite wide, but there are a few consistent explanations. 

The most frequent and widely touted explanation of the strange little film is that it is a clip from a ‘snuff’ film, which for those who do not know is murder, death or killing caught or deliberately recorded on tape. These ‘snuff’ films were alleged to circulate on VHS tapes, DVDs and later as anonymously posted videos on sharing platforms such as Youtube.

In recent years the secondary element of the video having originated somewhere on the dark web was added to lend a sense of legitimacy to the claim (as obviously, Youtube or the larger carriers would not knowingly host a video of this nature). 

Of course, nobody actually dies in the Blank Room Soup video and indeed there is no violence of any kind depicted. Those supporting or propagating the snuff video theory seem to suggest that this clip is from a longer snuff video and that the scene depicted is one of preemptory torture, the man-eating the soup being tormented before his inevitable murder or following the murder of his loved ones. 

The snuff video theory has other even more sinister offshoots based around this second scenario. One widely circulated version of the story is that the man with the anonymized eyes is actually being force fed the bodies of his murdered family (in some versions his wife and child, in others just his wife). A novel twist on this idea is that the blank faced characters are feeding the man his last meal after revealing to him that he will later become their meal as they intend to cannibalize him. 

Other variations include the idea that the man is being force-fed something that is poisonous or that contains something (like glass or sharpened plastic) that will cause him to die in great pain later. A simpler variation is that the man is in the process of being continually force-fed without stop as punishment for some crime, forced to eat continually even though he is full until his stomach explodes, all of which scenarios would indeed fit with the ‘snuff video’ theory as they would make the video a depiction of a coerced or forced suicide.

Another even more fanciful version of the myth suggests that this video depicts the afterlife or underworld. That it is footage from a form of ‘hell’ where people are punished through emotional and physical torture for their crimes. In this scenario, the blank-faced humanoids are said to lack any facial expressions because they are denzens of the pit and lack human emotions or souls. 

Blank Room Soup Influences

Influences upon these folkloric developments of mythology come from popular culture and older sources. Many depictions, both written and visual of the underworld have included penance by a ‘punishment that fits the crime’ or overindulgence in the sin itself.

In this case, the sin of gluttony is often shown to be punishable by being force-fed either disgusting things or to the point that the eater is killed or tortured by the effort and overindulgence (interestingly, this scenario is depicted in a vision of hell shown in The Simpsons, where Homer is forced by demons to eat ‘all the donuts in the world’ considering later revelations about the identity of the character’s creator, this is a curious link). 

This force feeding as punishment is also a feature of the popular horror-thriller Seven, in which Kevin Spacey’s character force feeds his victim after having tied him to a chair in a scene very reminiscent of the Blank Room Soup video.

The motif of feeding human body parts to unwitting guests or feeding someone their own body parts (in this case their own brain) features in the Hannibal Lecter films, with the latter example also featuring the sort of gentle coercion and sweet yet sinister ‘comforting’ that makes the Blank Room Soup video so disturbing. 

The ‘punishment fitting the crime’ motif as well as the perpetrator hiding behind an expressionless facade (in this case a puppet) is a prominent feature in the Saw movies. 

Blank Room Soup Appearance 

Whilst there are three characters depicted in the short video clip, the emphasis and discussion rarely centre around the victim and is rather directed toward the strange humanoid figures. These figures, of average or slightly above average human height are dressed all in black with exaggeratedly large heads with bright white skin. The heads themselves lack facial features other than two circular eyes that are entirely black. The hair is equally black and made up, along with the face, to be perfectly symmetrical and give an impression of artificiality. The hands are pure white and resemble mittens in that there is a thumb but no individual fingers. 

In composition, the figures,(clearly human beings wearing vinyl masks and outfits), resemble an amalgam of the POP! Head figures of popular franchise characters and Playmobil or Lego characters. Other influences could include crash test dummies. 

The figures also bear a striking and yet rarely noted resemblance to the character ‘Fred’ who was for many years the cartoon mascot of the ‘Homepride’ food company. Indeed the later advertisements featuring a life size Fred before the character was discontinued look remarkably similar visually to the Blank Room Soup video. The figures are also vaguely reminiscent of the wide eyed character ‘Frank Sidebottom’ who was essentially a man in a suit wearing a papier-mache head adorned with an exaggeratedly cartooned and simplified portrait of the wearer.  

The choice to make the figure almost featureless and deliberately expressionless is interesting from an artistic standpoint as it represents a ‘simple iconic’ style. This minimalist choice, based on scales explained in Scott Mcloud’s ‘understanding comics’ holds that the more detailed a representation of a face or character is the further the observer counts it as being ‘from themselves’. 

So for example, If a drawing of a face is very detailed then it clearly depicts ‘someone else’ however, the simpler and more ‘iconic’ the representation of the face is, the more likely the observer is to identify with and see themselves in the image, projecting something of themselves onto the character. It is for this reason that people relate more closely and see themselves more in smiley faces and emojis than they would in say the Mona Lisa or the portrait of a president on a dollar bill. 

The implication of this choice then is that whoever created these characters, intended for the viewer to identify with them and see some aspect of themselves in the character’s inability to communicate verbally. Luckily, we do not simply have to guess at the creator’s intentions, we have his word for it. 

Raymond Persi and RayRay

Whilst it has been claimed on some sites and forums that ‘nobody knows the origins of these strange figures’ this simply isn’t true. 

