Number 8 Alan and Alex Stokes In 2021, twin YouTubers Alan and Alex Stokes,
both in their early 20s, were sentenced to community service and a year’s probation,
after pleading guilty to charges stemming from faking a robbery. The incident occurred in Irvine,
Orange County, California. In October of 2019, the Stokes’ videographer filmed the twins as
they wore balaclavas and carried duffel bags full of cash, pretending they’d just robbed a bank.
On October the 15th, the pair hailed an Uber and got into the vehicle claiming that their getaway
driver had abandoned them. The driver refused to transport them and a bystander, who’d witnessed
the exchange, alerted the authorities. When the police arrived at the scene, they ordered the
driver out at gunpoint but released him upon realizing he wasn’t involved. Officers let the
twins go with a warning but, roughly four hours later, they allegedly pulled the same prank again,
with the emergency services receiving calls about a robbery once more. The brothers uploaded a
clip of the prank gone wrong to their YouTube channel but it has since been deleted. Orange
County District Attorney Todd Spitzer condemned their actions as a “twisted attempt to gain more
popularity on the Internet”. He argued that they’d created a high-pressure situation in
which someone could’ve been injured or killed as officers responding to active robbery reports are
instructed to act decisively towards protecting lives. Alan and Alex, who boasted millions of
followers on YouTube and TikTok, each faced multiple felony charges that could’ve resulted in
prison sentences of up to five years before they pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and thus received
a much more lenient sentence. Number 7 Gigi Wu
A woman, who’d gained attention on the Internet for taking photos on some of Taiwan’s tallest
mountain peaks while only wearing a bikini, suffered a fatal accident in January of 2019.
Over the course of several years, 36-year-old Gigi Wu had amassed a large following on Facebook and
Instagram through her photos and hiking endeavors. The idea had come to her after losing a bet with
a friend in which her punishment was to upload a photo of herself in a bikini atop a mountain. She
ultimately came to be known as the “Bikini Hiker”. According to the Focus Taiwan News Channel, over
the span of four years, Wu had completed more than a hundred hikes and, upon reaching the summit,
stripped down to reveal about as many swimming outfits. Her climbs hadn’t been without incident
and Wu at one point posted a photo showing extensive scratches and bruises on her legs
sustained during a fall. She embarked on what would become her final adventure on January the
11th of 2019. Wu had planned a 25-day solo hike in Yushan National Park, from Nanhua Mountain to
Mount Cho-she. On January the 19th, more than a week since she’d set off, Wu called a friend via
satellite phone to say that she’d fallen into a ravine. The hiker had plummeted a reported 65 feet
into a narrow gorge and was unable to move due to the injuries she’d suffered in the fall. She
activated her emergency beacon at close to 5,600 feet above sea level. A rescue operation involving
Black Hawk helicopters was put together but poor weather condition prevented them from reaching
Wu’s location. As she was trapped on the mountain, temperatures dropped to around 35 degrees
Fahrenheit. Roughly 28 hours after she’d activated her beacon, search and rescue teams found Wu but,
by that time, she’d succumbed to hypothermia. Number 6 Xiao Qiumei
In July of 2021, a Chinese social media influencer suffered a fatal fall of roughly 160 feet while
she was reportedly filming a video for her following of over 100,000. Xiao Qiumei, aged 23,
worked as a crane operator in Quzhou, in western Zhejiang Province. The mother-of-two documented
her experience on social media, appealing to users because she didn’t fit the stereotypical image of
a crane operator. The tragic incident, which the young woman partially captured on video, unfolded
with her dancing and speaking to the camera from what appeared to be her crane cabin. The image
then changed to show equipment whizzing by as Qiumei could be heard screaming in the clip’s
audio. The chaotic footage ended with a final shot of the crane’s structure and the sky from a point
of view, which in hindsight, suggested someone was lying on the ground. Witnesses reported that,
after falling from a height nearly equivalent to that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
Quimei’s body was found with her cellphone in hand. The accident occurred at 5:40 pm,
when most of her co-workers had left the site. As news of Quimei’s death began to circulate online,
commenters paid tribute to her and expressed their condolences. There were, however, a number of
users who argued that her tragic demise had been a cautionary incident, highlighting the dangers
of being distracted by prospective Internet fame while working in a dangerous environment.
Number 5 Cassandre Thomas In February of 2020, aspiring stuntwoman Cassandre
Thomas faced a fine of $1,000 to $3,000 along with public backlash for a stunt involving a Montreal
bus. The 19-year-old self-confessed adrenaline addict, originally from the French island of
St. Martin in the Caribbean, had amassed several hundred thousand followers on Instagram through
her stunts. Some of them included rooftopping, dirt bike tricks and various acrobatic jumps. The
stunt that would cause controversy in the province of Quebec saw Thomas hang with one hand from the
rear bumper of a Montreal STM bus. The driver was unaware that she was there and continued
along the regular route down Rue Sherbrooke. Thomas was thus dragged behind it on her back,
at speed, with only a puffy jacket and a thin layer of snow protecting her from the pavement.
