I Tricked TikTok into Cancelling My Friend

[@LewSpears]

Ever sent millions of rabid people to cancel your mate? I have. Sorry Keehlan MELBOURNE! My comedy festival show "Straight Outta Frankston" is on sale NOW - Tickets: lewspears.com/ - SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE STUNTS!

[@sakurahadomi6772]

[@storming.]

W

[@storming.]

W

[@ProLumbo]

Poor Keehlan

[@JazzyUnderscoreTrumpeter]

Thank you for ruining his life, he deserved it

[@noideer7880]

Now i'm no psychologist, but if i were to take a stab in the dark i'd guess the reason people were arguing against the people telling the truth is probably because: A: They don't want to believe they were fooled, they refuse to believe they could possible fall for something like this, and B: They don't want their initial hate and vitriol to be (in their eyes) unjustified because this person was innocent. A lot of social media seems to have an "I can't be wrong" mentality where people refuse to believe their initial reaction to or assumption with a situation was uncalled for or incorrect.

[@NostraFnDamus]

This type of person will always double down.

[@Terra-Antares]

Basically, they don't want to admit they were wrong Which is kind of all of us to an extent lmao

[@noideer7880]

@@Terra-Antares To an extent, but i certainly wouldn't double-down on harassments if i found out the person wasn't guilty of anything (not that i'd even do it in the first place, the fact alone that these people are clearly shows a general lack of empathy and/or critical thinking)

[@jonnycrabtree6591]

the amount of people ive suprised by admitting i was wrong when debating online, this mentality for sure exists

[@Will-lo1zq]

I believe this is or is similar to something called confirmation bias in psychology.

[@FlareBlitzBanana]

Dang, Australia wasn’t kidding when they said their weaponry was stronger than Russia’s.

[@anoydorang3863]

No we were not, hahaha!

[@gunsandroses896]

Yeah. Our vegemite sandwiches are toxic.

[@TristanHammat]

And Lewis is going to be in big trouble once our Aussie president (Bruce Straylia, 31st president of Australia) hears that he has been posting our psyops techniques to KZbin again.

[@TristanHammat]

"OI BRUCE!" "BRUCE! STOP THE CHAINSAW!" "I said, stop chainsawing for a minute." "It'll only be a minute mate and then you can get back to your firebreak" "Yeah, you'll never guess what that larrikin Lewis has been posting to KZbin."

[@thedopepineapple9917]

Nah fk that I'm on smoko. Russia will have to wait

[@zoids5459]

I’m convinced Lewis could convince a flat earther that the earth is a dinosaur

[@HamiltonAnimations]

@lewis spear can this please be the next one

[@TotoDG]

Wait... It's _not_ a dinosaur?

[@gigiisaweirdo8175]

Dino nugget

[@RoseKindred]

Well, the Earth *is* flat and it rides on the backs of a herd of elephants on the back of a turtle, which is a relative of a dinosaur, so you are correct! /S

[@TristanHammat]

@@RoseKindred That is a lie propagated by BigPach (Big Pachyderm). The reality is that the world is just a simple space dinosaur, it's obvious if you think about it for a few seconds. 🌎 🚀🦎#doyourownresearch

[@therealestsnake]

This is genuinely insane. Hope this gets actual media coverage!

[@darthnihilus1608]

I highly doubt it, they rarely show logic things. The only coverage we could expect was something like "Fan gives death threat to his beloved favourite comedian" or something stupid....

[@checker297]

@@darthnihilus1608 the media isnt worried about reporting on genuine issues, they just want to be seen as vanilla icecream. Something that everyone will eat, but no1 thinks is their favourite. I would rather BAD journalism (which at least is reporting on a relevant issue with fake arguments) than bland journalism.

[@baileybailey6808]

I’m arguing with you so this video gets pushed!

[@therealestsnake]

@@baileybailey6808 I am absolutely shocked! How rude! I am incredibly angry right now!

[@joebob3683]

Just ignore me, adding engagement.

[@arthur_the_k]

Saw the tiktok today, i was like: "Isn't the fan one of his friends?" went to his profile, saw one of his tiktoks which has his computer with an editing program open with you in it, lmao

[@darbrett1106]

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting it's shoes on.

[@andreajane3633]

lies travel light without a care, shoes or facts. everyone loses except the Platform

[@user-ne7eq1zt7j]

Critical thinking is such a good message to be promoted, one that we honestly need more of nowadays.