The figures were created by animator, artist, and occasional voice actor, Raymond Persi. California native Persi worked for some time as a layout artist and even as a director on The Simpsons and now works for Disney. He is also recognizable to some as the voice of Flash the Sloth in Disney’s Zootopia movies. 

The humanoid characters in the clip are known as RayRays and were in fact drawn out of doodles Persi developed of himself, expressing his own explorations of the balance between ‘alienation’ ‘inhibition’ and ‘a deep seated need to entertain’. 

These two dimensional characters came to life as three-dimensional incarnations and were depicted by folks in suits as part of a performance art piece during the Burning Man festival in the early noughties and as part of a collaborative known as Mutaytor.

The suits and characters were used in performance art pieces and on stage during musical performances. Footage of the characters in these non ‘Blank Room Soup’ settings confirms their origins and participation in these events. RayRay has had an online presence in videos and profiles on platforms like myspace and youtube for many years, with several of the accounts having been created and posting content well prior to the first uploading of the infamous video in 2005. 

RayRay Theft

Unfortunately, simply knowing the name of the character’s creator and that the figures pre-date the creepy video does not put the matter to bed, especially when those two elements, creator and creation are separated. 

When Reignbot originally attempted to investigate the ‘Blank Room Soup’ video’s origins and contacted Persi about the video he explained that whilst he had created the characters and been part of performances in which people wore the large vinyl suits, the two suits are shown in the video were stolen from his truck prior to the video being filmed. The first he heard of the video’s existence was when he received the clip in an email, with no explanation. 

The clip was originally uploaded in 2005 under the title ‘Freaky Soup Guy’  by someone calling themselves renaissance man. Whilst this alias has allegedly been traced back to Persi himself, the ‘stolen suits’ story and the fact that the video was uploaded with the subtitle ‘We don’t know what this is’ does seem to fit with his story of this being a creation independent of him as the creator seems to be acknowledging the use of his characters by an unknown party but distancing himself from knowing what it is about or what exactly it is supposed to show. 

Of course, Persi, ever the mischievous and slightly dark creator, could simply be lying and distancing himself from the video in order to maintain the mystery, build a mythology and create a hoax around its supposedly unknown origins and meaning to boost its popularity. 

There is another, arguably less plausible, twist to this tale in the form of the E.Nigma hacker story. In a new defunct post which formed the basis of a theory posted in a later video by SuperHorrortBro the cleverly monikered Mr/mrs Nigma claimed to have been contacted by the hackers who originally stole the RayRay costumes from Mr Persi’s RV. The hacker claimed to have stolen the outfits and created the video as some sort of statement about freeing from the restrictions of capitalism. 

The hacker also claimed (according to Nigma) that Reignbot’s original email correspondence with Mr Persi, through which she and consequently the rest of the world learned of the theft in the first place, was not in fact Persi, but the hacker himself, posing as Persi after having somehow managed to intercept their exchange. Whilst this is a theory that has gained some traction, the story overall remains unconvincing. There are however alternatives…

Blank Room Soup Alternative Explanations

In another later video showing RayRay, a man bound up in rope is seen being jostled and led away in an alley somewhere. At first glance, this seems to have even more sinister implications than the soup eating video. However, what is notable about this video and what leads the observer to a breadcrumb trail that seems a little more promising, is that the man being jostled is at least arguably, identifiable. 

His clothes, glasses and face paint (ys, facepaint) identify him as Gil Sharone, a musician in the charmingly named rock band ‘Stolen Babies’. A number of photographs from around the same time period show Sharone wearing the exact same outfit and makeup. Whilst this in itself is not a hugely compelling clue (surely anyone could be wearing the same makeup and clothes) investigating Gil Sharone and his band underscores the connection quite convincingly. 

The video of Mr Sharone’s alleged abduction you see, is not the only connection between the RayRay figures and the band. In fact the blank faced expressionless characters turn up several times in the band’s music video for the song ‘Push Button,’ posted around a year after the ‘Blank Room Soup’ video was uploaded. 

It would seem therefore that the band acquired a set of these RayRay costumes or at least had access to them, even after they were allegedly stolen. This could of course just be a coincidence and a product of the band adopting scary imagery they found on the internet into their videos. The RayRay character would certainly fit into the sort of dark imagery they tend to employ.  More likely, however, the link is more explicit and the RayRay characters, the videos, and the ensuing mythology was intended as an oblique way of promoting the band and their music. 

Whilst this might seem an odd theory, the link becomes more explicit and the idea more plausible when one considers that the very music video that features the RayRay characters was animated for the band by none other than their original creator – Raymond Persi. 

This was possibly done as a favour to the band’s lead singer Domonique Lenore Persi. Yeah, you read that last name correctly- Persi. The younger sister of guess who. 

Finally, whilst the idea that the suits were stolen, that Persi has no idea why or when the original video was made and that it was sent to him later, allows it to remain mysterious and extends its longevity in creepypasta lore. If all that is true then the Blank Room Soup/ Freaky Soup Guy video creators are still unknown, its purpose and context remain a mystery and horribly it still could be a snuff video after all.

Before jumping to that conclusion and taking the reported words of the performance artist as gospel, however,  I would suggest that it is perhaps worth taking a second to look a little more closely at the man in the video. You know the one with anonymized eyes who is being forced fed the soup. Take a good look,  especially after having examined a photo of Raymond Persi himself.