The clip rapidly amassed tens of thousands of views after she’d posted it on social media,
captioning it “when you miss your bus”. The teenager was subsequently dubbed the Montreal Bus
Surfer while a statement released by STM called her behavior “deplorable and dangerous”. Thomas
had not only risked her health but, as pointed out by several Internet commenters, could’ve
inspired others to imitate the stunt and get hurt. She stated in a later interview that she didn’t
regret her actions, admitting that she’d wanted to gain Internet attention from the bus surfing video
and then potentially parlay it into stunt work. Number 4 Josephine Garczynski
In March of 2017, a Wisconsin teenager asked her father to take photos of her as she was being
arrested for armed robbery so that she could later post them on social media. 18-year-old
Josephine Garczynski had been regularly talking to an unnamed man on Facebook, under the alias
Josephine King, before agreeing to meet with him at an intersection in Sheboygan, on March the 5th.
After arriving at the agreed-upon spot, Garczynski invited the man into her car. A short while later,
her boyfriend, 27-year-old Curtis Britton, got in the backseat. He pressed a gun to the man’s head
and the couple demanded his wallet and cellphone. The victim went to the police who subsequently
identified Garczynski through her Facebook profile and then interviewed her at her father’s home.
She initially denied knowing Britton, whom she’d reportedly been dating for about a year, but, when
pressed further, admitted to the armed robbery. As Garczynski was being taken into custody,
she asked her father to take pictures of her in handcuffs with the intention of uploading
them on Facebook. Britton was also arrested at his home, where officers found marijuana,
drug paraphernalia and two BB guns. Both he and Garczynski were charged with felony armed robbery.
Number 3 Timothy Wilks
While filming a prank video he’d hoped would go viral on YouTube, a young man was shot and killed
in Tennessee, on February the 5th of 2021. Local authorities responded to reports of a shooting in
the parking lot of the Urban Air trampoline park, in Nashville, at around 9:25 pm. Timothy Wilks,
aged 20, and a friend, whose identity wasn’t released, were shooting a video that involved
them approaching a group of people while wielding butcher knives. 23-year-old David
Starnes Jr. wasn’t in on the fake robbery and thought that he and the group he was with were
being attacked. The aspiring YouTubers never got a chance to reveal that it was a prank.
Starnes pulled out a handgun and shot Wilks who subsequently succumbed to his injuries. No
charges were filed in the immediate aftermath as the former maintained he’d acted in self-defense,
believing himself to have been in genuine danger. Number 2 Ava Louise
In March of 2020, in the early stages of coronavirus pandemic, an aspiring Internet
influencer sparked outrage online through the “coronavirus challenge” in which she
filmed herself licking an airplane toilet seat. 21-year-old Ava Louise’s stunt went viral and,
even though it received widespread criticism, there were, nevertheless, several imitators who
started licking toilet seats for fame, risking their health in the process. One 21-year-old,
from Beverly Hills, ended up in the hospital after doing so. In a subsequent video interview with Dr.
Phil, Louise confessed that the overall scope of the stunt was “clout” and claimed she was
jealous coronavirus was getting more publicity than her. Louise tried to defend her actions by
saying that concerns over the pandemic were greatly exaggerated while also suggesting
she was representing the whole of Gen Z by being unafraid of the virus. When asked by
Dr. Phil if the attention was worth potentially infecting someone and killing them, Louise said
“yeah” before making further claims that the pandemic was blown out of proportions. In the same
interview, however, the young woman also revealed that the widely-condemned stunt had been partially
staged. Louise reported that she’d licked the toilet seat on her sugar daddy’s private jet,
while on her way to Miami for spring break, adding that it had been disinfected beforehand.
Number 1 James Potok In February of 2020, shortly
after COVID-19 had been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, a Canadian
social media influencer carried out a stunt on a flight from Toronto to Jamaica that resulted
in the aircraft being turned around. By his own admission, 28-year-old Potok Philippe, whose real
name is James Potok, intended to share a video of the so-called prank in hopes of it going viral on
Instagram or YouTube. About mid-way through the flight, he got up and announced that he’d just
returned from the Hunan province, to which he referred as “the capital of the coronavirus”,
adding that he wasn’t “feeling too well”. Roughly 15 minutes later, WestJet flight staff asked him
to put on gloves and a mask and told him to move to the back of the airplane. His claims
were also shared with the pilot and a decision was made to turn the airplane back to Toronto.
A second flight out was also cancelled in the incident’s wake, affecting the travel plans of 243
passengers. Many subsequently condemned Potok’s actions as selfish and ignorant. He was assessed
by medical experts who found that he was symptom free, after which he was arrested and charged
with mischief. The Internet fame seeker has since apologized for the prank and for failing to grasp
the seriousness of a global health emergency. Thanks for watching! Would you rather record
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