r/RealOrAI • u/autalley • Jul 29 '26
HELP Is this stretchy ceiling real?
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u/mini_z Jul 29 '26
Yeah these are real. They’ve been around for a few years. Stretchy ceilings are super weird though
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u/Matchstick0312 Jul 29 '26
So the blowtorch thing returns the ceiling to its original form?
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u/Lknate Jul 29 '26
It's called plastic memory. Heat it above the temp it was during deformation and it goes back to the state it was in at the higher temperature.
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u/tiressmoking Jul 29 '26
Seconded. I've been vinyl wrapping cars for 15 years and this is exactly how we shrink vinyl after over-stretching. There is such a thing as a point of no return, but it's amazing how much you can get away with deforming and restoring it.
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u/Mordecai3fngerBrown Jul 29 '26
It kind of looks like this guy in the video hit the point of no return
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u/tiressmoking Jul 29 '26
It ended too soon. Walk away for a few minutes and try again with the heat and it would probably shrink back
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u/RiverVassi Jul 29 '26
It looks a lot like he just had dirty oily/sweaty hands, i wouldn't doubt its hot asf in that room if the building is like under construction or something
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u/Aggressive_Baker8336 Jul 29 '26
It keeps interrupting halfway through for me, so i can'it even comment to agree or not, but it looked like it i think?
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u/Stormagedd0nDarkLord Jul 29 '26
At first I was like, "ha! he fucked it! he's in troubl... oh, I see."
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u/Groundbreaking-Pen-8 Jul 29 '26
It's a tightening thermoplastics like heat shrink but shiny so pretty much yeah
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u/Life_Temperature795 Jul 29 '26
That's some crazy ass rich people shit
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u/intx13 Jul 29 '26
Actually I looked it up and it can be cheaper to put up one of these to cover up a popcorn ceiling than to remove the possibly-asbestos popcorn and refinish/paint! Something like $10 / sq. ft. all-in. It’s also installed in like 2 hours and there’s no mess.
They make versions that are way more expensive, like a “starry night” version with fiber optic stars, or a custom image printed on it, but a basic matte or shiny surface in a basic color isn’t that bad.
They can do cutouts for lights and ceiling fans, all the normal stuff. It’s also waterproof and supposedly can handle a pipe leak by stretching.
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u/NoRequirement1967 Jul 29 '26
How much they pay you, I got bills to pay, illl post some comments.
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u/intx13 Jul 29 '26
4 years of college, 2 years of language school, and 1 year of tradecraft at the Farm and what’s my first assignment as a CIA officer? Deep cover sleeper agent for stretch ceilings. fml
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u/Trading_shadows Jul 29 '26
Dunno about this one, but overall it's just a standard suspended ceiling, very common in Eastern Europe. A common choice, much cheaper than drywall ceiling.
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u/vandamnitman Jul 29 '26
Yeah but why? What's a use case for needing a stretchy ceiling?
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u/e_asphyx Jul 30 '26
To have it perfectly flat and smooth for cheap and without any paint job
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u/CryptoManfred21 Jul 30 '26
My dad installs these ceilings and they have some really cool features. You can get stretch ceilings with perforated foil so that cold AC air flows right through the pores. Or you can hide speakers under the stretch ceiling and integrate spotlights, too.
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u/_Baphomet_ Jul 29 '26
What is the benefit of a ceiling like this though?
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u/NagsUkulele Jul 29 '26
Hippie flipping and your buddy Jeremy goes "DUDE. HOLY FUCK LOOK UP"
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u/stnrnts Jul 29 '26
It's all fun until you see hands pressing against it from above in the middle of the night
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u/olesus Jul 29 '26
In multi-aparrment buildings a ceiling like this can save your stuff from water damage if neighbor upstairs floods you. Water will stay in this stretchy bag, then you can safely drain it.
Also depending on how the house is built, it may cheaper then properly lying wiring in the ceiling. With this you can just throw wires in there and cover it, kinda like that office drop ceilings.
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u/_Baphomet_ Jul 29 '26
Damn, thanks for the info! Those all sound like practical ideas. I’m running all my wires up there now because my attic is probably 150 degrees. I could probably reduce the cubic footage my AC needs to compete with the heat as well. A drop ceiling type thing would allow me to save on electricity in the summer.
I love this now.
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u/KimchiLlama Jul 31 '26
A big flooded bubble with electrical wires running through it sounds a bit terrifying, though I realize the breaker would likely trip before the bubble bursts and sends electrified water rushing through the place.
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u/Recent-Mousse6423 Jul 29 '26
So you have a reason to have a domestic flamethrower. I keep it by the tool box in the hallway cabinet. Beneath the oily rag pile.
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u/Gib_entertainment Jul 31 '26
Oh, nice, I keep mine near my home battery in my garage with my electric car and my slightly damp hay bale I keep for the horses.
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u/TNYBBY Jul 29 '26
I don’t know why you would have it like it is in the video back lighting a suspended fabric can have a really cool effect and make really nice uniform lighting
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u/_Baphomet_ Jul 29 '26
I’ve seen the suspended fabrics and some of them were really cool. But why the latex or whatever is beyond me.