[@larrygardner8293]

With the small downside that critical thinking is difficult and hopping on dubious bandwagons is easy. Idk, might just be me.

[@RamkrishanYT]

Fighting in comments to engage the algorithm

[@62sy]

There are several definitions for critical thinking… generally accepted one is: “Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement” And I’m critical of everything. Not just the bad stuff, but the good stuff as well? Cancer survivor? I don’t believe you. You ate shrimp… I don’t believe you. Simply put my level of critical thinking is to assume it’s all bullshit unless there is evidence.(I mentally can’t believe ANYTHING said without evidence. Like even this video… I totally buy that people are this dumb, but I actually would need to physically check or receive some sort of circumstantial evidence to believe this happened. That is how little I trust people on the internet. Granted the video does a good job of that… so, ya) However, you have to remember that there is no consequence not to do research. But there are consequences for doing it. Research requires time, time most people are not willing to spend. And that’s honestly fair. I have spent sometimes hours researching and writing a single well rounded reply explaining everything from the basis of my own (or sometimes even their) argument, the main points, the reason for it, the evidence to even definitions of words to get my point across in a manner that there is no misunderstanding lost in the argument, only for it to be ignored or worse “lol, I’m not reading that”. More often then not it’s not worth actually doing research when, people hold such absurd opinions and views that you can’t even find explanations/names for them on the fucking internet. So, it’s not unsurprising that people are that easy to influence. When there is no consequence to an action, there is no need to not do it when it provides emotional benefits.

[@kekderschydenius6659]

Dude that's crazy! Anyway, are you planning to sue that guy that tried to hug you. I saw the tiktok. What an asshole.

[@WorldofRasshadow]

best comment

[@RobotChad]

best comment

[@desireable9128]

best comment

[@S3verusMyG]

Worst Comment 😈

[@HamiltonAnimations]

Well done. Kinda scary how well this worked.

[@LewSpears]

Scariest part for me was when people who DID work out the influencer (me) was lying, the vast majority who fell for it, refused to consider the idea they had been lied to and instead abused the person with the truth

[@sticklyboi]

@@LewSpears jesus christ

[@HamiltonAnimations]

@@LewSpears My faith in humanity is soo low atm. Can we have a wholesome video next haha. Nah legit though just blows my mind how angry people are these days.

[@checker297]

​@@LewSpears I think its crazy how people view "justice" in all contexts. Its all about feel good revenge.

[@jordanleo]

@@LewSpears I just can't believe that part. Like it shocks me how many people refuse to accept they had been lied to!!

[@capnconnor5631]

i saw this on tiktok and it was super funny to see all the people in the comments super pissed as well as the other people who knew it was fake

[@Pek1gn]

It is terrifying, I've been a victim of such an attack. Luckily it was centralised in a small content creator community, so I was able to resume eventually, however that experience caused me so much anxiety and stress from constant harassment from people who literally had never heard of me. Even worse, the dude making up the lies got people who had never met me or heard of me before to formulate "stories" and "experiences" they had with me. A huge problem with cancel culture is that even if it is all proven to be fake, even if the person who started it admits to lying, the damage is already done and the victim will still continue receiving hate despite everything being disproven. Social media can be incredibly toxic, especially Twitter, so this is my advice for making online friends: Reserve your trust for those you are absolutely 100% sure deserve it.

[@Zuignap]

Bruh I have a twitter account because I entered some giveaways a couple times, I log in on it like once a year and everytime the first thing I see makes me cringe/annoyed because of a bad take on some random topic and I have to click it away. It's fucking crazy there's people like that in the world. I'm happy that I chose not to use social media anymore when I was a kid, I feel like it really fucks up some peoples brains.

[@S3verusMyG]

Remember when Twitter was just the funny “Haha, Wendy’s just roasted this dude” and not a Rainbow coloured Shithole?

[@nottucks]

Yeah I got into some serious twitter drama. Even 1k people liked the post and I still have anxiety from it years later. Doesn’t help that the story was explained like shit because I was 12 when I told it. Fuck twitter.

[@Pek1gn]

@@nottucks Twitter is such a shithole, the guy defaming me specifically said "None of this proves anything, you'll just have to trust me" and almost everybody did. So many people base their entire support and opinion on the first thing they hear and never fact-check it, and that's such a problem

[@Zuignap]

@@nottucks delete button?

