A TikTok star who has recently been arrested for a series of so-called prank videos he posted online has said that racism has a big part to play in the uproar around his content, leading to much mockery online.
Mizzy — real name Bacari Ogarro — was most recently in the news for a viral video in which he entered a house in the East London borough of Hackney. The door had been left open while one of the residents was doing something in the front garden, giving him his opportunity for the “prank.” The teen appeared with two friends and said “Walking into random houses, let’s go,” before heading into the home and lounging on a sofa. After a bit of confusion, including Ogarro asking if there was a “study group” going on in the home, a man who also appears to reside in the home asks him to leave, which he promptly does. What drew the most outrage, though, was the fact that there appeared to be young children in the video.
Bacari has since said “It is unfortunate that there were minors present in the house, however, none of them were harmed or negatively affected. If I had known there were children in the house I would of never went in at all.” He has also stated he returned to the house the day after the video was filmed to apologize, although this is yet to be confirmed by the people whose home he entered. Even so, it probably doesn’t make up for the shock of seeing a stranger somewhere so intimate.
While this video has caught the most attention on the internet, Mizzy has also been filmed harrassing orthodox Jewish members of the London community, stealing a dog from an elderly woman, jumping into a random person’s car, and doing numerous other off-putting things for social media clout. However, when quizzed about these incidents, he seemed to have plenty of excuses for his behavior. He told The Independent the woman whose dog he “stole” was in on the prank, stating: “I said to her that if the dog came up to us again, having already come up to us three times, then I was going to take her dog and she laughed and said my grandson has seen you on TikTok.” He then added:
“I don’t fake my pranks, but I always make sure to sort out the situation after if I feel like I went too overboard, but none of my pranks have malicious intentions behind them and most of the people in the pranks acknowledge that after I speak to them.”
The young social media creator has caught the attention of not just the MET police, but also various U.K. politicians. The Labor shadow minister for the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport, Alex Davis-Jones called the content “abhorrent” and was keen to stress how he believed the young video maker should be held to account just as much as the social media companies that amplified and encouraged him (Ogarro also had YouTube and Instagram accounts, which like his TikTok account seem to have been deleted or suspended). She added: “Yet another example of how we desperately need the Online Safety Bill to hold the social media platforms to account.”
Barring his response to the house incident, for which he does seem apologetic, Ogarro has been bullish, and even seemingly proud at the attention he’s getting, saying it’s “wild” how he’s become “that mainstream.” He then went on to state “people are trying to slander me,” before adding: “I’m a Black male doing these things and that’s why there’s such an uproar on the internet.” This response did not go down well online, especially on a Reddit thread about the incident.
While Ogarro’s actions are dumb and potentially traumatizing for those caught up in them, there’s also no doubt that part of the blame for this situation lies with social media companies, who prioritize engagement over all else. This is something numerous experts have been warning about for years, and the addictive nature of gaining millions of views is also something the gigantic tech companies themselves are aware of yet refuse to do anything about. Ogarro seems to understand this acutely, which he proved with this surprisingly insightful nugget about how he’d become so successful:
“Controversy, even though it’s not good, is the best way to blow up on social media. I always know outrage is going to happen. I know exactly what I’m doing and the consequences of my actions. I tell people not to reciprocate [replicate] what I’ve done.”
He then added “it’s the fact that people are talking that’s important,” which from a content creator perspective is almost certainly true, even if it’s bad news for Ogarro’s future prospects. But the combination of dangerous dopamine hits from ever-rising view counts and a lack of regulation online means that others like him will continue to post and promote videos that are similar to the ones that landed him in trouble. So, while it’s easy to blame the young man for being insensitive, it has to be said there is a wider context to his actions that needs to be addressed by regulators across the world.
Other politicians were quick to step in and demand that the TikTok “prankster” was arrested, with the right wing Conservative London Assembly member (and London mayoral candidate) Susan Hall urging the MET to do their job via a tweet, which she then deleted and reposted using less racialized language in the process (the original referred to Ogarro as a “thug”). Ogarro was arrested yesterday, so Hall’s mini-tirade seems to have done the trick.
While there’s no doubt there is a bigoted element to the criticism Ogarro is facing (after all, he’s not the first teen to do dumb things for attention and clout, nor the first one to scare people on TikTok for those reasons), it’s particularly jarring for him to assume the criticism aimed at him comes entirely from a place of bigotry after the last couple of years, when countless protesters and organizers have been trying to highlight the plight of the institutional racism faced by black people in the West. In America, we’ve had young black boys shot to death for simply existing, and in the U.K. the MET are facing all manner of criticism for their misogyny, racism, and ableism. And that’s not even mentioning the way black and brown refugees have been treated in the West compared to those from Ukraine. To trivialize that out of a sense of self preservation isn’t a good look (although we have no doubt if Ogarro had his accounts still, the comment sections would be filled with some pretty bigoted bile).
Also, last night saw an incredibly high profile incident of racism in Spain, in which the young Brazillian soccer star Vinicius Jr. was called a monkey by tens of thousands of opposing fans. This has happened regularly to the brilliant player since his arrival in the southern European country, yet the Spanish footballing bodies seem unwilling to do anything about it. Juxtaposing one young black man just trying to do his job in supremely hostile conditions against another who is almost certainly bringing the ire on himself with his actions makes Ogarro’s accusations of racism seem even more hollow.
For now, though, the TikToker seems to have faced some consequences for his actions with his arrest. The U.K. court system is currently in a bit of gridlock after years of underfunding was compounded by covid delays, so nobody can be really sure what his punishment might be, if anything at all given it’s technically his first offense. Whether or not that’s good enough for the baying crowds online is yet to be seen, but with any luck it should be.