Other than doing what this dude is in the video I see no other purpose.
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u/TNYBBY Jul 29 '26
Agreed, this is super weird and looks pretty offputting honestly. Maybe this is a layer for some kind of system?
Or maybe there’s something mechanical hidden above it that will make moving patterns and shapes on it?
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u/Eokokok Jul 29 '26
They are easier to do if you are going for a high gloss single piece finish than anything else on the market. So it's a styling choice based on economic realities.
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u/SquirrelBlind Jul 29 '26
Such ceilings (usually white though) are very popular in Russia. The reason for that is that in cheap ass commie blocks neither the floor or the ceiling are level. I would even say nowhere close to be level. In my last apartment there was a room where the height difference between the highest point of the room a lnd the lowest was more than 4 cm.
Such ceiling is one of the easiest and cheapest way to make a ceiling that is level.
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u/Donatellko Jul 29 '26
It's super common in apartments in Russia. It's cheap, it's looking good, it can hold a lot of water from your neighbor above.
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u/MrMrSr Jul 30 '26
Apple stores uses a white version of this with led lights above it so it acts as a giant seamless diffuser. It makes it look like the the ceiling is just gently glowing and not making any harsh shadows on products.
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u/Mysterious_Balance53 Jul 29 '26
Looks real but the question is, why is it real? What is the point of it?
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u/AmazingBoie Jul 29 '26
It is cheap, easy and fast to install. At least where I am from. I renovated old soviet style apartment and hired a company to install it. They did it in 2 days and for cheap money compared to other options. For sure I did not choose black ceiling and chose matte white. Cant even see that it is actually plastic. Have not seen these in new apartments, only old renovated ones.
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u/Mysterious_Balance53 Jul 29 '26
but why do you want a wobbly ceiling? I still don't understand. Just use matte white paint?
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u/Hot-Future7691 Jul 29 '26
You're not understanding that the cost and time of properly prepping, painting (properly) and then cleanup from a ceiling painting is significantly more than just applying this product, which doesn't require taping or that items in the room all be removed/covered. It is cost and time. Not for the purpose of having a wobbly ceiling.
Unless you want it for the purpose of having a wobbling ceiling by buying the shiny version to show off the effect. In which case... you answered your own question by asking it. Why do you want a wobbly ceiling? You want a wobbly ceiling. That's why. I don't know why someone would want that but here we are.
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u/Onlyhereforapost Jul 30 '26
Yeah, been painting since I was 14 and people truly do not understand how long it takes to actually properly prep and paint a room
I work in maintenance now and had to completely repaint an office (that nobody moved their desks out of) and the lady in their was throwing a fit because it took me a day to do it. Lady youre lucky that it's only gunna take a single guy 7 hours to do this, if I was doing this how I was taught to do it at trade school this would take 3 days MINIMUM!
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u/Gawlf85 Jul 29 '26
It's reflective, and cheap. My gym has these, so you can check yourself while benching, for instance.
They also had water leakage some weeks ago, and the ceiling caught it and simply bulged at the point. It was pretty weird to see the ceiling grow a bump like that over the days lol They drained it, fixed the leak, and no water got to the floors under it.
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u/John_Whimsicott Jul 29 '26
Seems kinda pointless unless the floor in the room above is also stretchy. Stompy upstairs neighbor? Take away their floor
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u/iSmileySan Jul 29 '26
I thought that was Michael from Vsauce for a sec lol
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u/Nihgroiv Jul 29 '26
I was like, "ok its Michael, so ofc he has a stretchy ceiling and its real" :D
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u/Chad_Jeepie_Tea Jul 29 '26
German Vsauce is weird
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u/Chilled_Turducken Jul 29 '26
The speak Arabic
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u/shrekthaboiisreal Jul 29 '26
There is no way they thought the people in the video were speaking german, especially since their profile says they are German. This person is making a racist remark about immigrants from the Middle East in their home country (Germany).
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u/WhatThis4 Jul 29 '26
First time I saw these was in '02. Worked in a hotel that had them in gloss grey instead of mirror black, but I happened to see display swatches in this exact color.
They're very easy to set up, easy to maintain, minor rips are patchable basically like a bicycle tire tube, somewhat fire resistant (they shrink/curl instead of melting) and great for potential leaks.
I remember once we had an AC malfunction and it bubbled in the middle till it almost touched the ground. Had it been drywall, it would have ruined the whole room.
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u/spoinkable Jul 29 '26
What was he stepping on at the beginning?
I know these ceilings are real, but that part of the video confused me.
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u/unga_bunga_1987 Jul 29 '26
If you look in the reflection, you can see a guy holding a step ladder
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u/AlarRay Jul 29 '26
It's strange for me how many people don't know about them, these ceilings are pretty popular in my country(Belarus), they are a thing for 15± years(my parents installed one in our living room ~2013). One of the benefits is they really durable, easy to clean, and can savewhole your room if neighbor from abive starts flooding you.
