From cats and cucumbers to pimple popping and unboxing videos, the internet is full of a huge variety of videos that send people down a social media wormhole.
But for millions, the latest catnip of content is just the sight of a man sanding hardwood floors.
Danny Stenhouse – better known to his followers as Danny Sandhouse – has been delighting TikTok and YouTube with viral clips of his work as a floor restorer. One video has been viewed over eight million times.
He said that sharing the videos not only brought joy to others but also helped him focus.
Mr Stenhouse, who suffers from ADHD and Asperger’s syndrome, started working as a floor grinder about ten years ago.
“I started sanding after a guy came to sand our floors at our house. Since I have ADHD, I was fascinated by the instant gratification that came from seeing the sanding strip and the sander hyper-focusing on one thing. I thought, this is what I want to do,” he said.
After building a successful business, he decided to share videos on social media as a new outlet for himself.
“I found the lockdown really hard and I made some bad decisions. I ended up drinking more. So I thought I needed to focus on things that could improve my life. So I tried to make a video,” he said.
After his first attempts, in which he tried out different camera angles and voiceovers, it didn’t take long for his videos to reach millions of people.
To date, Mr. Stenhouse has more than 180,000 followers on Instagram, more than 33,000 followers on TikTok and more than 90,000 subscribers on YouTube. In his videos, he shows how he sands historic floors or gives tips to anyone who wants to try it themselves.
“I feel like people like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Justin Bieber get millions of likes, not people like me,” he said.
His videos reach such high numbers that he can also earn money from them.
“It all happened so fast, but it’s great to be able to make this extra money and I love getting questions from people on all their grinding questions and helping them out.
“When I was in school and had ADHD, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t sit down and I had a hard time, but now when I’m engrossed in something, I’m hyperfocused and I have to be the best at it and I never get bored of grinding,” he said.
He said he also hopes to inspire other young people who may have had difficult experiences in the past.
“I had a really difficult start to life at Bell Farm in York with a single parent, but everything can be turned into a strength,” he said.
“I was bullied as a kid, but now the world says, ‘Danny, you’re cool’ and I just want people to know that life is long and you are not your past or your trauma. You just have to believe in yourself.”
