The internet just lost its mind over an exploding watermelon

For about 30 minutes on Friday, more than 730,000 people were glued to a live video of two BuzzFeed staffers putting one rubber band after another around a watermelon.

We all knew where this was headed — a dead watermelon — but the internet couldn't not watch.

The explosion generated more than 3 million views, and it even triggered some audible cries here at Tech Insider.

After the live video, BuzzFeed motion-pictures producer Jesse McLaren posted this slow-motion clip of the magic moment:

🍉💥 pic.twitter.com/Nfqf5PUwn5

The rest of the internet's mind seemed blown by the spectacle.

Cole Ledford was so captivated by the live video that he forcibly delayed work.

And Mark Gongloff on Twitter single-tweetedly predicted the (immediate) future of digital media.

Afterward, BuzzFeed senior editor Chelsea Marshall, who joined BuzzFeed social strategist James Harness to explode the watermelon in the video, posted this gory shot of the fruit and its murder weapon.

As cool as BuzzFeed's stunt was, I have to say the clip below — uploaded to YouTube in July 2012 by The Slow Mo Guys — is my absolute favorite explode-a-watermelon-with-rubber-band-experiment video.

The Slow Mo Guys shot their explosion with a Phantom Flex at a blistering 1,600 frames a second, not a handheld iPhone, and the result is gorgeous:

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