Young YouTuber Killed When Approaching Strangers With A Knife In A Prank Video

Twenty-year-old YouTuber Timothy Wilks was shot and killed on Friday night when attempting to film a robbery prank video. It was reported that the young man and at least one other friend approached a group of people in a parking lot in Nashville, the US, while they were holding butcher knives.

David Starnes, a 23-year-old in the group, shot Wilks at around 9:30 PM as he believed he and his friends were in danger. He told police that he didn’t know it was a prank.

Starnes hasn’t been charged and police are investigating the fatal shooting as a matter of self-defense, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. There is no further information regarding how the prank was supposed to go.

Prank videos are very popular on YouTube and is a type of content that has helped many YouTubers gain a lot of views. However, the definition of a prank often depends on the creator. In this case, approaching a person with a weapon is more like a threat of violence than a funny moment.

YouTube did not invent the prank video and it did not invent young people doing stupid things for attention. However, YouTube’s mechanism has allowed people to easily earn money from that type of attention, which was impossible before.

In the past, one had to get an MTV show of their own if they wanted to earn money from doing stupid, ridiculous things in front of the audience. Regardless, though, approaching someone with a butcher knife is way across the line even for the worst prank.

>>> Company Gifts Employees iPhone 12, PS5, Nintendo Switch And GPU