For two hours, on August 29th, 2011, the Vevo Channel on YouTube displayed no Justin Bieber nor Lady Gaga videos. In each of their places was an official notice stating, 'This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by iLCreation. Sorry about that.' It had been posted by YouTube and showed their logo, but social networking sites everywhere erupted with the ire of fans and talk of a 'hack'.
Vevo, meanwhile, sought to maintain calm, assuring furious Beliebers and Little Monsters that the videos were all still there. Communication was taking place between Vevo and YouTube. There had been no breach of the site's security. All that had occurred was merely a copyright claim. As soon as YouTube's administration had verified ownership of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga's entire discographies, then the videos would be available again. Vevo was proved right when, at 6pm BST, first Bieber's, then Gaga's collections returned to YouTube.
It was an audacious prank, but was it really the work of critics of those artists affected, as fans believed at the time?
Fans Storm Social Networking Sites in Defence of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.
The backlash against iLCreation was instantaneous. Supporters of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga filled Vevo and ILCreation YouTube pages with angry comments. They delivered death threats, called upon internet hackers to attack him, sought to rally each other in starting 'World War III' and generally insulted the perpetrator. At the time of writing, 395 pages of such comments had been generated on Vevo's Justin Bieber YouTube Channel alone.
This soon spread onto wider social networking sites. On Twitter, the hashtags #LadyGago and #WEWANTJUSTINBIEBERVEVOBACK trended worldwide for the duration of the prank. Unconfirmed Tweets stated that Shakira, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna had also been affected and called upon their fans to join in the condemnation of the 'hacker'. This post, by @alexgallagher_, was typical of thousands being posted at the time, 'This is a once in a lifetime thing, Monsters and Beliebers must come together to kill #iLCreation . LETS DO THIS!! 25 Million Monstbeliebers.'
Unsourced details began to emerge that iLCreation was a 13 year old boy from Pakistan. Within ten minutes of 100s of Tweets claiming that fans were contacting the Pakistani police, a new account was created on Twitter. It belonged to iLCreation_India and briefly claimed responsibility for the prank. However, most people's eyes were still on @ILCreation's original Twitter account, where the owner had moved from taunts to professing to be a Justin Bieber fan herself. Meanwhile, iLCreation's YouTube profile listed him as simply Matt.
Was ILCreation Role-playing as a Hacker Called Matt?
As the videos were returned, after negotiations between Vevo and YouTube, iLCreation abruptly changed attitude and tactics. Until this point, 'he' had been typing 4chan-esque comments, such as 'Umad, bro?' and 'Owned!', across both YouTube and Twitter. The latter ran the tag-line, 'the hacker of yours'; while the India account read, 'The Official Twitter page of the genius hacker.' 'He' had threatened more deletions, unless 'he' received subscribers.
Suddenly the status changed. Now all information but the name 'Matt' disappeared off 'his' YouTube profile, while 'his' Twitter tag-line stated, 'ROLE PLAYING IS OVERRRR, Thanks! for the tweets.. hehehe I love you fellow belieber we did a Good role playing LMFAOOO.' Moreover, successive Tweets informed visitors that 'she' was female and a self-professed Belieber. The avatar was changed to a picture of the singer along with the legend, 'YouTube has a new king, Justin Bieber'.
Until that point, fans had assumed that the prankster was attacking their idol. The new image implied that it was all a stunt to promote Justin Bieber instead. If that truly was the case, then it was successful. The angry hordes of fans had ensured that their idol's name was all over social networking sites, even more so than usual.
Was There a Death Note Connection in ILCreation's Supposed Role-playing?
It was only at the end of the furore that another fanbase started to pay attention. 'Delete' (also translated as 'eliminate') is a catch-phrase from the popular Death Note manga and anime. It is used extensively by the character of Mikami, as individuals are killed by their names being written in a shinigami's book. It is a tenuous link that iLCreation repeatedly commented 'R.I.P. Justin Bieber' and 'should I delete another video'?'
However, Death Note also has a cameo character named Matt, whom the fanbase frequently characterises as a hacker. Matt's surname is Jeevas. A name invented by the manga's author, Tsugami Obha, it only has one correlation in real world language. It is the plural of jeeva or jiva, meaning 'living', in the Sanskrit of India. In the canon, Matt is a computer genius on the side of justice. He is also a protégé of the detective, L - i L Creation? Is this who iLCreation was role-playing or was it all a complete coincidence?
By then, no-one either knew nor cared. Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and all of the other artists' videos were back on YouTube and fans breathed a long sigh of relief.
Sources:
- Twitter: Alex Gallagher calls for fan unity. (August 29th, 2011.)
- Twitter: iLCreation's Channel. (August 29th, 2011.)
- Twitter: iLCreation_India's Channel. (August 29th, 2011.)
- Twitter: iLCreation's Justin Bieber avatar. (August 29th, 2011.)
- Twitter: Live Tweets as they occurred. (August 29th, 2011.)
- Twitter: Vevo confirms no hack and reassures fans. (August 29th, 2011.)
- Twitter: Vevo alerts fans to the fact that Justin Bieber's videos are back. (August 29th, 2011.)
- Twitter: Vevo alerts fans to the fact that Lady Gaga's videos are back. (August 29th, 2011.)
- YouTube: iLCreation's Channel. (August 29th, 2011.)
- YouTube: Death Note - Delete. (Uploaded by Aznessse, April 15th, 2010.)
Jo Harrington - Jo has a BA (Hons) in History and Philosophy and a MA in History. She has a book published on the history of Wicca.
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