Yanick Kleij (23) lives in a student room above the Albert Heijn on Professor de Moorplein in Tilburg and films how people drive their cars or trucks into a concrete block. She posts the videos on TikTok and they are viewed hundreds of thousands of times. “I think people like schadenfreude.”
She can hear the concrete scraping if something goes wrong again. There goes another one. A Mercedes driver drives forward in the dark and hits the gray obstacle with his bumper. After the collision, he drives backwards a few meters and we see him driving onto Professor Cobbenhagenlaan. The accident was captured by Yanick, who posted the video on TikTok. “Concrete block 1 – Mercedes 0,” she adds dryly.
On her channel ‘Concrete Block’, Yanick has been posting videos of people crashing into a concrete block near her student room above the Albert Heijn since January 23. The student says she sees people making accidents through her window every day. When that happens, Yanick grabs her phone to film it. The most viewed video has already been viewed 483,000 times.
“People also like to see others fall down stairs in home videos”
Yanick himself thinks he knows why people enjoy seeing the cars driving into the concrete block. It’s also the reason why she laughs about it herself. “I think it’s a bit of schadenfreude. Like: look what he’s doing, that would never happen to me. People also like to watch home videos of others falling down stairs.”
Yanick has lived in the student studio at Professor de Moorplein since May last year. Over time, she started to notice that accidents kept happening in front of her home.
“As long as it remains fun and is appreciated, I will continue to do it.”
“People drive into concrete blocks almost every day. When I filmed that and forwarded it to friends, they laughed. They asked me why I didn’t put the videos online.” If it were up to Yanick, she would continue with the videos for a while. “It doesn’t take me much time. When I’m at home the video is made in no time. A funny music for It was also selected in no time. As long as it remains fun and is appreciated, I will continue to do it.”
The obstacle is part of a group of concrete blocks placed in front of the Albert Heijn. “It is a car-free area. Only trucks come to unload at the store. There are more concrete blocks that I believe are intended to keep cars away from the truck loading area.”
An Owners’ Association (VvE) appears to be the owner of the obstacles. The VvE was asked why the blocks are there and whether the many collisions are not a reason to remove them. She hasn’t replied yet.