-slimfetish- .avi -
A data hoarder discovers a corrupted video file from the early 2000s peer-to-peer era that seems to subtly alter the bodies—and minds—of everyone who watches it.
In 2004, an anonymous user on a now-defunct file-sharing network uploads a single video file: -slimfetish- .avi . File size: 147 MB. Runtime: 3 minutes, 22 seconds. No thumbnail. No metadata.
By 2005, dozens of users who downloaded it report the same strange experience—after watching, they begin losing weight at an unnatural, unstoppable rate. Not through diet or exercise. Just… shrinking. Collarbones sharpening. Ribs pressing against skin. Scales tipping into danger zones despite eating normally. -slimfetish- .avi
Trying to break the effect, Alex tracks down other known viewers via old forums, Usenet posts, and LiveJournals. Each survivor tells the same story: the only way to stop the loss is to pass the file on. To make someone else watch. And the file knows when you’ve tried to delete it—it reappears in your recently played list at 3:22 AM.
Found footage / screenlife horror / psychological thriller (short film or limited series) A data hoarder discovers a corrupted video file
You’ll lose more than weight. Would you like a full script outline, visual mood board description, or a mock Reddit “lost media” post to accompany this?
The video itself is mundane: grainy footage of a figure standing in a dim room, repeatedly measuring their waist with a tape measure. No face. No speech. Just the soft sound of breathing and the zip-click of the tape retracting. But viewers notice something wrong. Each loop of the 3:22 runtime, the figure’s waist is slightly slimmer. By the end, the tape measure pulls taut around nothing—a gap where a body should be. Runtime: 3 minutes, 22 seconds
Alex, fascinated by lost internet ephemera, attempts to restore the file. But the video refuses to be copied, converted, or screenshotted. Every attempt corrupts other files on the drive. When Alex finally watches it—just once—small changes begin: looser belt notch, comments from friends, a hunger that never arrives.