[@RaptorGoesRAWR]

When I was a kid, my mum drilled into me the importance of personal and intellectual honesty in a really simple way. If we ever disagreed on something and it turned out that she was wrong, or she realised that from my perspective she could have been seen to be wrong, she would always come back and admit it to me (and in the latter case, explain why she thinks we misunderstood each other). In return for that respect, the same was expected of me. No one was shamed for being wrong (no 'I told you so's unless we were joking) as long as we were willing to accept the possibility of being proven wrong and acknowledge when it happened. I didn't realise until so much later how many people lacked this skill and how important it would become with the internet age. My mum never even finished high school but has more integrity than some people I know with degrees. She's not afraid to acknowledge being wrong, being out of her depth, misremembering, or bowing out of a debate because she's not confident in her information. That doesn't mean she won't argue her point if she IS confident, though! I have mad respect for that and I wish more people had those skills. Maybe then social media wouldn't have such a major problem with critical thinking. It'd also help if platforms wouldn't stop algorithmically encouraging the toxicity and feeding the fire :/

[@bchin4005]

And this is why I'm so glad my social media footprint and usage is virtually nil.

[@splitfire3114]

Same

[@inadamquate]

I fell for it. I mentioned something on your tiktok saying along the lines of "hypothetically if you were shitty you still deserved personal space" and then I kept reading the comments and realised it was your editor, I should of known too I've watched most of your videos lmao.

[@stevenlikeslegs6921]

Holy shit, people actually canceled him. I thought everyone was joking in the comments ahaha

[@neolord1215]

Ikr! Bruh I didn't know mfs were sending death threats and shit!

[@roseprecision]

Man I can't believe that random guy would harass you like that.

[@synthdiablo6355]

The scary thing is, as a lot of this doesn't just apply to cancel culture, but other misinformation about current world events, I think this video was well done and needed.

[@nathanmarkus9823]

Thank you for posting this. Information is processed so quickly nowadays, nobody ever stops to think if what's been showed to them is true or false.

[@SaintLane]

raised the bar again with this one brother

[@Signal_Lost.]

I love this series.

[@alexfinlayson4592]

Same

[@hiropon2985]

Funniest part to me is Lewis is an absolute sweetheart when you meet him IRL. I'm a huge fan but never expected him to be so lovely irl but he made time to talk to everyone and take photos. Genuinely cherished memory meeting you mate, so proud of and for you.

[@johndeaux8815]

Great vid, scary part is that there are probably many more TikToks that would've had 50x the views that yours does, but the people on the receiving end weren't in on it for those ones.

[@closeben]

“they would rather destroy someone’s life than believe that this isn’t true and they’ve been tricked.” this is such a sad reality. people online are so damn fragile.

[@builttoscalevideos]

Shows how easily the average internet goer can be manipulated. Wanna know why there’s always ad’s saying you won an iPad and to click on the ad to redeem it? It’s cause people actually click on them.

[@eribethd.7223]

the fact that i saw this video and didn’t think anything of it is crazy 😭 i didn’t do any research, i just got on your side immediately

[@kindaokcosplay]

As someone who has been 'cancelled' on tiktok it gets to you. I have thick skin but it got so bad I had to delete my account and restart. Its funny now but at the time I was 16 and it was going on for 2 months. It hurt ngl😅

[@YoBGS]

"Who is very obviously and publicly friends with me on social media." Poor guy, that was his first mistake.

[@Hoezaay]

Pretty much sums up social media and humanity today. we're doomed. brilliant video.

[@unworthy.potato]

Now I want to try canceling myself, and seeing if anyone notices

[@GreeleyTHC]

Sleep paralysis but the demon is Keehlans face from the thumbnail..

[@RosePetko]

lmfaooo i literally saw the tiktok and was like... wait ik him aren't they mates?

[@kani6393]

You are awesome for exposing the kind of evil people use to shut down conversation, peoples lives and other malicious shit. This happens in a weekly on social media, it is terrifying and unless something changes or is presented like in this instance. You bringing in Kelan (as the receiver to all the hatred) it shows both perspectives of a bully and a victim. As well as just showing how TikTok and other social media create a hive mind mentality

[@haleyw5677]

When people say cancel culture is just holding people accountable they need to see this. I could easily see a situation where someone was maybe being a little annoying to a celebrity and the celebrity was rude back and a video like the fake one could be created. It is terrifying to see how quickly people are ready to send death threats even if he was actually being an annoying fan.

