How Airrack Pulls Off YouTube's Biggest Pranks

0:00This 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 and money prepping this. This could go wrong at 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 going to 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 mounts are in the very center right here.

0:34My god, KSI's reaction. How do you hire real cops for a YouTube prank? There's an 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 Punk'd? I actually tried to license Punk'd. I actually called Ashton Kutcher. Oh my god. Dude, right? That's what I'm 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.

1:07Hey 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 going to surprise them with a simple prank. What we doing? I'm glad you asked. We're going to arrest KSI. So I'm in Nashville, Tennessee for this one. This is for KSI. Boxer, YouTuber, creator of the worst rated song of all time. It's horrible. He said it, not me. No, I said it. Yeah, it's a horrible song. It's going to come back to haunt him here in the video.

1:51Don't worry about that. Okay, wow. Yeah, this is a one-day shoot. Is that typical? Most shoots are 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.

2:25We're on the way to Mams Taylor's Ranch, where my friend Jideon, YouTube's biggest menace, is helping me pull this off. I'm about to piss a whole lot of people off. Right now, they're in the middle of filming a Try Not To Laugh. Nah, don't just laugh at nothing, bro. But what JJ doesn't know is actual police officers are going to come pull him out of the house, arrest him, throw him in the back of a cop car. I don't think I'm going to 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 productions 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 the prank It's over and now I have to refilm a new bit with a brand new youtuber Oh, well, so the stakes are high before we got there.

3:15We met up with the real officers who were gonna help us pull this off Are these real cops? These are real cops. These are actual cops. Yeah How do you hire real cops for a YouTube prank? Yeah, there's an art form to it. They will not let you hire them 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 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.

4:03This is basically a skit And a prank like as long as their boss approves it which most of the time they don't You can do it. Yeah. Yeah, you can the thing about it is like theoretically I could probably hire cop actors But they're youtubers who have hired copped actors themselves and you just know the difference between a cop actor and a real cop It's like that guy who does all the lie detector. Yes. Yes, I knew you but everybody knows that guy exactly and nobody buys it anymore exactly Yeah, yeah That's so uncomfortable, bro. It's really really tight not my first time Cut to the clip I'm banned from the Super Bowl not joking do you ever worry about your Do you have more records, like your police records, like from making YouTube videos down the road?

4:48Uh-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. We are headed there right now. They should be finishing up the video JJ and his bodyguard have a flight back to the UK today I wanted to miss this flight by about six months instead of federal penitentiary. You know what I mean? 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.

5:34So 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 Insta360 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 plan kind of went sideways.

6:13You'll see. Okay. I'm at my vantage point right now. The cops are walking up to the house. As we speak, I have their cameras on my iPad. Hello. How you doing? Good. Do you know who this is? No. This is Mams Taylor. He's KSI's manager. Okay. 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. So 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 youtubers videos It's really easy because 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.

6:58I have to find the person that knows the person that runs the YouTube channel, but is 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 this shoot. So KSI brought Gideon out to come film a Try Not to Laugh video for KSI's channel. And so I have sort of a run of show that I've typed up. And before I even come into town, These guys are going over the run of 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.

7:41He'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 their like motive? What is their 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 relaunching his YouTube channel Which I'm so excited about personally, so it's an opportunity. I think for publicity for everything Makes sense.

8:13Wow Mr. Taylor, yeah, it looks like they're pressing man's the owner of the house right now We just got a call there was some things going on here We just had to come out and check it out. All right. Do you mind if we come in? Chat with everybody? Okay. There's other options as far as filming this, but I love the feeling of real body cam footage because it's so realistic. It's just so real. Is that all right? Is there anybody else? Oh, there's JJ. There's JJ. There's JJ. What are you guys doing? Good. So, Jideon is fully in on this, by the way. And I was very curious to see what he was going to do.

8:47Oh, something about some criminal threats. Oh, my God. Can't size. So you can see Gideon 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 imagine being in the UK and you see like the Royal Guard pull up into a house. Like you're going to be so scared. Yeah. Something about some criminal threats being made online.

9:19Y 'all know anything about that? He's not losing it. He's freaking out. KZI's mouth is not closed since the police walked in. And you're going to see in a second. He gets way more terrified than this. Y 'all mind if we see everybody's ID? Yeah, yeah, sure. I actually got my wallet stolen yesterday. It's cool if I give it to you. Oh, this is going so well. Jideon's acting is S-tier. I think it's so funny seeing YouTubers in this context, like on body cams. is just such viral footage, you know what I mean? The only way to get this is a real cop, like scolding a YouTuber, it's just God-tier footage.

9:59It's so awesome. Are you in town or what? I wouldn't even tonight. Are y 'all like video gamers 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 useful. He may not know 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. Separate from my whole video from his perspective, which is kind of funny.

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11:52You've 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 out for KSI's best interest. Yeah. 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, yeah. I'm going to double check because, like you said, it's different. But he's going to 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 him?

12:23Like, 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 dry cleaning so it's 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 going to throw him back out of the country. Oh, so this is a whole setup to get his passport.

13:00That's right. That is like wrinkled or like damaged. 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 all I could do was sit back and watch them work their magic. Mr. KSI, did something happen to your... Yeah, I'm going to wash. So I'm going to work on getting a new work. Do you have another form of ID? He's got his ID. How'd you get through TSA with this thing, man?

