So, a while back now, in the "In a Nutshell" video about Costco—arguably one of my favorite stores on planet Earth—when I

went to check the comment section, amongst people sharing their Costco love stories and employees revealing secrets about the store, I kept seeing one thing

over and over: "You should do a video about IKEA. Do IKEA next. IKEA next. You should do IKEA next. IKEA next. IKEA in a

nutshell. When do IKEA? Please, next IKEA?"

Do you guys honestly think I give in that easily? That I just read all your

comments and just make a video because so many of you requested it? Am I going to do that? Yes!

Ah, Sweden, the land of IKEA, ABBA, PewDiePie, and, of course, IKEA.

Now, Costco and IKEA aren't too dissimilar in the fact that they're both

gigantic warehouses, but nothing is more striking than seeing that gigantic blue building with that shiny yellow logo

repping the Swedish colors—Swedish flags posted outside the building. In fact, I believe they should just take all

existing Swedish embassies and move them into IKEA's.

Founded on the 28th of July 1943 in Älmhult, Sweden. Okay, you're going to

have to let me off for my Swedish pronunciation the entire way through this video. I can already see all my

Swedish audience disappearing as I speak. Anyway, founded on the 28th of July 1943

in Älmhult, Sweden, by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad. Then the first IKEA store

officially opened in 1958. IKEA now have 474 stores worldwide across 64 countries. So, while at 17, Ingvar was starting a

Swedish retail empire, I was unemployed, getting killed on Overwatch.

Now, for any of you that are unaware or have

never had the chance to go, IKEA is a giant furniture wonderland. And when I say giant, boy, these things can get big.

The largest Ikea in the world, in Pasay City, Philippines, is an eye-watering 65,000

square meters, which is actually the size of Sweden! In fact, they're so large, the second you enter the store, there is a

huge map of the entire building, as well as arrows along the floor that you have to follow around the store, like you're

playing some weird Swedish version of Bloons Tower Defense. And although they have numerous safety measures in place to ensure you don't get lost in

the frantic field of furnishings, it's a common fact that Ikea does not have a staff recruitment process; no job

interviews. They simply wait for the weak customers to wander off the track, get lost, and become consumed by the store. So,

walking into this primary-colored palace, you're met with all your furniture needs. Now, Ikea predominantly works off a sort

of showroom design, so as you walk around the store, there'll be these pre-made example rooms, like the ones you can clip

onto your house in The Sims, that you're free to wander around to your heart's content, each full of various pieces of

furniture that you can purchase individually. Which sounds harmless on the surface, and a good method really, but

when you're walking around the rooms alone, especially if the store is somewhat empty, it is the eeriest thing

ever. The rooms are so detailed, you forget you're in Ikea for a second and fall for the illusion until you try to

turn a tap on and no water comes out, or the fake plastic Ikea food on an Ikea plate, sat atop an Ikea table, that looks

far too edible for my liking. At times, I feel like I'm walking around someone's actual living room; like the spaces are

so detailed and feel lived in, I'm convinced one day I'm just going to walk around Ikea and find my own bedroom on

display, or I'll wander into a showroom and I'll just find a bloke drinking a Stella while he's watching the Premier

League, then I'll go to leave and it turns out I wasn't in Ikea at all and I

was in a house in Greater Manchester. But hey, I mean, speaking of getting lost, I guess Ikea would be one of the better

places to get lost in, really. You're basically living in a 200-room house. Also important to note that Ikea has to

be in the top three places ever to play hide-and-seek, not that I do that, of course, because I'm a fully grown man. I

play tag instead. It seems that everyone is drawn to an Ikea at some point in their lives to fill out their house with

the Swedish craftsmanship. It's fun walking around and seeing the different furniture they have on offer. Oh, that's

nice. Oh, that would look great here. And something I do every single time without even realizing it is a feat of human

nature: when you're in an Ikea, no matter how many times you walk past a sofa, you either have to sit on it to test the

comfort, or so you don't look like you're playing some sort of freak game of musical chairs, sitting on every

single sofa on the store floor. You do that weird subtle thing where you lean to one side and push your hand into them

to test the sitting capabilities. Why do I do this every time? Like I'm some sort of professional sofa reviewer, walking

around with a clipboard, pushing my hand into sofas. And it's even worse with the beds. They need to put chains around

those bad boys, 'cause you damn well bet I'm lying on every single one of them at any given chance and rating them in a tier

list on which one is best, then buying none of them. It takes me about 9 hours total to get around the store by the

Time I'm done violating all the products and how can I forget about the product names and iconic part of Ikea?

experience, ah, the Swedish furniture names. Now, whilst to the untrained monolingual eye it may look like an

employee jumped on a keyboard, but the names do have logic to them. Each product is a Swedish word relating to that type

of product. So, outdoor products are named after Scandinavian islands, rugs are named after towns in Sweden and Denmark. But to anyone that doesn't speak Swedish,

the names can offer up a range of emotions upon first read. Ikea is the only store in existence that can make

common household products sound like warriors: Vorg the Destroyer, Silveron the Mighty, Oar Blomster the grey bedspread,

