YouTube star Sam Pepper pulled quite the prank over the weekend, successfully convincing an unwitting victim into believing his best friend had been murdered right in front of him.
Vine stars Colby Brock and Sam Golbach, of “Colby and Sam” fame, are seen driving along when the duo’s car suddenly “breaks down.”
Brock, who’s in on the prank, pops the hood and pretends to check the oil when Golbach gets out to assist him. It’s then that a masked man sneaks up behind Golbach, puts a hood over his head, binds his hands and feet, and tosses him into the trunk of a car while Brock noisily pretends he is similarly being kidnapped.
Twenty minutes later, the pair are on an unspecified rooftop in Los Angeles, both bound to chairs with hoods over their heads. Golbach screams as the masked man reappears, pulls out a gun, and holds it to Brock’s head.
“What do you want?” Golbach shrieks. “We didn’t do anything!”
The masked man pulls the trigger and Brock falls to the floor as Golbach convulses in terror.
Of course, the whole thing is a prank, and the friends quickly embrace as Brock tried to calm Golbach down. An outro added to the video shows the trio laughing and reminiscing about the prank.
“Props to you guys, that was actually insane,” a much more relaxed Golbach says while smiling.
However, some of Pepper’s social media followers were aghast at the extent of the “prank.”
“I hope you realize that even though this was a prank, this could have actually pulled Sam into a deep depression,” wrote one commenter.
“[T]his is disgusting, how could you do this to someone just for YouTube views? wtf is wrong with you?” wrote another.
What do you think: all in good fun or over the line?