[@JuraIbis]

This is the most important video on the internet. Show it to your children. Sit down and explain to them all of the internet and how powerful it is.

[@the_phantom_cat7912]

It is genuinely horrifying how easy this is to do

[@mathewpoole3589]

This is why you should always follow up on anything you see or hear on social media or the news. It's also why it's useless to have media outlets correct a statement that they've made as the correction won't be received the same way or shared around as much as the original false report.

[@AydinZahedi]

This is scary. This should be discussed by all major channels.

[@imtallplslikeme7405]

This is such a clever experiment.

[@legoshi6531]

On a social media I was once cancelled, god I hate that word. But it's the single most horrible experience, being accused of something horrible you never did just because someone doesn't like you, and nobody even takes the time to consider your word, it's just hatred and harassment right from the start

[@brendancskinner]

I can definitely see a future where the people who jumped on the bandwagon feel angry that they were tricked and redirect their vitriol at Lewis. "How dare you make me feel stupid, who do think you are?"

[@JokerForLife]

I Might Be The Joker But You're The Trickster!

[@darktheories1758]

I think social media is the place where everyone who has ever been hurt, goes to hurt other people. Words have sharp teeth.

[@MrGlenn253]

Almost exactly this was done to the Labor leader this week. Only it was the Prime Minister playing as Lewis and the media were commenters.

[@iamdildorbowbeforeme9040]

WOW. this is actually a very important experiment. You guys are fantastic

[@IamLatency]

We stan Lewis cancelling all his friends for fun 🤌🏻🙏🏼

[@aguy131]

Amazing video, you are the only person on this planet that does research on the most important topics

[@ivanivanovic5857]

It's easier to fool someone than to convince them that they've been fooled.

[@isaachobman8432]

they gotta use this as a case study example - nice outline

[@j.style18]

it’s so fucking funny that you made it so damn easy to see it’s clearly fake and people still defended so hard that it’s real

[@annicat648]

Having been a fan of the podcast for a while I think describing Keehlan as a gremlin is honestly pretty accurate.

[@kiobio7311]

Did my part and shared this one Hope it picks up soon! This is great content and needs to be seen

[@oliviercantas2575]

I saw this and immediately knew what was going on and decided to just watch the fire burn from afar

[@tompenfold5367]

Started off as a funny pisstake ended up being an intelligent insight into the social media shit pool. Good experiment, good vid.

[@ferrari48817]

This is going to be a banger based off the title alone.

[@kiweping5]

This is what news articles should be reporting on. News should be informative and spread awareness. This is something the world really needs to wake up to. 1 celebrity (who could easily be an asshole) could ruin a single guy’s life because of simple misunderstanding. This is an issue, people need to do research before posting such harmful comments, which as the media does report, can have a very tragic effect.

[@Kold_Koala]

This new upload schedule is amazing, he’s gonna hit 1 millions subs in no time

[@rockystudios4585]

This gave me lots to think on, thanks Lewis, always enjoying!!

[@TotoDG]

No need to _trick_ TikTok into cancelling you; all you need is four simple words: *"Taiwan is a country."* When all's said and done, you'll not just be cancelled, but you'll be completely blacklisted from the Chinese-owned social network. Thank me later!

[@RoseKindred]

"West-Taiwan -owned social network."

[@Kelnef]

Democratic peoples republic of west taiwan

[@Snekolo]

For a second I thought KZbin send me notification for one of the old vids

[@kaytay238]

This better get media coverage because this really needs to be talked about

[@codossthegoblinslayer3830]

I was so confused when I first saw the tik tok, so sad that this is how the internet works when its so easy to see you guys work together and are good friends

[@LeoLegit]

Alllllmost fell for it but then I remembered seeing him somewhere in one of your videos before

[@horrorkesh]

I mean it's the same way for news/newspapers a lot will gloss over a happy positive story but yet the negative nasty stories are always on the front of the paper or highlighted in some way

[@jakehotchkiss6093]

You actually got me at first when I saw the TikTok but then I clicked on his Instagram. GET PRANKED I DID MY RESEARCH. I WIN

[@speedbird1186]

I actually fell for this too, I can't believe it.

[@luke-nz5du]

great work lewis i recon this is a very valuable vid to make

[@richarddoyle2216]

Congratulations Lewis and Co. You are now an internet/ social media public safety announcement and teaching point for my son. Good stuff.