150x210cm for £7. And certain products are named after Swedish names, so you can have a bookshelf called Billy, the Billy

bookshelf. You know, I personally think we should apply this system to every store out there. I want to be able to walk into

my nearest department store and buy a crowbar called Derek, or a lawnmower called Russell. Now, most Ikea products

are flatpack, a system introduced to Ikea in the 1950s. So, put shortly, you have to follow the Ikea instructions and

build the product from scratch with the parts you're given. Kind of like adult Lego, which seems easy in theory, but you

lose one screw and the whole thing is a write-off. I'm so bad at constructing Ikea flatpack furniture that I'll make

a mistake and just accept it and use the furniture anyway. So I'll have people come around to visit and be like, 'Why

does this table have three straight legs and one that's forcefully drilled into the top of it?' And I'll sort of just play

it off like, 'Oh, that's the... the design. It said that in the instructions.' That's the Gareth table, which is a great cover-up.

and all but it doesn't fix when you're alone and your flat-pack fumbles start affecting your daily life. I'll be eating

my dinner and it'll just slide onto the floor out of nowhere because I read the instructions wrong three months earlier.

And one leg is 3 inches smaller than all the others. At this point, my house is so full

of IKEA flat-pack furniture built wrong that it looks like I'm trying to host some abstract art show with various

weird sculptures. Now, in life, there are often times where you have to make a decision: what career path you want, your

firstborn's name, what color Crocs you want to wear each morning, and arguably the most important question every

individual needs to answer is which IKEA stuffed animal toy you choose to own. Forget the furniture; the stuffed animals

are IKEA's best range of products by a mile. There is, of course, the Blåhaj, the shark that did the rounds on

Twitter to the point where it's sold out on the IKEA website everywhere. You have a range of choices: the pig, the snake, the

tiger, the panda, the wolf, the polar bear, the shark. But never fear, if you struggle to decide, you can take this BuzzFeed

quiz to decide which one closely relates to you. Well, I took the test, answered each question like, 'Pick a favorite snack,'

how does that relate to the...? Anyway, my results were in: Blåhaj, the shark. You're probably off enjoying the great outdoors,

you're always on the move. I've spent the last week sat in front of my PC writing a video about a Swedish furniture store

and taking a BuzzFeed quiz. Regardless, BuzzFeed had given me my IKEA stuffed animal of choice: Blåhaj, the shark. Thank

you, BuzzFeed. So I headed over to the IKEA website and bought the Junglecok, the monkey. Come on, I had to; it's a damn

Monkey, nothing against blahos, but look at him. And if you want to take a break from all the furniture action, you have

IKEA's other attractions, like the restaurant with the iconic IKEA meatballs. Scientifically proven that when consumed, each meatball increases

your Swedish heritage by 1%, or these huge billboards for cinnamon buns that state that this is not the actual size.

Like, people think that IKEA secretly serves a giant cinnamon bun that they're storing in the back somewhere that

holds a soft spot in my heart. Småland. Now, this place brings back memories of when I was a kid. So, simply put, Småland is basically a sort of play area that parents can leave their kids in whilst they venture into the IKEA

labyrinth. Now, whenever I would enter Småland, it felt like heaven. Rivers of plastic balls, felt trees to rest under

after a hard day of doing absolutely nothing, caves to explore. It was like an oasis, a resort. I could have spent

hours in Småland. Now, I will admit, after Googling it as an adult, it didn't really live up to my memories, but I was

convinced it was better than this. Maybe it was shrouded in nostalgia. Now, when

you walk around IKEA, you of course don't just pick up the pieces of furniture out of the showrooms and put them in your

trolley, regardless of what one couple thought. Instead, you note the little number down, and then when you finally

reached the end of the store—you've even made it through the jungle of the houseplant section, the maze of miscellaneous

movables behind you—with your notepad of products scribbled down with an IKEA pencil, you're presented with the

warehouse: towering metal shelves piled with flat-pack fortunes. Very Costco-esque, in fact. Then you simply find the

products down the hallway, out of boxes, and pile them in your car. And finally, I thought I'd share some stories from the

IKEA. Firstly, the IKEA monkey. December 9th, 2012: Darwin the monkey escapes from a locked crate on a nearby truck, makes

his way towards the closest IKEA and, in his fur-lined coat, just wanders around. Or when New Jersey couple Shirley

Stewart and Berkeley Rashid Smith got married in their local IKEA, as it's where they met. Or the strange phenomena,

sweeping fashion: the trend of making IKEA-themed clothing, or even using the brightly colored 99p IKEA bags to

construct garments. I did indeed visit IKEA whilst making this video, and it's a great time if you've never been or

IKEA in a Nutshell

IKEA in a Nutshell

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