How Airrack Pulls Off YouTube's Biggest Pranks

- This is a viral moment right here. KSI has absolutely no idea that this is happening. - Bro, how am I being arrested? - We spend so much time in money prepping this. This could go wrong in any possible time. It's the only way to prank a YouTuber though. Hey guys, it's Eric. I am going to break down one of my craziest videos of all time. I'm arresting YouTubers. They're going to jail. I'm gonna show you the behind the scenes, how we pull big pranks like this off, and things you would never see. There's a GoPro that's hidden into the side panel of the car. The 360 cam mouse in the very center right here. - My God, KSI's really good. - How do you hire real cops for a YouTube prank? - There's a art form to it. If this goes too far, these cops would have broken the bit and called the whole thing off. - How much are you inspired by shows like punks? - I actually tried to license punks. I actually called Ashley Kutcher. - Oh my God. - Dude, right, I'm still telling them. - This is such an amazing shot. - It's an insane moment. - Are you feeling that pressure? - So much. - Moments like this, when we're filming these videos are the only time that I get nervous. (upbeat music) - Hey guys, it's Ayrac. I am going to show you the breakdown of I arrested YouTubers. Let's do it. - These are some of the biggest live streamers in the world getting arrested. - See, over the past few months, a couple of my streamer buddies have wronged me. - So, to get back in my friends, I'm gonna surprise them with a simple prank. - What are we doing? - I'm glad you asked. - We're gonna arrest KSI. (laughing) - So, I'm in Nashville, Tennessee for this one. - Yeah. - This is for KSI. Boxer, YouTuber, creator of the worst rated song of all time. It's horrible. - He said it not me. - He said it. - No, I said it. Yeah, it's a horrible song. It'll come back to haunt him here in the video. Don't worry about that. - Okay, wow. - Yeah. This is a one-day shoot. - Is that typical? You're like, in and out like that or you're. - That's the goal. I think one of the cool parts of the channel is it kind of feels like I'm everywhere at once and nobody knows how it happens. It's just like tight shoot days with prep. So, over in this seat over here, something you might not notice is Christina, who is my head producer. She's a super genius. She has been in Nashville for four days, leading up to this video. Setting everything up, talking to the local police, setting locations up for me, getting any props I need ordered so that I can fly in, shoot this bit, and get out the same day. We're on the way to Mamm's Taylor's Ranch. Where my friend Jideon, YouTube's biggest menace. It's helping me pull this off. - You've got to piss a whole lot of people off. - Right now, they're in the middle of filming a try not to laugh. - No, I don't just laugh at nothing, bro. (laughing) - But what JJ doesn't know is. - Actual police officers are gonna come, pull him out of the house, arrest him, throw him in the back of a cop car. I don't think I'm gonna let him go until he gives us a private concert. - The last time you did this, you just arrested Jimmy. What did you learn from the last time? - The prep for something to be that realistic and that well filmed is a lot. So that's why production's in town days before me to make sure that everything is dialed down perfectly. Because it's all real. If KSI sees a camera and he realizes it's a prank, it's over, it's over. And now I have to refill my new bit with a brand new YouTuber. - Oh well. - So the sticks are high. - Before we got there, we met up with the real officers who were gonna help us pull this off. (laughing) Are these real cops? These are real cops, these are actual cops, yeah. - Yeah, there's a art form to it. They will not let you hire them like on the phone. So I'll send a producer to the local police department four days early with donuts and treats. But we always try to find like inside men, you can pay them, you can pay police officers on an off duty rate to show up, but they have to have the project approved by their boss. So we literally just show up to police departments in different local cities until we get someone who's down. - And they're allowed to show up in uniform. They're allowed to show up in uniform. - Drive the car, like the police car? - Yes. - Even though they're off duty, this is basically a skit and a prank. - As long as their boss approves it, which most of the time they don't, you can do it, yeah, you can. The thing about it is like theoretically, I could probably hire cop actors, but they're YouTubers who have hired cop actors themselves. And you just know the difference, which is not cop actor in a real cop. - Is that guy who does all the lie detector? - Yes, yes. - Everybody knows that guy. - Exactly. - And nobody buys an animal. - Exactly, yeah. - Yeah. (laughing) - It's so uncomfortable, bro. - It's really, really tight. Not my first time. Got to the clip? - I'm banned from the Super Bowl. - Not joking. Do you ever worry about your records, like your police records, like from making YouTube videos down the road? - Uh-huh. - No. - Not at all. - I think I just plan on a version of reality where it doesn't matter, I guess. I was supposed to go to Brazil tomorrow to go film with the chiefs for one of Jimmy's videos. - Yeah. - And the NFL said I couldn't do it because I snuck into the Super Bowl. So, chiefs, I'm very sorry. Please let me come hang