--- title: "I Pranked America's Most Racist Man" description: "Niko Omilana tricked the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan into a fake BBC interview, and Tom produced it end to end at New Waves, Who Dis?: it is the most watched video in his catalogue." canonical: https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/kkk-video/ updated: 2026-10-25 --- # I Pranked America's Most Racist Man > Niko Omilana tricked the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan into a fake BBC interview, and Tom produced it end to end at New Waves, Who Dis?: it is the most watched video in his catalogue. ## At a glance - Client: Niko Omilana - Tom's role: Producer, end to end, including packaging and release. Co-Founder and Head of Talent Management, New Waves, Who Dis? (Jun 2021 to Nov 2023). - Years: 2022 - Platforms: YouTube - One long form video on Niko Omilana's channel, released 13 May 2022. - Niko travels to Harrison, Arkansas, to test its reputation as America's most racist town. - He traces that reputation to Thomas Robb, national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and gets an interview by saying he works for the BBC. - Tom produced it end to end at New Waves, Who Dis?, and owned its packaging and release. - 47,563,094 views in Tom's work, the most watched video Tom has worked on. - Covered by The Independent, Indy100, the Arkansas Times and WalesOnline within three days. ## The starting point New Waves, Who Dis? was the UK YouTube production company Tom co-founded with Sam Hilton, running from June 2021 to November 2023. It produced for British creators including Niko Omilana, JiDion, TheBurntChip, Calfreezy and ChrisMD. Niko is a British YouTuber known for prank, stunt and political satire videos, and a co-founder of Beta Squad. Before this video he had already got a parody party endorsed by Tommy Robinson and come fifth in the 2021 London mayoral election. His channel had a track record of trolling racists on camera. ## What Tom did Tom produced the video end to end. That covered the production itself and the packaging and release. In Tom's own account, the plan came together in 90 minutes. Niko rang him mid trip to say he had convinced the KKK leader he was from the BBC. Tom says the thumbnail took him five minutes. The video is filed in his record under Produced, Format and strategy, and Talent supplied. ## How it was made **The format.** A single long form documentary prank, 34 minutes 56 seconds on YouTube. **The structure.** The video runs in four movements. - It opens by promising the ending in its first sentence. - For the first 12 minutes Niko looks for the racist town and does not find it. Locals are warm. - At 12:06 the thesis turns: one man has given the town its name. - From there it becomes a hunt, then the interview, then the reveal. **The interview.** Niko does not confront Robb. He lets him talk. He then walks Robb into shouting out invented supporters in a town called "Clapped". One of those invented names, "B-yell-eem", is pronounced BLM. **The ending.** Niko gives money to Richard, the Harrison local who drove him around, to fund his surgery: $1,000, then a further $4,000. **The one moment.** Tom's lesson from it: the whole video hung on one sentence the team could not guarantee. A format built on an unrepeatable moment needs a version that still works if the moment never comes. **What viewers replay.** YouTube's most replayed marker sits from 19:54 to 20:57, the run into the interview, and again on the last 42 seconds. **The companion upload.** A second video, KKK Leader Tells Niko About JiDion (Multiverse has opened), went out on Niko's NDL channel the same day. It has 3,627,416 views in Tom's work. ## The results - 47,563,094 views in Tom's work. - 47,773,109 views on YouTube on 25 October 2026. - 2,325,579 likes in Tom's work. - More than 11 million views by 16 May 2022, three days after release. - Rank 1 of 720 videos in Tom's work. - 12.5% of all the views across Tom's catalogue when it was last measured, across 691 videos at the time. - Four outlets covered it on 16 May 2022: The Independent, Indy100, the Arkansas Times and WalesOnline. - Niko's Wikipedia page names it as the video that sent him viral in May 2022. ## What it proves A brand compounds when it has a mission and an enemy. This