What happened in 'Hawkins RN'? The viral TikTok video explained

Recently, a resurfaced video recorded on a video doorbell camera has gone viral after TikTokers joke about the town of Hawkins from the Netflix series Stranger Things.

The old viral video was captioned “The whole town of Hawkins RN (right now)” and had people comparing an incident that occurred in the United States to the fictional TV show.

What is the Hawkins RN video?

In the viral clip, a person could be seen stepping outside of their home dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts. The man could be heard shouting, “Holy s**t” and observing something that had occurred in the distance.

The dark sky appeared lit up in the distance and the man continued to shout as car alarms could be heard going off. The man continued, shouting, “Fuck. That’s one hell of a boom, get back in the house.”

Following the release of Stranger Things season 4, the clip went viral due to the events that took place in the show as the villain, Vecna, turned the town of Hawkins into the Upside Down.

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Where did the video come from?

Despite the caption referencing fictional events, the actual doorbell footage was real and filmed in Port Neches, Texas in the aftermath of a huge explosion at a plant.

It occurred on 27 November 2019 when a TPC plant exploded at 1 am as a lot of the town slept. The explosion was caused by a build-up of what is known as “popcorn polymer” – a chemical material – over the space of 100 days.

Eventually, the pipe ruptured causing 6,000 gallons of liquid butadiene (flammable petroleum-based chemical) to fly into the air. The explosion could be felt 30 miles away.

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