About

Blank Room Soup also known as Freaky Soup Guy refers to a viral creepypasta video of a man with a censored face sitting in an empty room eating chunky soup and crying as a man in a mascot head rubs his back, followed by a second identical man entering and doing the same. The video uses costumes of RayRay from the performance art group of the same name, consisting of animator Raymond S. Persi and Paul Pistore. Allegedly, Blank Room Soup was created by an unknown party who stole the costumes from RayRay's trailer after a show and sent it to Persi in an email. The video's eerie vibe and lack of context inspired rumors about its origin, including rumors about it being a snuff film from the deep web.

Origin

RayRay

RayRay is a performance art group lead by animator Raymond S. Persi,^[2] best known for his animation work for Fox on projects including Felix the Cat, The Simpsons, Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia. RayRay is the name of the mascot character, who is described as a self-referential character on the Mutaytor^[3] website, which hosts RayRay content. On July 4th, 2010, the RayRayVision YouTube channel, allegedly run by RayRay, uploaded a video introducing the character as "born of a mix of inhibition, a sense of alienation, and a deep-seated need for entertainment" (shown below).

RayRay's performance art often defies explanation and consists of bizarre stage performances (example shown below, left). Persi has also created and posted animations about the character over the years (example shown below, right).

Blank Room Soup

The earliest available upload of the video was posted to YouTube^[1] by renaissancemen on November 26th, 2005 titled "freaky soup guy," gaining over 925,000 views in 16 years (shown below). The video shows a man with a black bar over his eyes eating chunky soup in distress as a man in a black turtleneck with an oversized blank-expression head walks toward him from behind. The mascot-character starts rubbing the man's back, who in turn cries and eats the soup in further distress. A second identical mascot character comes in shortly after and also rubs the man's back as if comforting him. The video ends abruptly. It is unknown if this is the original upload.

According to an October 16th, 2015 video by YouTuber ReignBot (shown below) investigating Blank Room Soup, ReignBot messaged Persi through Tumblr to find out the origins of the video. In the response, Persi gives some backstory into RayRay and describes how most of the RayRay props, including the costumes, were stolen from their RV after performing at "The Key Club" on the Sunset Strip. Persi then says he received an email containing what's now known as Blank Room Soup. He was also linked to a YouTube^[4] channel named Adana that features Blank Room Soup as the profile picture but has no current uploads. He also mentions that there are more videos than the one.

Spread

The video has been discussed, explained and theorized on by numerous sites and influencers, including blog The Ghost In My Machine^[5] and Freak Lore.^[6] It has been reuploaded across the web numerous times. There are a number of sequel videos to Blank Room Soup, including one showing RayRay with a kidnapped man (age restricted).^[9] Clips of each can be seen below.

The video has inspired numerous memes, including redraws, over the span of the 2010s. On June 17th, 2021, a Friday Night Funkin' redraw was posted to /r/FridayNightFunkin,^[7] gaining over 790 upvotes in six months (shown below, left). On July 22nd, a Madness Combat version was uploaded to /r/madnesscombat,^[8] gaining over 1,300 upvotes in five months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References