In Brooklyn, two brothers who are becoming infamous for pulling bold and slightly annoying pranks on unsuspecting people in New York are walking a dangerous line. In fact, the brothers nearly catch a couple of bad ones all in the name of filming content for their online video show.
Etayimm (Et) and Mohammed Etayyim, 21 and 20 respectively, host OckTV, an increasingly popular YouTube show that features the Bay Ridge natives going around New York and generally being pests. One of the pranks feature the brothers in Brooklyn’s Brownsville section, and they get close to catching the most extreme of fades several times. The brothers walk up to strangers and snatch phones out the hands of people to check the time, which gets the expected reaction they’re looking for.
The Etayyim brothers, both Palestinian, seem to aim their efforts solely on Black people, which has gotten the attention of community activists who want them to stop filming their show. Tony Herbert, who was part of an effort in support of finding missing boy Avonte Oquendo, is one of those leaders who spoke out in an interview with New York Daily News.
From the Daily News:
It’s gotten so brazen that community activists in Brownsville and East New York demanded Thursday that the Etayyim brothers cease and desist before they get killed — and called on YouTube to stop giving them a platform.
“How stupid are they?” asked community advocate Tony Herbert. “They are particularly targeting minority neighborhoods. Somebody is going to get hurt. They are putting their lives in jeopardy.”
The OckTV brothers have been accused of being racist regarding their mostly Black targets by other leaders, but they insist the pranks are all in the name of fun.
“We target everybody, white people, Spanish people, not only black people,” said Et to the Daily News.
“We’re not trying to get hurt,” said his young brother. “Every time we go out to prank, we are never serious. We don’t think about it. We don’t make anybody’s day go wrong.”
The brothers did admit to filming in Brooklyn because they wanted to take their pranks to a higher level after doing similar shows in Manhattan where people were less aggressive.
Do you think the brothers are racist for going into these so-called “bad neighborhoods” for online yucks? Or are they just attention-seeking fools? Let us know in the comments and check out one of the pranks in the clip below.
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Photo: YouTube