out with you guys in the future. - If you're ahead of there right now, they should be finishing up the video. - JJ and his bodyguard have a flight back to the UK today. - You wanna miss this flight? - I want him to miss this flight by about six months and sit at a federal pedotenture, you know what I mean? It's just a prank, though. - It's just a prank, though. - And Eric, tell me about the cameras. I'm seeing a few here already. - Yeah. - So, in order to be discreet, KSI, obviously YouTuber, knows how cameras work, knows what fake police officers look like. We need to be as discreet as possible. So, these guys have body cams on right here, right here. These body cams are mine. I bought these police body cams. So, these go home with me and all the footage on them goes home with me. We have a dash cam in the very front of the car up here, filming backwards. There's a GoPro mapped up in the corner up here that's hidden into the side panel of the car. And then we have a 360 cam mounted in the very center right here. This one I was nervous about because people know what an NC360 looks like. So, I try to hide it as much as possible. And I'm planning on the idea that KSI is going to sort of hang out somewhere right in here where Tyler and I were, which my plane kind of went sideways. You'll see. - Okay, all right. - I'm on my vantage point right now that cops are walking up to the house as we see who I have their cameras on my iPad. - So, I join. - Good. (laughing) - Do this is, this is Manus Taylor. He's KSI's manager, boxing legend. Manages the whole misfits company. This is his house. So, he's one of two people who know that this is happening. - Okay, got it. - Yeah, how do you conspire with KSI's team like in a way that they won't tell him? - Some of my videos like hiding in streamer streams or hiding in YouTubers videos, it's really easy 'cause it's just me and the YouTuber talking about what the funniest way for me to hide in their video or whatever it is. This is much harder because I can't talk to the one person who owns the YouTube channel. I have to find the person that knows the person that runs the YouTube channel, but it's trustworthy enough to not tell them that we're doing this. Very hard person to find. Lucky for me, the person who told me that this shoot was happening was Gideon, who is a notorious YouTube prankster, shout out Gideon. He is my inside man on the shoot. So, KSI brought Gideon out to come film a Toronto Lab video for KSI's channel. And so, I have sort of a run-up show that I've typed up and before I even come into town, these guys are going over the run-up show. They know kind of what the narrative of the prank is. Mams has been able to rehearse some of his lines. And so, now they're playing out a play that they've basically all rehearsed together, but the only person that's new is KSI. He's never seen the show before. - Wait, my mind goes to, like, what is his motivation to do this? Like, that is a ton of time. Like, rehearsing, like, pre-production, like, KSI is already a big YouTuber, but what is there, like, motive? What is there incentive to spend all this time helping you with your video? - I think with every creator, it's different. Sometimes it's literally a friend wanting to pull a prank on their friend, who just so happens to be a giant YouTuber. For specifically here, KSI is actually re-watching his YouTube channel, which I'm so excited about personally. So, it's an opportunity, I think, for publicity for everything. - Makes sense, wow. - Uh, Mr. Taylor? - Yeah. - Mams are you? It looks like they're pressing Mams, the owner of the house right now. - We just gotta call it. There was some things going on here. We've said to come out and check it out. - All right, you mind if we come in? Check it out, everybody. - Okay. - There's other options as far as filming this, but I love the feeling of real body camp footage, because it's so realistic. It's just so real. Is it all right? Is there anybody else there? - Oh, there's JJ, there's JJ, there's JJ. - But I'm not. - Oh my God, there's no way. - It's good. - So, Jadeon is fully in on this, by the way. And I was very curious to see what he was going to do. - Oh, something about some criminal threats. - My God, KSI's re-watching this. (laughing) So, you can see Jadeon is right here. He knows this is happening. He's putting on his 10 out of 10 acting chops right now. And KSI is like shocked beyond belief. The context you have to think about with KSI is he's from the UK. So, I have a little bit of advantage because he has no idea what US police even look like. So, this is like terrifying to him. Like, imagining the UK and you see like, the royal guard pull up into a house. Like, you're gonna be so scared. - Oh, yeah. - Yeah. - Oh, something about some criminal threats being made online. Y'all know anything about that. - What? - Oh, he's not moving. He's not moving. - He's freaking out. (laughing) - KSI's mouth is not closed. - Yeah. - That police walked in. - And you're gonna see in a second. He gets way more terrified than this. - Okay. - For everything. Y'all mind if we see everybody's eye game. - Yeah, yeah. - Sure. - Actually, I'm a wallet stolen yesterday. It's cool if I give it to you. - Going so well. - Yeah, that's fine. - Yeah. - Oh, this is going so well. Jedeon's acting is etched here. I think it's so funny seeing YouTubers in this context. Like, on body cams, it's just such viral footage. You know what I mean? The only