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old people slot machines las vegas

Old People Playing Slots

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Updated Nov 08, 2022 at 12:24PM EST by Zach.

Added Nov 07, 2022 at 12:13PM EST by Adam.

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About

Old People Playing Slots or Old People Pushing Buttons is a viral video of a line of elderly people appearing to play slot machines at a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, with all of them endlessly clicking a button on their machine. The video was popularized on Twitter in November 2022 after first being posted to TikTok. Many users commented that the clip looked sad while others made jokes about its content, often using it as a reaction in video and GIF caption memes.

Origin

On November 3rd, 2022, TikToker[2] @nlwestfall posted a video of elderly people endlessly pushing a button on their slot machines at a casino in Las Vegas. The user stated the video was taken before the COVID-19 pandemic. The video gained over 134,000 views on TikTok in four days (shown below).


https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7161651825425354026

Spread

The video then went viral after it was reposted to Twitter by user @xooset on November 4th, 2022 (shown below). In three days, the clip gained over 16 million views, thanks in large part to other users quote-tweeting and reposting it to make various jokes.


Commentary on the video tended to fall into two camps. The first was commentary on how the video seems sad, as well as commentary on how elderly people stereotypically chide younger generations for use of their smartphones. For example, on November 5th, Twitter user @isaiah_bb[1] tweeted the video was "one of the most unsettling things" he'd ever seen, gaining over 9,000 retweets and 149,000 likes in two days (shown below, top). On November 6th, user @TheCensoredRock joked about the clip by captioning it "You kids and your phones," gaining over 700 retweets and 3,900 likes in one day (shown below, bottom).


isi baehr-breen (its pronounced 'izzy') @isaiah_bb This is genuinely one of the most unsettling things I've ever seen. xooset @xooset. Nov 4 Show this thread 0:09 16.1M views Tik Tok niwestfall 3:51 PM . Nov 5, 2022 from Minneapolis, MN. Twitter for iPhone

Others recaptioned the clip as a reaction meme. For example, on November 6th, 2022, Twitter[3] user @zzdoublezz posted a joke about the elderly voting in the upcoming midterm elections in America, gaining over 7,000 retweets and 50,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, top). That same day, user @speeeena joked the video represented his friends and him hitting the "slay" button, gaining over 8,800 retweets and 70,000 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below, bottom).


Various Examples


Search Interest

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External References

[1] Twitter – @isaiah_bb

[2] TikTok – @nlwestfall

[3] Twitter – @zzdoublezz

Related Entries 5 total

Recent Videos 2 total

   

Recent Images 2 total

   

Top Comments

wisehowl_the_2nd
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wisehowl_the_2nd

I used to do QA for a slot machine company that did niche casino games like the ones you'd see in bingo halls, Indian casinos, and the occasional skill game in a gas station. Most of these were out of state from where I worked so I never got to see them up front, though there was a sense of pride in what I was doing since it was challenging work that helped prevent losses from machine error and helped make the games more "fun". That changed when I saw these operated in the field, much like the tiktok video here.

I saw an elderly man mindlessly tap away at the machine when he hit a jackpot… and then keep playing. It had not even occurred to him that the machine had just paid him out several thousand dollars until we pointed it out, he just kept banging away since it was early in his play session. It was a bit mind-boggling to me to watch since it was divorced with the more "tactical" play I was used to. Seeing this, a bunch of people from our company throwing tens of thousands away to slots on a company retreat, and a bunch of questionable business decisions by management are ultimately what led to me being very disillusioned with gambling/gacha and that company in general. Gambling feeds on human addiction to sustain its business until it destroys your ability to think rationally.

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Imperial Guardsman
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Imperial Guardsman

I been through so many casinos at Las Vegas and Laughlin when I was much younger like around 6-12 years old and I have seen lot of things in those places. My Father told me to look at the people playing those slot games while trying to visit and enter the mini Eiffel tower in Las Vegas.

This is what he told me "Look at there faces, do you see anyone happy here?" and I said "No one is happy here.", he replied back saying "Exactly, these places are designed to drain you of happiness, don't end up like these people."

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