Samuel Pepper (born 26 March 1989) is an English internet personality. He created his
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
channel in 2010, accumulating over 2 million subscribers and 55 million video views . He joined
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version ...
in 2020 and has amassed more than 4 million followers there as of October 2021.
Early life
Samuel Pepper
[ was born on 26 March 1989 in ]Ashford, Kent
Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Great Stour at the southern or Escarpment, scarp edge of the North Downs, about southeast of central London and northwest of Folkestone by road. In the ...
. He is half Greek. He attended Pent Valley Technology College
Turner Free School is a co-educational secondary school located in the Cheriton area of Folkestone in the English county of Kent.
The school is located at the former site of Pent Valley Technology College.
History Pent Valley
The school w ...
in Cheriton, Kent
Cheriton is a northern suburb of Folkestone in Kent. It is the location of the English terminal of the Channel Tunnel as well as of the major army barracks of Shorncliffe Camp.
History
The coastal plain where the North Downs meet the Strait ...
.
Career
''Big Brother 11'' and early media career (2010–2014)
In 2010, Pepper took part in the 11th season of the British reality television series '' Big Brother'' as a housemate, entering the house on day 52 as Laura's replacement as part of the "Ignore the Obvious" task. He was evicted on day 73 with 14.6% of the public vote.
On 8 September 2010, Pepper created his YouTube channel and began uploading videos, mainly consisting of pranks
A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...
, voicing himself in Element Animation's ''The Crack!'' in 2011. From late-2013 to mid-2014, Pepper, alongside friend and fellow YouTube personality Marius "Maz" Listhrop, began his worldwide comedy tour, "WDGAF Tour".
Growth and controversy (2014–2015)
"Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank"
In September 2014, Pepper uploaded a controversial video titled "Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank". In the video, Pepper would go up to women and ask for directions before pinching their buttocks. Soon after the video was published, many people online (later identified as trolls
A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...
) claimed to have been sexually harassed by Pepper in the video, which soon gained mainstream media attention. Subsequently, the hashtag #ReportSamPepper trended on Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, along with many people criticising Pepper's actions. Pepper released another video a few days later where women would go behind men and pinch their buttocks. On the same day, he published another video explaining that his first prank was a "social experiment" and that the video was "staged and scripted" with actors, the online claims of "participants" having been fake. He went on to say that bringing attention to the issue of sexual harassment was "the focal point of the experiment", with the harassment claims online untrue jokes. Pepper removed both of these videos from YouTube shortly after their releases. Rival video blogger Laci Green
Laci Green (born October 18, 1989) is an American YouTube personality, YouTuber. Her content focuses on sex education; Green also hosted ''Braless'', the first MTV YouTube channel, as part of a 12-week deal with MTV. The first episode aired Novem ...
consequently published a video called "Sam Pepper Exposed", addressing the online harassment allegation campaign on Pepper. Green also wrote an open letter calling on Pepper to "stop violating women and making them uncomfortable on the street for views". The letter received more than 100 thousand signatures.
"Killing Best Friend Prank"
In November 2015, Pepper uploaded a video entitled "Killing Best Friend Prank". The video features internet personalities Sam Golbach and Colby Brock. In the video, a masked Pepper kidnaps Golbach and Brock (both of whom were in actuality in on the prank alongside Pepper), who are parked at an unknown location, shoving Golbach into the trunk of the car with a bag over his head. Brock helps Pepper tie up Golbach and take him to a rooftop, where he is forced to watch Pepper "shoot" Brock, leaving Golbach in tears. The video caused a backlash on social media, also hitting media headlines. British newspaper ''Metro
Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to:
Geography
* Metro (city), a city in Indonesia
* A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center
Public transport
* Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...
'' compared the video to an "ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
-style execution". A subsequent online petition to have Pepper removed from YouTube gained over 100,000 signatures.[ In an interview with ''Metro'', Pepper stated that the criticism towards the video and himself was "shocking". In the same interview, Golbach stated that the message of the video was "about living life to the full... not taking life for granted and loving it because it's short". In response to the ongoing criticism, Pepper started a ]GoFundMe
GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the b ...
campaign, stating that he would delete his YouTube channel if $1.5 million was pledged to him. The campaign was removed shortly afterwards, along with the accompanying video that was posted on his YouTube channel.
Apology and rebranding (2016–present)
On 21 February 2016, Pepper made all of his YouTube videos private and deleted all of his tweets, save for one stating "I give up". He uploaded a 20-minute video on 24 February titled "i'm sorry". In the video, Pepper confessed that many of his pranks, including his controversial "Killing Best Friend Prank", were staged. He also denied all online allegations of harassment towards him, attributed to a trolling
In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the i ...
campaign. He apologised for his videos, calling himself an "idiot" and stated that he would continue uploading on YouTube and "make content that I really believe in". After the video was published, Pepper stopped uploading prank videos and began uploading vlogs
A video blog or video log, sometimes shortened to vlog (), is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in ...
, subsequently receiving a more positive response.
In 2018, Pepper stopped uploading on his main channel and rebranded to his "Sam Pepper Live" channel, where he began vlogging and frequently live streaming
Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...
alongside fellow live streamer Ice Poseidon
Paul Denino (born September 29, 1994), better known as Ice Poseidon'','' is an American Internet personality, and live streamer, primarily of the video game ''Old School RuneScape'' and the genre. His peak prominence was in 2017 when his IRL s ...
. The following year, Pepper rebranded once again and became inactive on YouTube, subsequently shifting to TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version ...
. He mainly posts short comedy videos consisting of "challenge videos, life–hacks, and stunts"; the ''Metro
Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to:
Geography
* Metro (city), a city in Indonesia
* A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center
Public transport
* Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...
'' described his presence on the platform as a "fully-fledged comeback".
Save the Kids scandal
In 2021, Pepper, who was living and frequently collaborating with former FaZe Clan
FaZe Clan (formerly FaZe Sniping) is a professional eSports, esports and entertainment organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA. Founded on May 30, 2010, the organization has players from around the world, across multiple game ...
member Frazier Khattri (FaZe Kay), was accused by Khattri and YouTube investigator Coffeezilla
Stephen Findeisen, better known by his online alias Coffeezilla, is an American YouTuber and crypto journalist who is known primarily for his channel in which he investigates and discusses alleged online scams, usually surrounding cryptocurrenc ...
of ordering a developer on the cryptocurrency Save the Kids token
Save the Kids token was a cryptocurrency token and pump and dump scheme which was marketed as a charity token meant to give a percentage of the transaction fee to a Binance-operated charity. The token was widely publicized by YouTube personalitie ...
to change a mechanism within the currency, which after its change, would allow for the cryptocurrency to be used as a pump and dump
Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operat ...
scheme. Both Khattri and Pepper have denied substantial involvement in the Save the Kids scandal, though Khattri has come out against Pepper claiming that Pepper's "plan" was to make $1,000,000 USD from the token and vanish forever. Pepper has yet to comment specifically on Khattri's allegations, who has further vowed never to work or be associated with Pepper ever again. Coffeezilla, however, alleged that Khattri was, contrary to Khattri's claims, significantly involved in Save the Kids from the start.
Immediately subsequent to Khattri's comments, some users on Twitter nicknamed Pepper "Scam Pepper", though Pepper was known to swiftly block anyone who used the nickname.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pepper, Sam
1989 births
Big Brother (British TV series) contestants
British expatriates in the United States
English people of Greek descent
English video bloggers
English YouTubers
Living people
Male bloggers
People from Ashford, Kent
Prank YouTubers
YouTube controversies
British TikTokers
British Internet celebrities