Willy Wonka: All the memes about the Glasgow immersive experience

“Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.” So goes the Twitter axiom coined by @maplecocaine back in 2019. Today the main character is Willy Wonka. Or, more accurately, it is the organisers of a Willy Wonka-themed “immersive experience” consisting of a handful of props sparsely scattered around a vaguely terrifying Glasgow warehouse, for which tickets were on sale for up to £35.

So terrible was the event that some parents – many of whom had travelled for hours with children in tow – actually called the police. The event was cancelled and organiser House of Illuminati offered refunds.

One photo from the event shows a bouncy castle adrift at the end of a warehouse, its pink and purple shell the only splash of colour in an otherwise grey room.

Willy Wonka, played by a comedian and actor called Paul Connell, said his “heart sank” when he entered the building. He was instructed to give the children one jelly bean and a plastic cup of lemonade each – hardly the confectionary emporium of your dreams described by Roald Dahl.

The cries of the children I am HOWLING what part of this is in Willy wonka omfg pic.twitter.com/ADpJ7FvdMi

— 🇱🇹 (@agneponx) February 27, 2024

Perhaps best of all, though, was the – and I quote – “evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls” who proved to be so traumatic to the assembled children that they burst into tears. This “evil chocolate maker” was a man in a black sack and an expressionless silver mask, who appeared from behind a full length mirror. You really have to watch the clip 30 or 40 times to really milk every ounce of weirdness out of it.

According to Connell, who has disowned the event and criticised the organisers, the script was “15 pages of AI generated gibberish”. The event also used AI to create its publicity images, which it’s safe to say did not match reality.

“The cries of the children I am HOWLING what part of this is in Willy wonka omfg,” said X (formerly Twitter) user @agneponx.

“Can’t stop laughing at your man popping up behind a mirror and terrifying wide-eyed excited kids,” said @cantseyy.

“The trick the Willy Wonka experience missed was that it would have been truer to the actual story if they killed all the children that went inside,” ventured @TechnicallyRon

Having taken on a near mythical status online, people are now demanding the return of the experience so they can enjoy it as an ironic meme, a kind of low-rent Dismaland. We’re here for it.