[@Someonedid911]

1:28 I swear to god if this is the start of an arg

[@secondBAR]

yeah nobody's talking about this, I think lew intentionally padded the video for runtime AND left it at the end of the tour ad so people would skip over it

[@beehambonio3378]

If I was a school teacher this would be tomorrow's lesson material

[@koaliia1390]

Heard about this on Luke and Lewis Went to the Tik Toks and loved seeing the fans laugh about it while others were like screaming. When I first heard that social media platforms show and propel things that make people angry for the sake of engagement it blew my mind. Everything made sense after that, definitely explains why some people have started going crazy over the past few years.

[@abbywoodhead2764]

When I think about it if I had a tik tok and I saw this I wouldn’t have checked anything and would have dog piled.

[@GMAC-eo6oi]

I have been waiting for this with great anticipation

[@KYCDK]

you gotta post on tik tok story of guy who harrassed me *UPDATE* then reveal it and laugh at the idiots

[@hudbudmudsud]

Someone should really do a formal study on this.

[@MEGACAMZ]

Lewis, my fave content of yours is hoaxing/pranking, you need to keep doing it, it's glorious.

[@mustafamohamed8889]

Great video Lewis, I really like your new studio set and you do know how cancel culture works

[@bluethecolour7429]

And to think keyhole actually gets away with bullying disabled people

[@jeffodabear]

Easily some of the best videos on the internet, this man is brilliant! 👏

[@omw2u441]

This is fucking incredible Lewis. Going to new levels. It's only a matter of time for you to blow up if you keep putting content like this

[@trentr9762]

Friend of mine was hit badly for the past few months with a huge canclestion campaign. Ended with her accounts being hacked and ethire having fake vids / texts put up (which people wanted to be real so it automatically was) or the accounts being taken out that she'd worked hard on. She is doing ok thankfully, very strong las bless her but it certainly wasn't fun. Got to a point where there were harrasing her family and mates with death threats

[@tegan-lynn889]

Oh this is going to be good, bandwagon canceling people online is just so easy especially on tik tok i just hope they take this as a lesson and think and researching before trying to ruin someone's life.

[@axion6844]

bro this is better than some actual "investigative journalism"

[@daniellucas2968]

Great video. Kind of terrifying, especially the bit about the views not going up until people started arguing, but definitely clever (well, not that clever, but then, it didn't need to be, did it?). Let's all argue about it, so more people see it!

[@CooperBurnham1]

Awesome video, loved watching it unfold. Hope Keehlan is okay!

[@lordtism178]

Next you should i try and get people to cancel someone who doesn't exist

[@Marxon1134]

This is a waking nightmare for me, took some courage to keep watching. Thjs is why I don't really engage social media.

[@youraveragebinchicken6807]

Yeah. Social media can really toxic sometimes.

[@TobyLittle]

Real good video Lewis, crazy how easy it to do this

[@locky_socky62]

I thought something was up when I saw that tik tok 😂 I obviously knew it was fake but I didn't know what on earth Lewis was doing 😆😆

[@Daniel.Liddicoat]

This just reinforces my view that being liked on social media means fuck all

[@maccyyy]

Saw these on tiktok and couldn’t wait for the end result, great video lads

[@uncleathu]

the new studio looks so fucking good

[@turtlesarenotreal2207]

Don’t usually comment but I had to. This is awesome. About time someone finally exposes how flawed cancel culture is and I’m so glad it was you to do it Lewis. Keep up the great videos.

[@Apudurangdinya]

Don't usually reply but i had to. Stop putting that first sentence, that doesn't make you special

[@seff6533]

I'm pretty sure on your response video I said something like "even if this was true I wouldn't be surprised. Lewis radiates fuck off energy"

[@cluckendip]

1:27 Lewis turns into that Michael Rosen YTP you watched at 3AM

[@TCAPChrisHandsome]

Not going to lie, these actual social experiments (not the Sam Pepper kind) that Lewis does are awesome, but there's so much time and effort that have to go into them, that it's awesome.

[@MisterJokestar]

This is one of the reasons I deleted my social medias, but this was really funny and also super educational.

[@Enraged.]

I feel like this should be viral by now

[@rubensterf674]

Crazy! Balzy move... Hope this gets media coverage, guys! Love from Belgium, even for that creepy stalker Keehlan!!!