way to get this is a real cop. Like, scolding a YouTuber is just god tier footage. Because it's so awesome. Are you in town or what, I wouldn't even tonight. You're like video gameers or something. Why is he starting to film? So KSI's videographer just starts filming and my cops are obviously not actually arresting him so they just let it happen. His mind just went to like, "Oh, this is interesting, could be used for like. " You may not know like that you're involved yet. That's right. No, he probably has no idea. They actually ended up posting their own video, which was I got arrested, but separate from my whole video, from his perspective, which is kind of funny. Yeah, I still would. Wow. I guess I'm more like a boxer YouTuber musician type B. Okay. So you got a lot going on for you. Yeah. What's your name? KSI. KSI, that's your real name? I know how did you get the other two. So here enters KSI's bodyguard right over here. Okay. This dude is six, nine, giant man, and he has absolutely no idea that this is happening. Can I tell you a little secret? So there's this tool that top creators, like Zac Justice, are quietly using to explode their views, and it's called Autopilot Made by Opus Clip. It analyzes your entire library of content, identifies the top moments, clips them, and posts them across all your social media accounts, fully automatically. Like all of these clips are seen right here. Imagine I could just focus on my long-form videos, and every day I have a bunch of clips that are cut together, scheduled, and all posted without me having to worry about. And this just keeps going on every day. Opus cuts together the clips, edits them, schedules them, posts them, and then repeats. Basically, you can reach a new audience and own your distribution without the extra work. I mean, Zac Justice used Opus to do exactly this, and he's already seeing 10 million plus views back to his YouTube channel. Now, here's the crazy part. The tool is still in beta, and Opus is selecting 10 creators to try it next. So if you wanna be considered, go to this link below or scan this QR code. Again, 10 creators will get selected, and everyone else will get access to Opus Clips. You got nothing to lose. All right, now back to the video. So he's not in the loop at all. They specifically kept him out of it, because his literal job is to look off for KSI's best interest. So we were debating a lot. Like, do we tell the security or do we not? And we decided not to. Because he would have absolutely stopped the production. - Some of the calls we got. We got something like your name. - Yeah. - I'm gonna double check 'cause it did, like you said, it's different. But he's gonna look over the IDs real quick, and we'll go from there. - So what's the reason that the cops are giving that they're here right now to arrest them? Like, have they explained yet? I think they went in with the explanation that they have gotten calls of threats, which is usually what happens when somebody gets swatted. So KSI wouldn't doubt this. That was the best reason we had. However, his manager told us that days before traveling to the US, basically his passport. He put it into his pocket and went through a dry cleaning, so it's a ripped apart. So I had the cops specifically focus on that, and talk about how he's in the country illegally, and they're basically gonna throw him back out of the country. - Oh, so this is a whole set up to get his passport. - That's right. - That is, like, wrinkled or like damaged like. - Yeah, so they get into the house under pretty agreeable terms, and then they just laser beam focus on KSI and put all the pressure on him. But really, I have so much more information on him. And it's about to be over. And it's about the turn. - I told the cops to put on a show and find any stupid reason to arrest him. So what all you do was sit back and wash them work their magic. - Where's your KSI? - Yeah. - Did something happen to your-- - Yeah. - It's a wash. - And so I'm gonna let him get in the new floor. - Do you have another form of ID or anything on you? - He's got his ID. I love him. I started with this. - Is it a, how do you get through a TSA with this thing, man? - So he says, how did you get through TSA with this thing? - I don't think so. Oh, yeah. - This just doesn't look legit to me, man. I'm not. - Okay. - It just looks a little different. - Okay. - This is the point where you can feel the tension in the room shift. Like KSI is laughing this entire time. It's not funny anymore. Like he's getting pressed now. He knows everybody out here is not in trouble except for him. And it's such a specific detail. I always try to get a specific detail from the YouTuber's team of like, something to drill into that they would undeniably believe. Yeah. - That would be like, it's, you know, a little bit different. Can you do me a favor and just come outside with me real quick? - Well, it's happening. It's happening. It's happening. It's something funny. - Oh, no, no, no. - Okay, no. - Cops says it's something funny. These guys at this point know to just tie them down. I told them to go as hard on him as they possibly couldn't feel comfortable doing. And this is the part where they start to just really pressure him up. - I just want to make sure everything's good, you know, 'cause I'm not going to be able to run a driver's license. - Yeah, no, no. - Yeah, cool. - All right, here we can have this step out here with us. - If you don't mind. - They're