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Another hastily planned YouTuber event ends in failure

Another hastily planned YouTuber event ends in failure

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How many times are we going to do this?

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It’s barely been a month since TanaCon, the disastrous convention thrown by creator Tana Mongeau, but the highly publicized failure of that event doesn’t seem to have deterred other YouTubers from event planning. Yousef Erakat, known as FouseyTube to his 10 million YouTube subscribers, attempted to plan and run a concert in seven days at the Greek Theater in LA. Instead, the July 15th event was canceled after an alleged bomb threat.

Erakat gained fame online, thanks to his videos around pranks and controversial “social experiments.” His event, “Hate Dies, Love Arrives,” promised fans big names like Drake and Snoop Dogg in a free event he called “the next Coachella.” There’s no proof that these celebrities were actually scheduled to appear, however. Leading up to the event, Erakat’s social media was full of videos and images of Drake, though Drake has not publicly spoken about the event at all. According to Deadline, 1,500 people were asked to leave the venue while police searched for — and did not find — a bomb; police now believe it may have been a case of swatting. The Verge’s sister site Polygon has a breakdown of where the event went wrong.

The circumstances around the event, as well as Erakat’s true intentions, are muddled. A DramaAlert video details the event behind the scenes and focuses on his mental state. (Captured footage from the event also features Erakat giving a speech to attendees, in which talks about his struggles with mental illness and thoughts of suicide.) Others question whether or not the entire event was a stunt to promote himself, especially given his history of stunts.

Today on Twitter, Erakat announced that he would be deleting all social media from his phone and taking time “to reflect and enjoy life.” He added that the July 15th event “changed the ways things are forever,” and that he intends to plan a follow-up event in the future. “I will only speak when I have something to say,” he wrote. “I am no longer a YouTuber. I am an artist.”