There's a man out front.
If you're still on Twitter/X, there's a chance you might have seen people tacking this unsettling phrase onto the end of seemingly unrelated posts. You may have even seen screenshots of brands such as Walmart and McDonald's repeating the sentence.
Fortunately, this isn't some sort of real life "wake up" creepypasta situation, and those brand screenshots you're seeing are fake. The statement is a reference to a four-image social media horror story created by Dustin Couch, a 30-year-old writer living in the U.S. who specializes in the distinctive format.
In the viral X post published on Tuesday, fake X and Bluesky screenshots show users discussing the news that scientists have discovered a "new type of hole," approaching it with the standard slew of takes such social media platforms are known for. However, it soon becomes clear that there's something sinister about the hole, which emanates a mysterious Wi-Fi signal.
Some people begin seeing the phrase "there's a man out front" added to others' posts, and users are warned not to connect to the hole's Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, it appears too late for some.
"The homemade submarine thing that happened in June is where the 'Scientists are in a hole' part came from," Couch told Mashable via email. "The idea for the post was just people responding to a 'Car wreck you can't look away from' kind of news story as it developed."
SEE ALSO: Two fiction writers built a sprawling, hilarious horror story on TwitterCouch has had numerous posts go viral on Twitter/X, helping him accumulate over 100,000 followers. Arguably best known for his "moon's haunted" text post in 2018, Couch has since expanded to more multimedia internet storytelling.
"September 2020 was the first post [I made] where a short horror/comedy story takes place over 4 screenshots," said Couch. "Before that I posted jokes, either one liners or dialogue based. I started slowly gaining followers in 2018 when I posted the 'moon's haunted' tweet but once I started posting the image stories they really picked up. I think like one viral joke would get me 300-400 followers while a viral image story would get me nearly ten times that."
Though part of the appeal of Couch's humour is its seemingly easy and irreverent nature, he told Mashable that creating the posts actually requires significant work.
"Sometimes I can think of a full post before I finish eating lunch and other times it takes a few weeks to come up with an idea," said Couch. "The idea for a story that could take place on the internet comes first, then I come up with a bunch of posts about it and pick the funniest ones. Then I put it together in MS Paint. I always think it will take like 30 minutes to an hour but it ends up taking about 5-6 hours to make up fake profiles and to make sure the dates, times and likes are all consistent. I always end up missing 2 or 3 errors though."
Few people seem to have noticed any errors in his latest viral post, though. As of writing, Couch's "man out front" story has been shared over 6,000 times, and has over 50,000 likes.
Additional reporting by Sam Haysom. There's a man out front.