scoring him out of the house. Oh, here they come, here they come, here they come, here they come. - In the back of my car, you just stand right on the bumper if you don't mind. - They're fake checking his ID right now. I don't think JD is going to be very happy with me when he finds out this is a joke. - I have been at the driveway watching all of this listening to everything that's happening on the inside of the house. My job is simple. Once this thing reaches its absolute pinnacle of confrontation, the cops are going to call me in as their supervisor. And then I'm going to reveal that it's me. And I will not let him out of cuffs until he gives me a private concert. - Let me ask you this, I run your name through. Nothing's coming through on there. Do you have anything else that has your name on it or anything like that, anything that we can identify you? - I mean, you can go online. - As JJ's team started to get a little freaked out, my inside manager, Dion, continued to put on a master class in acting. - Very, very suspected of a little crime right there. - JD on comes in here, he knows content. He's going to add some content here. He starts fighting with the police. I did not ask him to do this. He just does this for the sake of it. The police actually asked that, they were like, "Nobody's going to give us resistance." Right, I was like, "No." And good old JD on here, really. He's trying to print content for me, which I appreciate, but he starts pressing the cuffs. JD on to get a chill, JD on to get a chill. - Okay, but did they say it was him? - Okay, what was your name again, sir? - Jodon. - Jodon. Okay, right now we're talking to him. Like I said, I don't mind that you come out here, but I don't want you interfering with my investigation. So now that Jodon has put the officers on edge, they're just going to detain and arrest. Okay, I'll sign and put them in the back of the car. - JJ, realize you don't have to answer his question. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Hang out in the back of the car for us real quick. - Do you have a favor to check face the car right here? For me, I'm just going to patch it down, make sure you don't have any weapons long. - I'll put them back in the car. - All right. - Don't rephrase. - Let me call a supervisor. - Okay, they're calling me, they're calling me. - All right, all right, go ahead and place your hands. I'll hand you back for me. - Go. (dance music) - This, this right here is what we do it for, boys. This is a viral moment right here. This clip by itself, I filmed it on an iPhone and then sent it to KSI so that he could send it to a fan page and then that clip went viral on Twitter by itself before any of us posted videos. It's just a viral moment right there. - All right, go ahead and take a seat back here. Switch it. (dance music) - Boy, it's just been arrested. Wow, okay. - Okay. - There it is. So we're getting the 360 camera right here. - You can see it's like, these are real. - Bro, it's so close to him, yeah. Yeah, he's terrified right here. We obviously have other angles. I'm picking up all this audio right here also. - Please, they got some jams in here. (dance music) - Officer, what is it? Like, there's literally no weapons in the same room right now. - Okay, man, I do got a lieutenant to pick up. - KSI lays down in the back seat. Ruins my shot. I prepped this shot for him to sit right here in the middle. Dude, lays down in the back seat. Look at this. - What the hell, KSI? Ruined it, you ruined it. - I guess he's trying not to be seen. - Right? - I think he's just trying to get comfortable. The back of a cop car is so uncomfortable. - You thought it was to get comfortable? He's totally trying to hide his face. - I think so. 'Cause at this point he does not know it's a prank at all. - Yeah. - He's seen these clips on YouTube. He knows he's probably gonna get uploaded on some body cam footage. He's probably trying to hide his face, yeah. - Hey man, I do got a lieutenant to come out to talk to you, Supervisor. - Yeah. - All right, you good? - All right, man. - Gideon was making this as hard as possible in the cops, but they kept it cool while I made my way to the scene. - I mean, once I got to run away or anything, he just like stand up and stand right next to you. - Gide's going. - You're making it worse than what it is. - It's high the car this entire time, Gideon, is just stirring the pot. He's just trying to make this as uncomfortable as possible for everybody. - He's just hanging out in the back. - You guys are making it worse. - Your guy's job is to de-escalate, and you guys are escalating. - You're escalating, we're fine, he's fine. - This part I actually was getting nervous, but this is why I came in, because it was actually getting heated up there. They don't know that Gideon is like trolling them, so they want this to be a calm altercation, which is what I sold it to them as, which was my goal. But they're actually getting, this is a real altercation that's actually happening outside the car, so I'm running up the hill to try to stop this from happening. - Wow. - And we're fine, he's fine. - Dude, it's getting heated, it's getting heated, it's getting heated. - I need you to calm down and relax, allow us to do our job. - What will they do? Well, they call this off if Gideon took it too far. - Yes. - Like they'll be like, actually this is a prank, they would ruin this for you. - I would have probably waited an extra five