Dobby Security Camera Footage

Submission 13,650

Part of a series on Harry Potter. [View Related Entries]

About

Dobby Security Camera Footage refers to viral closed-circuit television footage of an unknown figure walking down a driveway. Some have joked that the figure resembles the Harry Potter character Dobby the Elf.

Origin

On June 6th, 2019, Facebook ^[1] user vivian.gomez.35977 uploaded the footage, which they claim that they are unable to explain. They wrote, "So I woke up Sunday morning and saw this on my camera and am trying to figure out…what the heck?? First I saw the shadow walking from my front door then I saw this thing….has anyone else seen this on their cameras?? The other two cameras didn’t pick it up for some reason." The post received more than 7.2 million views, 126,000 shares, 36,000 reactions and 150 comments in less than one week (shown below).

Spread

The following day, Twitter user @jadynbee_ tweeted the video with the caption "a lady posted this and said she saw this on her home camera this morning. what y’all think this is?" The post received more than 27 million views, 278,000 likes and 96,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Following the post on Twitter,^[6] people began posting abaout the video, making jokes about the resemlance between the figure and Dobby from the Harry Potter franchise. Twitter user @hayla1116 tweeted, "is that fucking Dobby?!" The tweet received more than 483,000 likes and 159,000 retweets in two days (shown below).

On June 8th, Twitter^[2] user @ni_ners tweeted, "dobby boutta get his ass beat for getting caught on muggle footage." The tweet received more than 48,000 likes and 11,000 retweets in two days (shown below, left).

On June 8th, Twitter^[3] user @marvclsdaya tweeted, "dobby walking out of the malfoy manor to warn harry." Within two days, the tweet received more than 39,000 likes and 11,000 retweets (shown below, center).

That day, Twitter^[4] user @_Snape_ tweeted, "Dobby when Harry gave him the sock." The tweet received more than 11,000 likes and 2,000 retweets in two days (shown below, right).

Some theorized the the video was viral marketing for the Harry Potter video game called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. However, director William McGregor who worked on the marketing campaign for the video game denied any involvement (shown below). He tweeted,^[5] "Umm so yeah those saying this creepy ass Dobby film is a part of the @HPWizardsUnite campaign… deffo isn't part of the campaign I directed. Wish it was, I'd be less weirded out."

Severlam media outlets covered the video, including The Daily Dot, ^[7] Fox News,^[8] Yahoo,^[9] Paper^[10] and more. On June 9th, Twitter^[11] published a Moments page on the video.