Viral Mystery Trend and Script Scraper

Stop spending hours looking for content ideas. This Actor finds the most viral mystery, paranormal and conspiracy posts on Reddit and Hispanic forums and turns them into ready-to-use scripts for YouTube, TikTok, and podcasts in seconds.

Used by content creators in the mystery/paranormal niche to generate weeks of video ideas in one automated run.

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What Does This Actor Do?

This Actor scans the biggest English-language mystery subreddits (r/UnresolvedMysteries, r/UFOs, r/Paranormal, r/HighStrangeness, r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix) and optional custom Hispanic forum URLs to find posts that are going viral right now.

It extracts:

• The full post text (the complete story, ready to narrate)
• The top comments with the most upvotes (for theories, witness accounts, reactions)
• Engagement metrics (upvote count, comment count, awards)
• Publication date and direct link to source

All data is structured and saved to an Apify dataset ready to download as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

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Who Is This For?

• YouTube creators in the mystery, paranormal, terror, or conspiracy niche
• Podcasters who need fresh, engaging story content each week
• TikTok creators looking for short viral story hooks
• Content strategists researching trending topics in Spanish-speaking markets
• Scriptwriters who want pre-sourced material from verified online communities

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Input Parameters

Field	Type	Default	Description
subreddits	String list	5 mystery subreddits	Subreddits to scan (without the r/)
customUrls	String list	empty	Full URLs of Hispanic forums or other sites to scrape
minUpvotes	Integer	1000	Only include posts with at least this many upvotes
timeRange	Select	24h	How far back to look: Last 24h, 48h, or 7 days
maxCommentsPerPost	Integer	5	How many top comments to extract per post
maxItems	Integer	50	Maximum total results to return
proxyConfiguration	Proxy	Apify Residential	Required for Reddit — uses Apify Proxy to bypass blocks

Important: Proxy Required for Reddit

Reddit blocks requests from datacenter IPs. The proxyConfiguration field is set to use Apify Residential Proxy by default, which is what allows this Actor to access Reddit reliably. If you disable proxy or use a datacenter proxy, Reddit will block requests and you will get 0 results.

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Output Format

Each row in the output dataset contains:

{
  "source": "r/UnresolvedMysteries",
  "title": "The disappearance of Lars Mittank at the Bulgarian airport has never been solved",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/abc123/",
  "engagement_score": 34200,
  "comment_count": 892,
  "created_at": "2026-06-30T14:22:00.000Z",
  "full_text_content": "Lars Mittank was a 28-year-old German tourist who disappeared from Varna Airport in Bulgaria in 2014...",
  "top_comments": [
    {
      "author": "user123",
      "score": 4100,
      "body": "The CCTV footage shows him running in pure panic from something only he could see..."
    }
  ],
  "scraped_at": "2026-07-01T10:00:00.000Z"
}

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How to Use

Via Apify Console (No-Code)

1. Click Try for free on this page
2. Configure your subreddits, time range, and minimum upvotes
3. Click Start — results appear in the Output tab within minutes
4. Download as CSV or JSON from the Storage tab

Via Apify API (Developers)

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/constructive_junk~viral-mystery-trend-script-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "subreddits": ["UnresolvedMysteries", "Paranormal"],
    "timeRange": "24h",
    "minUpvotes": 2000,
    "maxItems": 20
  }'

Schedule Automated Daily Runs

In the Apify Console, go to Schedules and set this Actor to run every morning. Wake up to fresh viral content every day.

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Pricing

This Actor uses Pay per result pricing:

• $0.01 per Actor start
• $2.00 per 1,000 results

A typical run returning 25 results costs approximately $0.06.

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FAQ

Why do I get 0 results? Reddit requires a residential proxy. Make sure proxyConfiguration is enabled with useApifyProxy: true and the RESIDENTIAL group selected.

Can I scrape forums in Spanish? Yes! Add Spanish forum URLs to the customUrls field. The Actor extracts the main body text from any HTML page.

How fresh is the data? With timeRange: 24h, you get posts from the last 24 hours only. Run it daily for the freshest content.

Can I use this for TikTok? Absolutely. The full_text_content gives you the story; use the top_comments for your hook.

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Technical Details

• Runtime: Node.js 18+ (ESM)
• Framework: CheerioCrawler (crawlee)
• Sources: Reddit JSON API and custom HTML scraping
• Proxy: Apify Proxy (RESIDENTIAL group recommended)
• Output: Apify Dataset (JSON/CSV/Excel export available)

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Crafted for mystery content creators by Maria Correa-Resto.