minutes. Yeah. So at any point in time, any of the guys who were in on it could ruin the prank. My cameras could give away the prank. These cops could act a little sus and give away the prank. Gideon could ruin the prank. We spent so much time in money prepping this. This could go wrong at any possible time. The stakes are incredibly high right here. - So much. - In this moment? - Big time. - Yeah, big time. Moments like this when we're filming these videos are the only time that I get nervous. Like this is because there's so much of my video relying on things I cannot control. You know So we're in the blind spot of the car right here. We get a little dap up with JDR on right We break the pit This is an amazing shot. It's an insane moment. Yeah Dude, it's just a viral clip like tell me this is not a viral moment right here It's just beautiful like it couldn't have played out any better in my mind like before you shoot a video Probably except for you to like you sort of envision the video and you imagine And you're like playing it out in your head of like what the perfect moment's gonna be this This is like from my wildest dreams. It couldn't be more perfect than this I felt like JJ had enough at this point So it was time for me to hop in and finally reveal the prank. What is life? We've a problem in here So happy to see you, but also so angry I'm still in charge right here, but you're arrested At this point you brought in the cameras. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so now the cameras are all coming in Yeah, KS eyes bodyguard is being alerted outside of the car right now that this is a safe circumstance He's good. He's like pissed that he was not in on it But yeah, everybody who isn't in on it is now being alerted that this is a bit Yeah, and you're rolling in with what looks like a GoPro Yeah, I basically armed with a GoPro and a DSLR in my other hand This is shot like it's a very lean team here me Christina Tyler. Just shooting this thing But there was still one more thing I needed from JJ in order to release him from my custody Concert right now See this is what I love about KSI is You see him right here switch like his team is trying to get him out of the back of the car Yeah, I set him up for a thick of a moment. He knows that this is a viral moment He tells his team to chill so that he can do a thick of a concert for me This will probably not make the cut, you know, but it just goes to show like I love film with other youtubers because they know How the sausage is made and he sees me teeing him up for a moment here and he's like stepping into the moment. It's amazing It's amazing I Got I got got on get got got him. It's not that hard. It's a phenomenal show name JJ was an amazing sport about this whole thing But the craziest part was at the very end. He said this I'm boxing youtuber. Okay every time I go open I'm like it happened this own video Yeah, good was the kids that were being a good sport like I feel like everyone's realized this is a content moment Yeah, how much are you inspired by shows like punked or like, you know This like prank shows have been around for a while like do you study those like to create moments like this? I was never a big like movie or TV person. I've seen very few movies actually like Maybe like 20 in my entire life to be honest really but once I started getting into YouTube and I'm a huge punk fan a huge MTV fan I think I've gone back and watched an episode from every version of a show that MTV's ever made because a lot of that stuff is reality TV And there's so much cool inspiration that you can pull from those guys. I actually have my own prank show called get got Yeah, you know what get got I know and if you if you're get got on get got you got to say I got I got got on get got Got him. I actually tried to license punk. I actually called Ashton Kutcher and tried to license punk from Ashton And he said he no longer controls the rights unfortunately, so if you're out there, do you own the rights to punk? Let a boy know you have a very interested buyer over here. Oh my god. Yeah, that is like That would be the best like dude right. I'm telling them. I'm like like dude We could run with the punk show on YouTube like this. I am the guy to run the punk enterprise Let me it would be so sick, but uh, yeah, I can't get the right so if you're out there and you own the rights to punk. Let me know It's my good deal. Wow, that would be a no brainer any other thoughts on this video. I think it's cool It's it fits into sort of a column like I arrested Mr. Beast a year ago We're bringing this in we'll do streamers after that. We might even circle back with youtubers again The cool thing about this video is once this video is posted it actually Serves as proof of concept that I can now send to other YouTube teams and show that I've done it before and I can do it Safely, which will enable me to do this video even better the future. So stay tuned. I got a yeah I got to talk to you guys later. You know, it made about something completely unrelated What? No, no, you're not getting my team in on arrest him. Yes That's what you think if you haven't already go to whitey hackpack.com to get our free YouTube hack pack with all our best tools tips and templates to grow on YouTube today from our intro thumbnail templates to our 100 viral ideas for any niche we constantly update it as we interview more creators So you get the latest and greatest for free. All right. Thanks for watching