Eric Decker (born: January 12, 1997),[citation needed] better known online as Airrack, is a comedic vlogging YouTuber known for his “couch series” collaboration with Logan Paul. He then became recognized for creating expensive vlogs and challenge videos, in a similar style to MrBeast, but with different video ideas and on a smaller scale.
A lot of the channel's success in 2020 can be attributed to Mack Hopkins, a 19-year-old videographer and editor from North Carolina who dropped out of film school to join the rocket-ship. He's to credit for the signature Airrack graphics and fast-paced storytelling.
Career[]
He launched his YouTube channel on January 3, 2015 and uploaded his first public video on June 14, 2016. The video was called ‘Making a NightLapse’. His next upload came out three months later, and there were no uploads of videos for nearly three years.
Later on, he started posting vlogs, and started gaining recognition blew up after the upload of the video titled ‘SNEAKING Into Jake Paul Vs Gib As FAKE Reporter (I need your help!!!)’.[1] He posted another video after a couple of days, where he snuck into a crowd. This video was one of his most viral videos, and it got him thousands of subscribers.
The video didn’t last as long as he was charged for breaking into a party organized by Dan Blizerian. He was sued for trespassing by the landlord of the building. However, Eric did not destroy the house, and he was only there for the stuff. Eric ended up deleting the video after talking to the attorneys of the guy who sued him.
His YouTube channel was temporarily deleted in order to prepare for a $120,000 ping pong competition on November 13, 2021.
Controversies[]
Accusation of staged video's[]
In November 2023, Eric announced a ‘30 days around the world’ challenge, where he would travel around the world during the month of December, and uploading a video each day he did so. If he didn’t, YouTuber MrBeast would delete his channel.[2] However, in December 2023, Eric was first caught and called out by a Youtuber named Vyzme for faking his challenge.[3]
Later on, another YouTuber, by the name of Soggy Cereal, was able to find that almost all the first half of the videos in the challenge could be confirmed to have been filmed prior to the challenge’s beginning. For example, in one video, the timer on Eric’s watch says "Sep. 12th" (nearly two months before the challenge had even been announced), and a piece of meat Eric was holding in another video has an expiration date that says "September 18th." He was also able to identify that Eric was trying to hide this, as he had said that a flight he was on in this video was from Italy to the UAE, but you could see clearly that it was from Houston, USA. The full explanation is included on Soggy Cereal’s channel.
Eric, or someone with access to the Airrack channel, only responded to these allegations a comment on Soggy Cereal's channel, claiming that everything was a misunderstanding and that he should have emphasized more clearly that the challenge was 'traveling around the world for 30 days uploading a video each day', and that he, in fact, had 'some videos pre-recorded in case he would otherwise miss the upload window'. This is assumed by many to be a deceptive claim as there was no information saying Eric was traveling around the world during December 2023, as would be necessary. The second half of the series was confirmed by Soggy Cereal to be filmed entirely in the United States. As of March 2024, Eric’s channel remains on YouTube and wasn’t deleted by MrBeast.[4]
In February 2024, Soggy Cereal made another video calling out Eric for many more malicious things, including doxxing a pilot from Eric’s "Flying to the Angle" video, faking what appeared to be a charitable giving-away of money to a poor city, faking even more challenges, and bulling people. Soggy Cereal mentioned that Eric faked the scene in which he rode a bike on the ice to the Angle. The video makes it appear that Eric failed to drive on the ice and the bicycle fell through the ice, polluting the sea. This entire scene was staged as a member of Eric's team confirmed that the crew was actually pushing the bike into the ocean on purpose. Eric did not bring the bicycle back up, which almost cost their tourist their job. To "find a solution to cross the river", in part 2 of the video, Eric claimed he hired a jet pilot that lived in the Angle to fly them there, and that the pilot's real first name couldn't be used because it would dox him due to the low population of the Angle (no one else in the Angle would have that first name). Eric said that he would use a fake 'dummy' name to refer to the pilot, but the name he used was actually the pilot's real name. This blatantly doxxed the pilot. The location the pilot flew Eric and his team to wasn’t the Angle; they just went in a big circle and came back to Sportsman's Lodge, the same place the Airrack team had been staying before they set out to 'go to the angle'. Then, they spent all of their 'charity money' on a luxurious vacation in Sportsman's Lodge, attempting to look kind and charitable to their audience. In the same video, Soggy Cereal exposed Eric’s 'Crossing America in a Perfectly Straight Line' video by comparing the Google Maps link provided in the description of Eric's video, which was meant to prove it was legit, to the route Eric took in the video. Soggy Cereal mentioned that the locations Airrack appeared were not located on or near the straight line map. One of those examples is where he and his friends was near “Welcome To South Dakota” sign right near Interstate 29 (I-29) near the North-South Dakota border where it was 40 miles away from the straight line route. There are lots more things Airrack has done wrong, according to Soggy Cereal.[5] A little while after, Internet Anarchist collaborated with Soggy Cereal to make a video that would spread the news to a larger amount of people due to Internet Anarchist's larger audience. Following this upload, all videos covered by Internet Anarchist and Soggy Cereal were silently deleted from Eric's channel, but some fans have re-uploaded them to their own channels, making them still available to find.