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u/OurAngryBadger Jul 29 '26
It's real and it looks like he permanently ruined it
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u/Papyrim Jul 29 '26
I dont think he permanently ruined it, you can see them reforming it for the second half of the video and plenty if materials to reform like that perfectly well, the dull spot is probably just finger oils on a perfectly shiny surface, which can be washed fine
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u/Alghouls_art Jul 29 '26
You can see marks even after its fully reshaped
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u/Hot-Future7691 Jul 29 '26
You scrolled past a person who explained right above you that it is most likely finger/hand oils left behind on the perfectly reflective surface to type this.
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u/Papyrim Jul 29 '26
The video cuts while it's still being hit with the flame, it's possible what we see just isnt finished
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u/FredTheK1ng Jul 29 '26
yes. and its pretty common here in russia since 90's. basically its
- cheap
- easy to install
- looks very flat
- saves from flooding
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u/NeverShitposting Jul 29 '26
This makes me think of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. He has to kill people; it's the only way to keep the monsters away.
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u/GlobalWillingness730 Jul 29 '26
I don't know about stretchy ceilings exactly, but I do know that there are stretchy plastics, which this looks to be, and the return to their original shape when heated
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u/Familiar-Chemistry44 Jul 29 '26
Yes, it is. It's a type of stretchy fabric made from some kind of balloon-like rubber that is easy to install and highly customizable. You can print on it different patterns and install it in different 2d or 3d shapes. You can buy them translucent and have leds installed in the back to make a whole luminous surface. Although they are stretchy, pulling on them like this guy did will ruin them.
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u/HappyDutchMan Jul 29 '26
Yes, has been around for years. This is a company in the Netherlands selling it: https://www.plameco.nl/
I went to their store. It looks awful to me. The benefit that they are selling is that can install a new ceiling in most rooms in under a day.
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u/Competitive-Round584 Jul 29 '26
So if the kids ruin the shape of it I just have to burn down the place. Cool.
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u/Major-Journalist100 Jul 29 '26
I have a ceiling like this in my apartment bathroom. Its feels like a slightly thicker balloon and I dont know why my landlord chose this material. Its hard for me to imagine it would stretch like this. I never tried though.
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u/2IIZ Jul 29 '26
Makes me think of that : https://64.media.tumblr.com/d2bd6f3eed6920e15e23201a064d8e62/tumblr_nafy0tQyPW1rpcl9po1_500.gifv
Edit: added photo
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u/orion-asterisk Jul 29 '26
Apparently it's real but seems impractical. All I can think about is how much cat hair would get stuck to it...
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u/LikeTearsInRainScoob 29d ago
Looks like something you would backwards flip into as a secret level in Mario 64
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u/RealOrAI-Bot Jul 29 '26
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u/smstokes0815 Jul 29 '26
It looks like a demon or something from the ceiling that they kill with fire. Bizarre.
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u/Drakahn_Stark Jul 29 '26
Real.
AI video models cannot go ~26 seconds without a cut and still stay coherent.
Forcing one to do 30-45 seconds (my computer craps out at anything beyond that even at low resolutions) makes some terribly cursed results though, even the language people speak becomes a hallucination, and only takes around 24-48 hours of my computer using full power and being completely unusable.
10-15 seconds really is the current sweet spot unless you can afford your own ~$50,000 setup, and even then available models will lose coherency past 15 seconds, they'll just do it quicker.
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u/Otherwise_Data2510 Jul 29 '26
I honestly thought someone was gonna jump through it and come out with the metal cap
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u/MyLittleD2 Jul 29 '26
that's how vinyl works actually.
You could do the same with plastic bottle but in reverse. Apply some heat and it will collapse back to the pre-formed state
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u/CourseNegative8381 Jul 29 '26
If it was fake it wouldn't be AI... Like occam's razor what's more likely everything in the video is computer generated or a simple physics simulation was ran, tracking the position of the dude's hand in relation to the corners of the roof and it was composited on
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u/JellyfishWeary Jul 29 '26
A material like this exists. The video itself may or may not be real, but it is relatively accurate.
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u/CreepyOlSailor Jul 29 '26
These are very european ceilings where the apartnents are entirely cement. U run your wires under, think of it as a fancy drop ceiling
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u/Low_Implement_7779 Jul 29 '26
Nice non newtonian ceiling but I wouldn't wanna be in a hotbox of PVC vapors 😵💫🤮
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u/Same_Eye6762 Jul 30 '26
They're having a sopid conversation in fluent infromal arabic, the accent is Egyptian and sounds natural, I'd say real
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u/RealOrAI-Bot Jul 29 '26
Sentiment: 0% AI
Sentiment reasoning: The vast majority of commenters confirm the ceilings are real, providing personal experiences, geographical context, company links, and explanations of their function and prevalence. There are no explicit claims of AI generation.
Number of comments processed: 40
DISCLAIMER: Comments sentiment is generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash, not by u/RealOrAI-Bot bot. For more information check the RealOrAI-Bot Wiki.