About

Try Not to DIY Challenge refers to a series of YouTube videos similar to popular genres of YouTube videos like "Try Not to Laugh" or "Try Not to Scream." In those types of videos, a YouTuber will film themselves watching funny or scary content and attempt to make it through the video without laughing or screaming. In "Try Not to DIY," the YouTuber will watch Do It Yourself how-tos and Oddly Satisfying and comment upon them. However, there is no "challenge" associated with the videos, and the word "challenge" has been added as a clickbait title. Thumbnails for the videos will also include an image that induces trypophobia, though these will have nothing to do with the videos themselves.

Origin

A very popular genre of video on YouTube will feature the personality behind the channel watching funny videos and attempt to get through the videos without laughing (Markiplier example shown below).

On October 23rd, 2018, YouTuber VladTeeVee posted the first "Try Not to DIY" challenge video, using a thumbnail that had nothing to do with the video, and calling the video a "Try not to look away" challenge in the video's beginning. The video gained over 11 million views (shown below).

Spread

On December 26th, 2018, VladTeeVee posted another video titled "Try Not to DIY Challenge," which more closely resembled what the videos became. In the video, he simply watched a compilation of DIY videos and provided commentary. The video gained over 4.6 million views (shown below, left). The same day, YouTuber Tomo did the same thing on the same compilation, gaining over 640,000 likes (shown below, right).

Other YouTubers to pick up on the trend included Infinite, who gained over 4.1 million views with his first "challenge" video (shown below, left) and Serum, who has gained over 1.2 million views in one of his "challenge" videos (shown below, right).

The videos were asked about on /r/OutOfTheLoop on February 25th, 2019.^[1] In the thread, user 3L3M3NT4LP4ND4 wrote:

So after watching 7 of these videos and, subsequently wanting to lodge a bullet in my head. I've figured out what it is.
It features people doing reslly cool or skillful things such as fancy haircuts or fileting a fish incredibly quickly, and if you did it you'd risk injuring yourself or fucking it up. So it's a "oh wow that's really cool but I shouldn't try it" and the "challenge" is trying not to do those things in real life.
AKA there is no challenge it's just a buzzword clickbait cancer part of youtube…

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References