The untold truth of David Dobrik

Anyone with siblings knows that sometimes you just want to make them disappear, right? In a September 2018 stunt that We Are Unicorns grandly proclaimed was “the greatest prank video of all time,” David Dobrik managed to convince a friend’s younger brother that he’d become entirely invisible, and all it took was a bedsheet, a few willing accomplices, and a healthy dose of gullibility.

After Dobrik asks if he “[wants] to be the one to disappear,” 12-year-old Vardan Antonyan grunts, “Hell yeah!” He sits down, a bedsheet is thrown over his body, and when it’s whipped off, his family and friends pretend they can’t see him anymore. Screams ensue, and poor Antonyan proceeds to panic: “David, do you hear me?” he whimpers (we think). Soon, he’s sobbing in terror. Antonyan throws pillows and cries inconsolably, and he doesn’t stop crying — even after the bedsheet is tossed over his body again (to return him to visible status, naturally). “Was that cool?” Dobrik asks, and Antonyan replies: “No, no … I was yelling your name, I’m like, ‘David, David, please David!'” Believe it or not, Antonyan subsequently agrees to do the entire stunt again, everyone pretends to freak out when he lifts up a candle, and Dobrik eventually comes clean when the exercise is over: “We saw you the entire time.”

Impressionable young Vardan lets this cruel fact sink in for a moment. “That was amazing,” he beams.