This Shoe Stealing Prank Is One Of This Year’s Top Viral Hits

By Kranthasi

Harvinth Skin. YouTuber, TV host, influencer, prankster. He has just managed to pull off a prank that has garnered worldwide attention. The video he uploaded on his official Facebook page of the prank currently has 23 million views and has been retweeted 117,608 times.

He uploaded the video on his YouTube channel SkinTV, with the title “‘Test Driving’ New Shoes PRANK at JD Store, Malaysia”, which now has over 192,000 views.

Just last week, the popular Malaysian YouTuber had dropped in to JD Sports to try, and possibly buy some new shoes. Assisted by employee, Martin, the video starts off with Martin handing over Harvinth the shoes to try.

The 45-second clip shows Harvinth testing out the shoes, with the usual jumps and walks but then he takes it a step further by dashing out of the store with them. Martin is seen running straight behind him in a flurry, shoebox still in hand, proving to be quite a contender for Employee of the Year at JB Sports.

About 50 meters from the sports store, Harvinth stops abruptly, turns, and dashes back in. Once he was back to where he was trying on his shoes, he jumps a couple of times, still “trying the shoes”, seemingly oblivious to the stares and looks that he was getting in the crowded store.

The last 5 seconds show Martin jogging back to the store towards Harvinth, shoebox still in hand, while laughing in relief as he realises what had just happened. The video ends with Martin smiling widely as he places his hand over his heart.

Shortly after posting the video, Harvinth tweeted saying that he did in fact buy those shoes and had directly addressed JD Sports, telling them to give Martin a raise.

The video has since been shared by well-known Twitter page World Star Hip Hop and Sukan Stay TV Press, amongst many other pages. The views for the video on these pages have gone up to 60 million and counting. Even popular American media sites BuzzFeed and Digg have carried stories about this shoe stealing prank.

One thing that all these pages have in common apart from sharing the video is that everyone is talking about Martin, the saviour of the day. His heroic act of running after Harvinth has catapulted him into the spotlight as well.

A day after posting the video, Harvinth tweeted a photo of Martin with boss of JD Sports Asia and one shoe (similar to the pair Harvinth had tried on), with the caption, “I’m so happy that (a) man like Martin is seen here with the boss of JD Sports Asia and is getting a raise for his valiant effort of keeping a smile and not punching me in the face”.

Thanks to the viral video, Harvinth Skin is now being talked about on the other side of the world too. His video has made it to one of this year’s top viral hits, with 60 million views in just 3 days!

While many netizens have had a good laugh and shared the video, there were some who thought that it should not have been as sensationalised as it was. Some have even said that Harvinth was in a way harassing the JD Sports employee for fun. There are also others that think this was all an elaborate advertising strategy for JD Sports.

In the past, Harvinth has received backlash for some of his videos for using vulgar language. He has addressed this issue on Twitter many times, sometimes even directly responding to those who have something negative to say to him.

Despite several negative reactions, Harvinth has made it clear that it was all done out of good humour and that he even hugged Martin after giving him quite the scare. He continues to tweet and share tweets about the video.