I am sitting here, mouth slightly agape, looking at the like-to-dislike ratio of the bar below a YouTube video titled ‘Making Homeless Guys Arm Wrestle For Money!’ The video, created by an incredibly popular YouTuber (over 1 million subscribers and counting) named Coby Persin, isn’t some kind of parody or ill-advised comedy sketch. It is a real video of two homeless men being made to arm wrestle, with the winner being “awarded” $100 for their efforts. It has over 12 million views, nearly 180,000 likes and a measly 8,000 dislikes. “This video will change the way you think!” reads the description, but the only remote impact it has had upon my life is that it has transformed Coby Persin from a man whom I didn’t know existed, into a man whom I really wish I didn’t know existed.
The video begins with Persin saying: “We’re gonna find two homeless people, put them up to an arm wrestle, the winner gets $100. Let’s see what happens.” Persin and his friend then go and recruit two men lying on the street, before getting them to perform for the amusement of themselves and their subscribers. When one of the homeless men wins, he divides his $100 and gives $50 to the man who lost the impromptu contest. This was the portion of the video I assume Coby presumed would “make me think,” but here’s the thing: unlike Coby, I still view homeless people as human beings. I wasn’t shocked when the man divided his winnings, as I am perfectly capable of believing that a human, regardless of whether or not they have been forced to live on the streets, is capable of empathy. The video didn’t make me think. It made me angry.
Diving into Coby Persin’s library of abhorrent videos reveals more of these faux “social experiments,” including his most recent (and second most popular) video, ‘The Dangers of Social Media (Child Predator Experiment).’ The video sees Persin adopting a role similar to that of Chris Hansen’s in Dateline NBC’s highly controversial To Catch a Predator, only instead of sitting down with a paedophile, he instead confronts young girls (a 13-year-old and a 12-year-old) after posing as a teenage boy online. When they eventually meet up with him and discover that he’s not the teenager he pretended to be, their fathers ambush them and begin to shout at them about how they “COULDA BEEN RAPED AND MURDERED!”
Things get even more sickening when Coby lures a young girl into his van, before he and two masked individuals hiding in the backseat of his truck promptly grab her whilst she screams and cries. After they unmask to reveal themselves as the young girl’s parents (after the girl has desperately tried to escape the vehicle), the trio then attempt to educate the girl on what is/isn’t sensible adult behavior… after hiding in the back of a van in order to scare a 13-year-old shitless.
It’s harrowing to watch, and in terms of social experiments it stands to teach us nothing about social behavior other than “some children do dumb things.” Nonetheless, Coby begins the video by informing viewers that we should use what we’ve learned in order to better educate our friends and family, pitching himself as some sort of beacon of hope amidst a dark and seedy world and hoping that you’ll spread his message because it’s IMPORTANT, GUYS. Or, y’know, because it earns him more money when his videos are shared.
Coby’s delusion that he is offering something of a public service with his videos is a recurring theme among YouTubers of his ilk, with them pulling these stunts whilst convincing viewers that they are doing so for the greater good, either to highlight society’s failings or because their loathsome actions are all part of a “prank,” even though they rarely fit that description. Sam Pepper is a prime example of this, but unfortunately remains one of the only YouTubers to have been called out by the site’s community. Pepper uploaded a “prank” video wherein he hid his hand under a sweatshirt before engaging female passersby in conversation. Then, when their backs were turned, he’d promptly pinch their backsides. Now, in the context of a random man on the street doing this with no cameras surrounding him, this would rightly be deemed sexual harassment and, if the women had chosen to do so, they would have been well within their rights to inform the authorities of Sam’s behavior – but because a camera was in the vicinity, it was just a harmless li’l prank.
Unfortunately for Sam, unlike his other YouTubing peers he orchestrated the video without the degree of subtlety that is necessary for them to get away with doing inappropriate things – y’see, rather than begin the video with the caveat that it was a part of a “social experiment,” he instead simply went out and grabbed some asses. After the Internet expressed its disapproval, mainly due to YouTuber Laci Green calling him out on it, he then posted a video saying that the video was somehow some form of social commentary concerning sexual assault. It didn’t make any sense, but as proven by other YouTubers’ videos, it didn’t really have to – if he would have begun the video with that statement, it’s arguable that his video would have received anywhere near the amount of vitriol it did, because it seems that the alarming majority have come to accept these YouTubers’ alarming lack of sincerity when it comes to thinking of excuses for their repulsive actions.
Oh, and what does Sam Pepper do now that he can’t sexually assault people? He makes videos featuring homeless people which are apparently intended to “make you think” about what you value in life, with them depicting people discussing how they want fast cars or more money, before revealing how homeless people want for nothing other than happiness or a place to sleep that night. “It might change your mind on what’s really important,” Sam says of the video.
That video was posted on August 4th, which is roughly around the same time that he posted this image of him exiting a Ferrari on Instagram:
The most depressing thing about Coby Persin/Sam Pepper is that their format works. Them thinking up these awful stunts then wrapping them within the context of a prank/social experiment is essentially clearing them of any wrongdoing, and they pull in huge numbers and earn a great deal of money by doing so.
They are not the only ones doing this, though. There are a whole army of YouTubers who post similar videos whilst pretending that they are harmless pranksters or conductors of important social experiments, with their actions not being confronted by YouTube as a company nor the YouTube community as a whole. Meanwhile, YouTube joyfully removes videos that wrongfully receive a solitary copyright strike from a major corporation, yet sees no harm in a video of a naked man charging at women and asking for their phone number.
Sam Pepper’s video is the only “prank” video of its kind that I can remember being pulled by YouTube in recent history, and that’s arguably only because Sam slipped up and didn’t include his lame excuse for it in the video itself, but rather followed up with it at a later date. Meanwhile YouTube is littered with similar videos that are willfully overlooked thanks to them being branded as pranks or social experiments, and for the most part everyone continues to let this happen and these individuals are still financially supported by YouTube and, by extension, the site’s owners Google.
With Sam Pepper being allowed to continue with his YouTube career and so many of his peers creating increasingly troubling videos, it’s a wonder how far they’ll have to overstep the boundaries of what is acceptable until someone with authority takes a serious look at what the site not only deems acceptable, but also actively encourages with ad revenue. There shouldn’t have to be a public outcry in order for Google to question the behavior of its most popular video-makers – the company should be capable of doing that of its own accord.
