“Wow bro!”
“Bruh!”
“Bro!”

That’s how the artistically magnificent video known as “water, ice, salt, aye!” opens, with two brothers being excited over almost nothing happening. The brothers are reacting to a video from the popular YouTube channel “5-minute crafts,” seemingly missing the point and use for the hacks. The video gained popularity for the numerous catchphrases it spawned, all of which will be discussed here.

Most people find humor in the clip- two individuals that are completely clueless, but I find beauty in it. What we’re witnessing is a moment of bonding between siblings, a moment that the younger brother will be sure to remember and carry with him through his life.

The title of the video comes from the following hack, where they are shown ingredients to mix for faster cooling of bottles. The older one quickly freestyles a hook out of them and his brother soon catches on.

One of the life hacks, at first glance, seems to be using an object resembling a condom. The older brother is about to point this out, but he quickly stops himself. This shows us how he cares for his sibling, as learning about condoms at that age is something that might taint the mind of the impressionable child. The brother is sure to correct himself to save the younger one’s innocence, and he was correct, the object wasn’t a condom. When the younger brother clarifies what the object actually is, we arrive at the best part of the video. Just watch how brilliantly the conversation plays out.

“Is that a co-… I know that’s not what I think it is!”

“A water balloon?”

“Yes, you just read my mind! What was y’all thinking?”

Laughter.

Such a simple interaction, but its simplicity is what makes it so beautiful. When they laugh, they laugh together, but for different reasons. The youngest is laughing because of his brother’s silly reaction, and the older brother is laughing because of relief. When it turns out the object is actually a balloon, the older brother makes a joke where he subverts what he was originally thinking and plays it off as if it were the audience’s thoughts. That made me think, was this video originally recorded with an audience in mind?

This video leaves many questions unanswered, leaving us to only imagine. Why does the older brother have a shoe on his hand in the first few seconds of the video? What was he going to tell us before the video abruptly cuts off? I think that this contributes to the overall essence that the video carries, it just works as a peek into these siblings’ ordinary life. We get to see how they interact, the way they get along, and also how the young child looks up to his older brother and wants to be like him.

This is best exemplified when the oldest points out how tasty a pizza looks, and his brother is quick to follow through with: “Dang that look good!” Again, completely disregarding the point of the hack and just being happy to be with his sibling.

As it stands, this video, which is less than a minute long, is one of the best you can access on the internet. Everything works so well and it comes together to form this beautiful symbol of family.

I was saddened to see that the original upload has been restricted and that comments are disabled on most reuploads. Why are YouTube and most other sites trying to hide this amazing interaction from the public? Perhaps the media is trying to contain the older brother’s pure genius, which is made evident when they’re shown a better way to make ice cubes:

“Put boiled water in there and they put it in the freezer? It’s never gonna freeze cus it’s boiled, it’s boiled, it’s boiled aye!”