Adam Saleh Scandal ‘Terrorists On A Plane’ Possibly Used YouTube Growth Hacking On Subscribers And Views

YouTube superstar of “Terrorists on a Plane,” Adam Saleh, might have played a prank on his own YouTube account many months ago. Recently, Adam made the news when he filmed a prank video for YouTube while on an actual airplane with real people flying somewhere across the United States. He has made previous pranks on airplanes, including one where he dresses like a Saudi Arabian man, and another prank that includes him loudly counting down from 10 to zero in the Arabic language.

https://t.co/VQpLH3UIQx #ghana #news @ghanastarnews Social media star Adam Saleh removed from Delta plane Social M… pic.twitter.com/6VGkUhndtk

— GhanaStar (@ghanastarnews) January 3, 2017

YouTube Star Adam Saleh Thrown Off Delta Flight for Speaking Arabic https://t.co/iZvWGSnwe9 pic.twitter.com/DnFcJLyLks

— GARNERBARRO (@garnerbarro) December 31, 2016

Now, it appears he might have played his biggest prank on YouTube and his own subscribers.

Looking at trend graphs of user engagement, it appears that Adam has an irregular amount of YouTube subscribers, views, and engagement.

Recently, Adam became famous over the Delta incident, where they had to remove him from the plane after his prank was over, and it was apparent that actions have consequences. He continued filming the incident, then started yelling on the plane about how they were kicking him off the plane because of the color of skin. It was only when another person sitting far away from him on the plane jumped on the opportunity to share his resentment, making the incident appear real. This second passenger was not removed from the plane but did give credence to his sentiment and helped cause others to watch his uploaded video, without the prank included.

What happened next was the beginning of #BoycottDelta and the possible loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue for the company over a misleading video that went viral on social media.

Skepticism & critical thinking died with the advent of social media. Thank you @omgAdamSaleh for heaping more soil on its grave. #AdamSaleh pic.twitter.com/BTr7iClXfF

— Andy Ngô ???? (@MrAndyNgo) December 22, 2016

Now, taking a look at how he got to be so successful in the first place leads one to discover interesting differences between his user engagement statistics on YouTube. Now, he earns almost $5,000 daily. Growth hackers buy YouTube subscribers to make their account look popular and give it social proof so when real people find them, they trust them to a higher degree.

Let’s take a look at his progress of activity and user engagement on YouTube.

This is a screenshot from Social Blade showing the statistics on his YouTube channel. The important aspect is the small but powerful implication in the difference between the two lines. The top line is the number of YouTube views and the bottom is his active YouTube subscriber count.

On YouTube, you will always gain more views before you gain subscribers, especially if you are paying YouTube for advertising views. Now, he is running a business on YouTube, so you can realistically assume he was planning this prank out at least days or weeks in advance. If you look carefully just after July 2016, you’ll notice he gets one of his biggest bumps in growth for his YouTube subscribers before he gains the momentum on his YouTube viewership. This is statistically impossible.

YouTube’s algorithm is private, but it is an algorithm that is based on statistics such as subscriber increases, viewership increases, and outside indicators for viral counts such as shares on Facebook and retweets on Twitter.

If you notice, even YouTube responded to the viral character of the video and displayed it on the front page of YouTube for hours, exposing it to hundreds of thousands of viewers. It has its own tag highlighting that its No. 2 on Trending at the top, helping to drive even more traffic.

Do all YouTube growth hackers spoof their YouTube subscribers and views?

From getting himself permanently banned from Delta airlines to provocations on the already tense racial ties around the world, he clearly knows how the media responds to certain stories and uses it to his financial gain. Is it crazy to think that he bought YouTube subscribers and views to originally get the social proof he needed to eventually gain the real viewership he desired? If that is what he did, since he’s making almost $3 million each year, he’s pulled his biggest and best prank yet.

[Featured Image by Adam Saleh/Instagram]