The past year or so has shed a lot of publicity on YouTubers - and not in the prettiest light. As of lately, people have been going above and beyond, sometimes in deadly, vicious ways, doing things for views that leave most people wondering why. Parents are being thrown in jail and having children taken away for pranks, people are getting hurt, and more and more often things are getting taken way too far. Perhaps it has something to do with the changes YouTube made in their monetization rules in 2018, only accounts with over one thousand subscribers and four thousand hours of watched video in order to make money, but something has got to give.
The latest saga in YouTube pranks gone wrong has to do with Walmart employees. Spoiler alert: they aren't happy.
PRANK GONE WRONG: What do you think of this? A social media creator went to a Richmond @Walmart and told employees they were fired. One woman broke down because her husband's medical expenses depend on her job. Her emotional plea for these pranks to end @abc13houston at 455pm. pic.twitter.com/l1CKMF2kWM
— Nick Natario (@NickABC13) May 8, 2019
Lauren Love, who runs several YouTube channels with her partner Joel Ashley, and garners millions of views, did something pretty unthinkable last week. She is receiving some major backlash after filming a "prank" video where she went to a Texas Walmart store, and pretended to be a high-level executive. Oh, and she went around telling employees they were fired.
Yikes.
The YouTube couple shares a main account, "Joel and Lauren Tv," which has 1.3 million subscribers, as well as personal YouTube channels, and a separate account under "the Ashley Family." Their Instagram account also has 283,000 Instagram followers alone, and they run accounts for their children, too.
While they are known for their prank videos, fans feel like this one took things too far.
The video is titled "CEO Firing People Prank IN THE HOOD (GONE WRONG)." In the video, Love goes to a Walmart in Richmond, Texas dressed in business attire, claiming to be from management and pretends to fire employees.
During the video, which has since been taken down, you can hear love saying, "Hopefully it's funny. I dunno if it's going to go wrong or bad," and telling people things like, "I'll have to take your badge and your jacket from you; you're fired.
There are pranks, and there’s stupid crap like this. This is straight up bullying. Hope they do it to the wrong fed up employee and get their ass knocked out
— Can’t flimflam the Jimjam (@KingIIJames) May 8, 2019
Not only were fans unhappy with this prank video, but employees who were a part of the video, unknowing to them, have spoken out, too. Maria Leones, spoke out to two reporters at news stations in Houston saying, “Really, I was really so crushed. I felt so little, I felt so powerless,” she told the news station. “At that very moment, I felt so little, because back home I had a very good reputation because I’m a professor.”
I think we can all agree that pranks like this need to become a trend of the past.
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