In March 2024, Vyzme made a follow-up video on Eric's '30 days around the globe', where he was able to gather more concise evidence about the challenge. Vyzme concluded that at least 16 of the 31 videos were pre-recorded before the start of the challenge and that Eric never truly circled the globe since some of his videos were filmed months apart.[6] As part of Eric's '30 days around the globe' challenge, Eric was doing another 'crossing in a straight line' challenge across Europe. Eric constantly tried to maintain the impression that he was always within the line, even when boarding a helicopter.[7] Vyzme exposed Eric's 'Crossing Europe in a Perfectly Straight Line' series by tracking and mapping out the journey of the helicopter that Eric took via a flight tracker called 'Flight Aware' and comparing Eric's location on Google Maps and time on Eric's watch with the data on Flight Aware. In Eric's day 5 video, Eric tried to make it seem like his helicopter was within the line, but according to the evidence, the helicopter was out of the line by roughly 16 miles. Eric's persona of being an honest creator was quickly challenged when Vyzme provided evidence of Eric tampering with and concealing evidence of his journey. For example, Eric and Tyler removed their Google reviews from Anik's Cafe after the day 4 video went live, which revealed their review date; Eric had edited out a brief segment of his day 10 video, which revealed the precise time on his watch; and Eric had used editing software to digitally conceal the date on the plane ticket in his day 8 video[6]. As of March, Eric has not mentioned a single word about his controversies.
Business[]
On May 1, 2021, he launched the first season of creatornow.club an online course for aspiring YouTubers. It is a 6 week challenge. With sponsors including stock image and audio service Storyblocks, music licensing platforms Musicbed and Epidemic Sound, and tech giant Sony — are predominantly providing free products for participants, as well as larger-tier prizes, given the program’s gamified elements. Select brands are also sponsoring their own workshops.
MrBeast Challenges[]
- See also: Collaborations with MrBeast
His initial appearance in the MrBeast channel was in Last To Leave Circle Wins $500,000 and he is one of the ten longest lasting contestants in that challenge video. Because of that, he got to be one of the ten contestants in Extreme $500,000 Game of Tag!. At 9:25 in the latter video, even though Airrack managed to get inside a Lamborghini, Karl gave Jimmy the keys to open the Lamborghini, hence making Airrack tagged in 4th place. He won $10,000.
He made another appearance in Would You Swim With Sharks For $100,000?, where he has to choose between the world's "coldest" or "hottest" rooms. Afterwards, for every hour Airrack survived in his chosen room, $10,000 would be given to a random female subscriber. He lasted 7 hours in the cold room, and $80,000 was given to the subscriber. The extra $10,000 was given in exchange for Airrack's hoodie 5 hours into the challenge and the cold room was full of ice sculptures (such as of a bed and couch), with the hot room having multiple small flames.
Airrack also made an appearance in the MrBeast Gaming video 100 People Decide Who Wins $30,000!, where he chose to vote someone off.
Members[]
Airrack often shows three other people on his YouTube channel, all of whom are his friends. These people are:
| Image | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
  |
Mack Hopkins | The blonde person who sometimes is the director and editor of Airrack's videos, as well as one of Airrack's friends who often appears in videos. |
  |
Tyler Blanchard | The person with black hair who also has a YouTube channel by himself. |
  |
Samuel J. Thomas | The person with brown hair and sometimes brown facial hair. |
World's Largest Pizza Party[]
At some point, Airrack decided to talk to a Pizza Hut employee about throwing the world's largest pizza party, which would occur at the end of 2022, as long as Airrack hits 10 million subscribers by the end of the year. Airrack has managed to achieve 11 million subscribers before 2023 began, allowing him to be able to throw the party.
The reason why he did this in the first place is because of the fact that he threw a pizza party when he was 8 years old, but no one showed up to the party.[8]
The project took hundreds of people (most of whom are Pizza Hut employees), 10,000 pounds of dough, 5,000 pounds of sauce, and 9,000 pounds of cheese, all of which was funded and supplied by Pizza Hut, and even some gigantic tools were manufactured by fans, such as the largest pizza server and the largest pizza cutter.[8] The diameter of the pizza is 132 feet, breaking the world record of the largest pizza from Rome, Italy, and all of it was done in nearly 48 hours to comply with health and safety rules.[8]
The video about this event showing the progress of the construction of the pizza. The event took place in the YouTube theater.[8]
Channel milestones[]
Subscriber milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: December 27, 2020[9]
- 2 million subscribers: September 6, 2021[9]
- 3 million subscribers: December 17, 2021[9]
- 4 million subscribers: February 27, 2022 [9]
- 5 million subscribers: March 27, 2022[9]
- 6 million subscribers: May 1, 2022
- 7 million subscribers: June 1, 2022
- 8 million subscribers: July 11, 2022
- 9 million subscribers: August 21, 2022
- 10 million subscribers: October 16, 2022
- 11 million subscribers: December 18, 2022
- 12 million subscribers: February 7, 2023
- 13 million subscribers: May 5, 2023
- 14 million subscribers: August 1, 2023
Video view milestones[]
- 1 billion views: August 1, 2022[10]
References[]
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPX69OECzDs
- ↑ I Have To Delete My Channel. - YouTube
- ↑ Airrack Is Lying To You: Fake 30 Day Challenge. - YouTube
- ↑ Airrack: King of Faking Content - YouTube
- ↑ Airrack: Lying, Doxxing and Fake Donations - YouTube
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Biggest Liar: How Airrack Lied To His Fans - YouTube
- ↑ I Crossed Switzerland In A Perfectly Straight Line - Day 5 - YouTube
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 I Made The World's Largest Pizza (132 Feet) - YouTube
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Airrack YouTube Channel Analytics and Report - NoxInfluencer
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxPhGJtwKny9YMnra8E_cMRHCacsqczyLl