Help, we can't stop watching this TikToker "reload" everyday objects like they're FPS weapons

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TikTok reloading videos
(Image credit: Kommander Karl (via TikTok))

A TikTok creator is making videos where he "reloads" everyday objects like they're guns in first-person shooters, and it's frankly alarming how captivating they are.

Since it might not be the strongest elevator pitch on paper, here's some context for the uninitiated. TikTok user Kommander Karl has been playing first-person shooters for around 25 years, but it wasn't until the early 2000s that he started taking notice of gun reloading animations, eventually developing "a mild obsession." 

Recently, he's taken his unique expertise on the subject and turned it into a viral success on TikTok, where he'll take a household item like a toaster, smoke detector, and Nintendo Switch console and pretend he's reloading it like a gun from an FPS. The magic lies in how he's able to mimic the punchy, slightly dramatized way guns are reloaded in video games and contrast that with something so mundane. We can't stop watching. 

@kommanderkarl

Reply to @t4rjustin there yah go ##fyp ##gaming ##fps ##reloadingthings

♬ original sound - Kommander Karl
@kommanderkarl

Reply to @spookez356 aight lemme just PENCIL you in 😂 ##reloadingthings ##fps ##fyp ##gaming ##SimsSelves

♬ WII SHOP TRAP - Flixterr
@kommanderkarl

Reply to @owensterr the highly requested Switch! ##reloadingthings ##fps ##gaming ##nintendo ##nintendoswitch ##fyp ##fypシ

♬ Elevator Music - Bohoman

"A good item to reload will usually have a removable component which can act as a magazine," Karl explained to GamesRadar. "Objects with additional action components, i.e. sliding or rotating parts, buttons, etc. are the best. A toaster, for example, is a fantastic reload subject because your removable 'magazine' component is bread, while the handle and eject buttons are your action components. Generally anything with moving parts and removable parts are great reload subjects."

Karl was introduced to first-person shooters with genre classics like Quake II and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, which he describes as a dark age for reload animations. At least from a technical aspect, games have obviously come a long way since then. He says Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Far Cry games all have great reloading animations, but it's actually the 2006 shooter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter that influenced his TikTok videos the most.

As an environment artist working in the games industry, Karl also shares the odd technical analysis or explanation, and he says those will keep coming alongside the reloading videos. Check out his TikTok page and have a scroll through. Just don't come to us asking for your free time back.

For everything on the horizon, check out our extensive guide to new games coming in 2022.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.