Ahhh the movie theater.
The place where you go to get away from it all and unplug for a couple of hours whilst eating your body weight in "butter"-soaked popcorn and Sour Patch Kids.
It's also the place where you both accept and expect to experience some questionable distractions.
From people bringing their own three-course meals to influencer hopefuls making obnoxious videos, a bootlegger or two and noises in the back row that you will absolutely not investigate, there is never a shortage of eyebrow-raising shenanigans at the theater.
And we won't even get started on people taking off their shoes in public. Please stop that.
But some recent moviegoers on X, formerly Twitter, were in absolute disbelief over their rowmate...because, well, it wasn't a real person at all.
X user @MrSloaneRanger posted photos to the platform revealing that a guy who sat next to them at the theater brought in a ventriloquist dummy and sat it on the seat next to him...with its very own bucket of popcorn.
They tweeted:
"About to watch a movie and this grown a** man pulls out a suitcase, takes out and assembles a ventriloquist doll, and gives him popcorn."
"He informed us his name was Raymond...."
Thankfully, it sounded like the experience wasn't displeasurable, just...interesting.
"Honestly the guy was funny and charming about it, but still..."
@MrSloaneRanger/X
The photos show his very entertained pal, some frightened moviegoers in the row behind the doll and Raymond—with his bag of popcorn—and his owner.
@MrSloaneRanger/X
@MrSloaneRanger/X
And though the X poster said everything was okay, viewers of the photos were definitely not.
Others, however, believe the ventriloquist is entitled to a good time just like everyone else.
Some were even curious as to whether the ventriloquist paid for his doll's seat (fair inquiry)...
...and the X user said the he actually did.
Well, we definitely feel the ventriloquist should do what brings him joy...as long as he doesn't sit too close to us 👀.
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
michellesiemienowski/Instagram
