YouTube star Yousef Erakat set out to do the impossible. Earlier this month, Erakat promised his fans that he’d give them a free, “Coachella-caliber experience” on July 15, all of which had been organized in less than five days.
Erakat, a frequent YouTube prankster and vlogger whose “fouseyTUBE” account boasts 10 million YouTube subscribers, said his “Hate Dies / Love Dies” event would be a kind of good-vibes catharsis for the whole world.
Biggest of all, Erakat promised an appearance from rapper Drake if the livestream of his event received more than 2 million viewers at one time.
“Need 2,000,000 viewers by 9PM for @Drake to grace the stage,” Erakat tweeted.
That’s not how it worked out, though. Rather than Drake, the thousands of people who showed up for the free event at Los Angeles’s Greek Theatre saw only a couple of YouTube personalities dancing on a stage before a bomb threat shut down the event entirely. Erakat climbed on top of a vehicle in an evacuation pulled up his shirt, and began hectoring a YouTube rival in the crowd.
Erakat’s event is just the latest hastily arranged event from a YouTube personality to fizzle spectacularly. In June, YouTube personality Tana Mongeau organized Tanacon, a convention planned over only a few weeks. But after being mobbed by thousands more fans than the event could hold, police shut Tanacon down, leaving lingering questions about whether Mongeau and other organizers deliberately gave out too many tickets.
The prospect of a Tanacon repeat hung over Erakat’s event, which rival YouTubers were quick to dub “Fouseycon” after it flopped.
As it turned out, Drake never actually showed. He was never even involved in the event to begin with, according to a source close to the situation, who said that Drake “definitely didn’t know” Erakat.
Still, Erakat repeatedly mentioned Drake in his promotion of the show, even kicking off the event with a video of Erakat imitating kneeling during a Muslim prayer to the tune of Drake’s “God’s Plan.”
A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman confirmed to The Daily Beast that a bomb threat was called into the event. No bomb was discovered in the venue, and police have not made any arrests in the case.
In the aftermath of the bomb threat, Erakat blamed mischievous fans of Sam Pepper, another prankster who showed up to the event. The next day, Pepper, who was briefly detained by police, shot back that Erakat had become “a meme.”
Erakat and Pepper didn’t respond to requests for comment. Erakat has already moved on to his next dubious project, claiming that he’ll sell 100 million copies of a self-help book.
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