[Editor’s Column]Hate Dies Love Arrives?

 

In the contemporary society where social media and online influencers dominate the digital world, it is almost impossible not to hear about rising online entrepreneurs. Earlier this year, controversy surrounded the rising youtubers Jake Paul and Logan Paul both with followers numbering over the fifteen million, mostly consisting of children of the age thirteen and lower. In their videos, both youtubers display profanity, uncensorship, and insensitivity to death and other cultures. Overall, with such a huge base of young followers, they are seen to be unacceptable and careless role models. However, the Logan Paul’s appalling content is not the hot topic at hand. The once top-tier youtuber FouseyTube, also known as Yousef Erakat, has emerged from banks of irrelevance making immense, questionable claims about being able to change the world with simply love.

On July 7th, Yousef Erakat tweeted and uploaded a youtube video where he first announced that he will be holding a monumental event in just a week featuring well-known artists such as J. Cole and Drake. Not only did Yousef’s claims about organizing such an enormous event with such prominent artists in just a week shock the whole internet, but also the fact that the whole event was going to be completely free. Yousef even stated that after leaving the youtube platform for months, he had a sudden vision from God in the basement of his parent’s house to hold an event on one exact date: July 15th. This event was called “Hate Dies, Love Arrives.”

 

Before the event, Yousef continued to make claims that all the tickets had been sold out (over 50,000 seats), the song he will be releasing the day of the concert will be on the top-charts nationwide, he will be on the Ellen Show a week after the concert, etc. According to Yousef, “Hate Dies Love Arrives” was going to be the day the world changes and the view of social media and online influencers will forever change.  

 

After a week past, the free concert that was hyped up ended up being a disaster. The Greek theater, the location where the event was held, had only about a thousand people attend. Promised artists such as Drake never showed up and in fact was in New York at one of his parties with no intention to fly back to Los Angeles. Before any smaller artists could perform, a bomb threat was called in and the LAPD escorted everyone out of the theater. Many people left disappointed and questioned Yousef’s integrity of what actually happened to the event.

 

Even featured on the news, many people wondered if this whole event was to self-promote his music and a sad attempt to become relevant again. Suffering from depression and bipolar disease, Yousef even publicly announced he had stopped taking medication leading others to believe he is just crazy with his un-promising claims.

 

Even after what happened on July 15th, Yousef announced on Twitter that he will hold another event in September at the Staples Center with the athlete Lebron James called “Hate Dies, Love Arrives 2”. Making even bigger claims then before, fans and critics both are worried about Yousef’s mental state. What is actually happening behind the curtains and in Yousef’s mind is a mystery and is the reason why the internet is hooked to know what will happen next. Will “Hate Dies Love Arrives 2” end as another disaster or will it go down as the biggest event in online history.

 

Jonathan Bae, Grade 12

West Ranch High School