Unboxing videos on YouTube eye chronicling big reveals.

• Author: Italie, Leanne
• Position: Living

Byline: Leanne Italie

NEW YORK -- Rrrrip goes the packing tape and squeak goes the protective foam. Are there sweeter, more seductive sounds than the opening of a new toy or gadget?

Not to unboxers and the millions of people who watch their videos on YouTube.

For the uninitiated, unboxing is the recording and sharing of the big reveal, whether it's Dad behind the camera on Christmas Day or a geek reviewer fawning for his tech-specific fans.

The phenom covers everything from Happy Meals to gaming consoles, usually in minute detail accompanied by either great goofiness or hard-core earnestness -- or both.

Unboxing videos leave toddlers wide-eyed by the surprises inside chocolate eggs cracked open by disembodied hands.

Eager consumers watch the plastic wrap come off plug-ins and cables. Product reviewers young and older soak up advertising dollars through the unboxing of swag provided them by the makers of stuff.

With the mega-gift holidays nearly upon us and the start of the crazed shopping season, unboxing videos are more popular than ever. So says YouTube, which estimated 57 percent more views this year over last.

While not the most popular activity on the site, unboxing is up there and has enjoyed steady growth since such videos first surfaced, believed to be in 2006.

Their allure has not been lost on brands looking to sell, sell, sell on social media. One in five consumers in a recent survey done by Google, which owns YouTube, said they've watched at least one unboxing video.

As of mid-November, there were more than 20 million search results on YouTube for the keyword "unboxing.''

Google estimates that all these unboxing videos have more than a billion views, and uploads grew by 50 percent over last year.

They're most watched during the holiday season, with 34 percent of views for products related to food, electronics, toys and beauty-fashion between October and December last year.

"They're definitely integral to the way I buy things,'' said 20-year-old Willy James, a fan in Pittsburgh of MKBHD (aka Marques Brownlee), one of the top tech unboxers with nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers.

"They're therapeutic. My favorite is when they're doing the tablet reviews and they peel off the layer of plastic film on the glass. I check the unboxing videos before I check an actual company website,'' he added.

Is unboxing consumerism run amok? There's that, for some, but focused on the feels.

"I'm doing this in spite of a great urgency within myself...