13:39So he says, how did you get through TSA with this thing?

13:45This just doesn't look legit to me, man. I'm not. Like I said, it just looks a little different. 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 YouTubers team of like Something to drill into that they would undeniably believe Yeah Different can you do me a favor and just come outside with me real quick. Oh, it's happening. It's happening. It's happening

14:23Cops says is something funny These guys at this point know to just tighten down I told them to go as hard on him as they possibly couldn't felt comfortable doing yeah 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, because I'm not going to be able to run a driver's license. Yeah, no, no, of course, of course. Do me a favor, just step out here real quick, if you don't mind. They're escorting him out of the house. Oh, here they come, here they come, here they come, here they come. In the back of my car, just stand right on the bumper, if you don't mind.

14:49They're fake checking his ID right now. I don't think JJ's 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?

15:25Anything that we can identify you? I mean, you can go online. As JJ's team started to get a little freaked out my inside man Jadion continued to put on a masterclass in acting Oh okay, are you suspecting him of a crime right now? Uh, Jadion comes in here. He knows content. He's gonna 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 gonna give us resistance, right? I was like, no And good old Jadion here really, um He's trying to print content for me, which I appreciate, but he starts pressing the cops.

16:00Gideon's gonna chill. Gideon's gonna chill. Okay, but did they say it was him? Okay, what was your name again, sir? Jadon. Jadon? Yeah. 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, okay? So now that Gideon has put the officers on edge, they're just gonna detain and arrest KSI and put him in the back of the car. JJ, realize you don't have to answer his question. No, no, it's fine. Hang out in the back of the car for us real quick. Do me a favor, face the car right here for me. I'm just gonna pat you down, make sure you don't have any weapons as long as you're good with that.

16:29I caught my, uh, my glasses off. Let me call a supervisor. Okay, they're calling me. They're calling me. Right now, alright, go ahead and place your hands behind your back for me. Yo!

16:42This, 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. Yeah. 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

17:08Your boy has 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. Oh, it's so close to him Yeah, yeah, he's he's terrified right here. We obviously have other angles I'm picking up all of his audio right here also. At least they got some jams in here. Officer, what is it like? There's literally no reason to detain him right now. Hey man, I do got a lieutenant to come. KSI lays down in the backseat. Ruins my shot. I prepped this shot for him to sit right here in the middle. Dude lays down in the backseat. Look at this.

17:46What the hell, KSI? He ruined it. He ruined it. I guess he's trying not to be seen. Right I think he's trying to get comfortable the back of cop car is so uncomfortable. You thought us to get comfortable He's totally sure I think so because at this point 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, I mean I do got a Lieutenant to come out to talk to your supervisor Gideon was making this as hard as possible on the cops, but they kept it cool while I made my way to the scene or anything can you just like stand up and stand right next to you you're making it worse than what it is inside the car this entire time jadeon 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 you know your guys job is to de-escalate and you guys are escalating no you're escalating it we're fine he's this part i actually was getting nervous about this is why i came in because it was actually getting heated up there they don't know that jadeon 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.

19:03Wow. 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 Blake call this off if GD on took it too far? Yes, like they'll be like actually this is a prank? Like they would ruin this for you? I would have probably waited an extra five minutes if This goes too far these cops would have broken the bit and call the whole thing off Yeah, so at any point in time any of the guys who are 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 Jedeon could ruin the prank.

19:37We spend so much time and money prepping this this could go wrong at any possible time It's the only way to prank a youtuber though The stakes are incredibly high right here. Are you feeling that pressure? 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

20:07We got this so we're in the blind spot of the car right here we get a little dap up with Judy on right before we break the pit This is such 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 for you too, 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 going to be. This, this is, like, from my wildest dreams. It couldn't be more perfect than this.

20:47I 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

20:58we have a problem in here

21:14No way! You suck! I'm low-key so happy to see you, but also so angry. Bro, I was like, how am I being arrested? I'm still in charge around here, bro. You're arrested. I hate you so much. At this point, it seems like you brought in the cameras. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now the cameras are all coming in. KSI's 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

22:07But there was still one more thing I needed from JJ in order to release him from my custody What? I need a thick of it 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 it moment. He knows that this is a viral moment. He tells his team to chill so that he can do a thick of it concert for me. This will probably not make the cut, you know? But it just goes to show like I love filming with other YouTubers because they know how the sausage is made and he sees me teeing him out for a moment here and he's like stepping into the moment it's amazing it's amazing yeah I'm in the thick of it everybody knows they know everywhere it snows ice skating and they froze thank you I got got on got gate bruh no got got wait what?

22:59get him he doesn't even say perfect I got get 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 a youtuber. Okay, every time I go up a million subscribers Me by what sub count would you do it? 30 million Make it happen this is on video Yeah, kudos to kids ever being a good sport like it feels like everyone's behind this is a content moment Yeah, how much you're inspired by shows like punked more like you know Prank shows have been around for a while. Do you study those to create moments like this?

23:42I was never a big movie or TV person. I've seen very few movies actually. Maybe like 20 in my entire life to be honest. 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 God. Yeah, you know about get God I know and if you if you're get God I get God you got to say I got I got I got God on get got got him I actually tried to license punk.