On Friday 5th February 2021, 20-year-old YouTuber Timothy Wilks was shot dead after his failed prank for his channel. However, his incident was not the first time YouTube pranks have gone wrong, here are two other well-known accidents.
YouTuber pranks used to be huge a few years ago, such as channels like Pranks vs Pranks, Roman Atwood and FouseyTube. As time goes on, YouTubers have slowly gotten riskier with their videos, hoping to go viral, so much that some have attempted life-threatening stunts.
Most recently, YouTuber Timothy Wilks partipated in a robbery prank in Nashville, Tennessee, resulting in his death.
This isn’t the first time a creator has been killed for the sake of ‘entertainment’. In 2017, when a female YouTuber fatally shot her boyfriend. Two years later, a prank by the Stokes Twins resulted in an Uber driver being held at gunpoint.
February 2021: Timothy Wilks
Timothy Wilks was shot and killed in the parking lot of Urban Air Trampoline and Adventure Park in Nashville. The YouTuber and his friend allegedly approached a group with butcher knives.
He was reportedly shot dead in defense by 23-year-old David Starnes Jr. and claimed that he was unaware that it was a prank.
At the time of writing, no arrests have been made and the police are still investigating whether the shooting was truly self-defense and whether David had a gun permit.
Timothy’s friend was reportedly unharmed.
Since hearing of the news, the internet has been scouring the web for the YouTube channel to find more information about Timothy. No channel has been identified as the 20-year-old’s official platform.
October 2019: Stokes Twins
24-year-old twins Alan and Alex Stokes are popular YouTubers, currently with over six million subscribers. They’re also successful TikTokers, with nearly 30 million followers.
Their presence is huge but they managed to run into the police with their bank robbery prank,
On October 15 2019, the creators faked two different bank robberies in Irvine, California. Wearing black ski masks holding duffle bags of cash, the YouTubers called an Uber, which the driver refused upon arrival.
A bystander, who believed the twins were carjacking the Uber, called the police and it ended with the driver being held at gunpoint, before understanding the event.
The Stokes Twins claimed that they contacted the Irvine Police Department’s non-emergency line prior, to give them notice of their plan to create the prank video for their channel. As a result, they were charged with one felony count of false imprisonment effected by violence, menace, fraud or deceit and if they were found guilty, they would have faced four years in jail.
Now in 2021, the YouTuber’s have not been punished for their prank.
June 2017: Monalisa Perez
At the time, the 20-year-old YouTuber Monalisa shared channel Monalisa and Fam, with her boyfriend Pedro Ruiz.
He aimed for the life-threatening stunt of Monalisa shooting him with hand gun, while he holds a thick book to block the bullet.
Unfortunately, the ‘prank’ did not turn out as planned and Pedro was shot in the chest. The Minnesota couple reportedly trialed the stunt successfully before, but Monalisa was standing further away than she was in the fatal shot. Also, Pedro had a harder book before.
 He pronounced dead at the scene at their home.
The YouTuber faced 180-days in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter. On top of that, she serves 10 years of probation.