Wyles Daniel
Viral prank creator from Canada, Elizabeth Grabowski, whose real-reaction comedy racks up 718M organic views in 2025, shares simple, chaos-powered tricks you can borrow to turn even the stiffest corporate party into something people actually enjoy
As the year-end rush kicks in and corporate calendars begin to fill with pre-holiday celebrations, businesses are gearing up for a major moment of connection. 82% of U.S. employees plan to attend their company’s holiday party this year, a sharp rise that signals the return of in-person festivities. For teams, it means a welcome break from routine; for organizers, it means finding ways to make these gatherings feel lively rather than obligatory.
Creator Elizabeth Grabowski brings unexpected inspiration with her warm, chaotic, and hilariously original videos. In 2025 alone, the content she creates has accumulated over 718 million organic views. Elizabeth is one half of TheButtingHeads, the comedy duo behind some of the internet’s most widely shared public-reaction pranks. While many female creators online focus on sketches, characters, or lifestyle formats, Elizabeth is out in the real world doing stunts that feel like they were filmed on a dare, and millions of viewers can’t look away. With several of her videos reaching 10’s of millions of views, her style has clearly struck a chord. Elizabeth has teamed up with fellow creators such as GilstrapTV, proving that her offbeat humor has evolved into a recognizable format that other сomedians want to be part of.
And as offices gear up for end-of-year celebrations, Elizabeth’s style of joyful chaos offers exactly the kind of energy these events are missing. Her ideas translate surprisingly well from public spaces to holiday party floors, especially in the moments when people are standing around waiting for someone to break the ice.
Turn Awkward Moments Into Laughter With a Bold First Move
Early in a holiday party, people hover awkwardly, holding drinks, adjusting name tags, waiting for someone else to make the first bold move. It’s the moment when the room feels stiff, and everyone is silently hoping for something to break the tension.
Elizabeth has made an entire style out of flipping moments like these on their head, turning ordinary interactions into memorable and irresistibly watchable content. Have you ever been at the Santa Monica pier, minding your own business, when a woman suddenly sprints past you like she’s auditioning for a live-action cartoon or stages the world’s slowest, weirdest “jog” down the promenade? Her Funny Runner series is one of her most recognizable creations, and part of what her fans now consider her “signature chaos formats.” In these clips, she launches into an exaggerated, cartoonish run ( part slow-motion, part stutter-step, part malfunctioning video-game character) in completely ordinary places. The physical comedy is so strange and unexpected that people can’t help but react; even those trying not to smile fail almost immediately.
As she recalls: “Some of the funniest reactions we ever got were near the beach. People would be walking with their coffees, totally relaxed, and then I’d break into this insane run across the boardwalk. You could see the confusion hit them in waves. First a stare, then a laugh, then that look of ‘did that really just happen?’ That’s the moment we always wait for.”
The impact of this series has gone far beyond her own feed. These videos have been licensed by Jukin Media and featured across mainstream shows like FailArmy, Totally Weird and Funny, and Science of Stupid, giving them national and international exposure.
“We never expected our clips to end up on shows around the world. We were just two people filming real reactions in Canada. And suddenly the videos were playing on TV networks”, Elizabeth says.
Viewers share these moments because the energy is contagious: it turns everyday awkwardness into something joyful instead of embarrassing. That’s exactly why this format works beautifully at corporate holiday events. Of course, no one is going to break into a wild, cartoonish sprint while wearing a cocktail dress or a tuxedo. But the spirit of the prank is easy to adapt. Elizabeth’s idea is to turn it into a playful “Legendary Entrance Contest.”
“If you want the room to relax fast, set up a tiny ‘runway’ and have people make the most ridiculous entrance they can,”she recommends. “Slow-motion walks, cartoon jogs, superhero struts, even a glitchy mannequin glide. Anything goes. Film it, let everyone vote with candy canes and enjoy the party.’”
Use Ordinary Office Spaces as a Stage for Unexpected Fun
The funny thing about corporate holiday parties is that they’re held in environments everyone knows too well: the office kitchen, the conference room temporarily pretending to be a “festive lounge,” the reception area decorated with tinsel that still smells faintly of printer ink. These aren’t glamorous spaces, and that’s exactly what makes them ripe for unexpectedly funny moments.
Elizabeth Grabowski built her entire online presence around that idea. She doesn’t film on studio sets. She films in the places people pass through on autopilot: food courts, escalators, libraries, colleges, and sidewalks. The comedy works because it collides with normal life. The environment is familiar, but what she does inside that environment is anything but.
Take her viral video, Working Out in the Mall, which is currently sitting at over 41 million views. The entire concept is just Elizabeth doing absurd gym exercises in the middle of a mall corridor: lunges where lunges do not belong, bicep curls with imaginary weights, stretches so dramatic they practically demand a soundtrack. People walking by don’t know whether to laugh, ignore her, or assume they accidentally walked into a performance art piece.
It’s simple, harmless, and deeply effective. And easy to recreate at a corporate party as a “New Year Fitness Warm-Up” stunt.
“Choose the ‘office fitness coach’ for the night. Have them do the most ridiculous exercises with whatever’s around, like pencil squats, stapler curls, even jogging in place by the cookie table. Commit to it, keep a straight face, and let everyone react. Add a fake trainer voice-over like, ‘Engage your core. Align your spreadsheets”, she recommends.
What makes it funny is the clash between the setting and the behavior: office formality meeting unexpected bursts of chaotic “fitness.”
Tiny, Playful Surprises Work Better Than Big Setups
Holiday parties often involve long pauses: waiting for the raffle to begin, waiting for the food line to move, waiting for someone to stop talking about KPIs. These moments are perfect opportunities for small, delightful disruptions.
Elizabeth certainly knows how to. One of her most popular formats, Passing Love Notes, is built on the simplest idea: handing strangers tiny handwritten messages that are funny, oddly sweet, or just unexpected enough to cut through the monotony. The reactions, the double-take, the shy smile, the brief confusion, have helped push her channels on Facebook and Instagram past 718 million organic views this year alone. It turns out people love being surprised by something small and kind in the middle of an ordinary moment. The video was also among the formats that other creators tried imitating after seeing how widely it spread, which means that her authentic humor had become trend-setting in the genre
“People think you just walk into a mall with a camera and boom — viral video. But real reactions don’t happen on cue. It takes way more time and patience than staged content, and half the battle is just waiting for the perfect moment. You can’t force it. You just have to be ready when it happens.”
This idea translates beautifully to a corporate holiday party. Instead of relying on big performances or complicated setups, you can create your own version by preparing a stack of festive “Holiday Cheer Cards.” Fill them with playful compliments like “Your Excel skills could end wars,” “You deserve a raise for surviving back-to-back Zooms,” “Your holiday sweater is doing heavy emotional lifting,” or even a few humorously specific lines like “I saw how you organized the supply closet in July. Admirable.” Have a couple of volunteers wander the room, discreetly slipping cards into colleagues’ hands or placing them near plates and drinks, then film the reactions as people read them.
As the expert explains, this works especially well during natural slow points of the event: near the bar while people wait for drinks, around the buffet line, during Secret Santa, or anytime the room falls into small pockets of conversation.
What Elizabeth proves, whether she’s running like a glitching video-game character or handing strangers pocket-sized compliments, is that joy doesn’t have to be orchestrated. It can be sparked. The simplest, most unexpected acts often turn into the moments people remember. That’s the real lesson for any holiday party: you don’t need a perfect plan. You just need one good spark that gives everyone permission to laugh.