video has both: a named enemy, and a mission of defending Harrison from a reputation it did not earn. The prank is the hook. The defence of the town is why people still share it. See [A mission and an enemy](/playbooks/positioning/a-mission-and-an-enemy/). Big videos win on story, and on planning that survives chaos. The idea hangs on one moment, and the team writes down what happens if that moment never comes. See [Making a viral YouTube video](/playbooks/how-i-work/making-a-viral-youtube-video/). It is also the extreme end of Tom's view on risk. He holds that a bad video costs nothing because nobody sees it, unless it damages the brand. This one could never have failed quietly. See [Assumptions made too fast, and risk avoided](/lessons/assumptions-made-too-fast-and-risk-avoided/). ## Coverage and links - The Independent, Indy TV, by Oliver Browning, 16 May 2022: YouTuber pranks KKK leader into saying 'BLM' during fake BBC interview. - Indy100, by Liam O'Dell, 16 May 2022: KKK leader pranked into giving a 'BBC' interview by YouTuber Niko Omilana. - Arkansas Times, 16 May 2022: British comic punks KKK leader in Arkansas. - WalesOnline, 16 May 2022: America's 'most racist man' has a Welsh flag at his church. - Wikipedia, Niko Omilana, cites The Independent, the Arkansas Times and WalesOnline on the video. - None of the coverage names Tom or New Waves, Who Dis? ## The numbers - 47,563,094: long form views on the primary upload (Verified) - 13 May 2022: release date, on Niko Omilana's channel (Verified) - 11,000,000+: views within three days, as reported by Indy100 on 16 May 2022 (Verified) - 2,325,579: likes on the video (Verified) - 1 of 720: rank in Tom's work by views (Verified) - 90 minutes: of planning, after Niko rang Tom mid trip (Tom supplied) ## Key videos - [I Pranked America's Most Racist Man](https://tomsharman.com/videos/umNjlp2LObM/index.md): 47,563,094 views, 13 May 2022. The video itself. The most watched in Tom's work. - [KKK Leader Tells Niko About JiDion (Multiverse has opened)](https://tomsharman.com/videos/WN2-OusFi6k/index.md): 3,627,416 views, 13 May 2022. The companion upload on Niko's NDL channel, the same day. Also in Tom's work. - [SNEAKING Into KSI's Boxing Match (In the ring)](https://tomsharman.com/videos/VeYRaOV0I_Y/index.md): 29,996,382 views, 5 September 2022. The next big Niko video from the same partnership, second in Tom's work. - [We Pranked The Mona Lisa](https://tomsharman.com/videos/GtXoxMyQ3VM/index.md): 12,871,607 views, 26 March 2023. Episode one of The Biggest Menace, the series with JiDion that followed. ## Links ### Videos - [YouTube: I Pranked America's Most Racist Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umNjlp2LObM) - [YouTube: KKK Leader Tells Niko About JiDion (Multiverse has opened), NDL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN2-OusFi6k) ### Press - [The Independent: YouTuber pranks KKK leader into saying 'BLM' during fake BBC interview](https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/culture/kkk-leader-youtube-prank-niko-omilana-b2080008.html) - [Indy100: KKK leader pranked into giving a 'BBC' interview by YouTuber Niko Omilana](https://www.indy100.com/viral/kkk-youtube-prank-niko-omilana) - [Arkansas Times: British comic punks KKK leader in Arkansas](https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2022/05/16/british-comic-punks-kkk-leader-in-arkansas) - [WalesOnline: America's 'most racist man' has a Welsh flag at his church](https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/niko-omilana-kkk-youtube-video-23969131) ### Channels - [Niko Omilana on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@Niko) ### More - [Wikipedia: Niko Omilana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niko_Omilana) ## Read next - https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/the-biggest-menace/ - https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/niko-omilana/ - https://tomsharman.com/videos/umNjlp2LObM/ - https://tomsharman.com/videos/?creator=Niko%20Omilana - https://tomsharman.com/playbooks/how-i-work/making-a-viral-youtube-video/ - https://tomsharman.com/playbooks/how-i-work/packaging-titles-and-thumbnails/ - https://tomsharman.com/playbooks/positioning/a-mission-and-an-enemy/ - https://tomsharman.com/lessons/a-brand-that-compounds-has-a-mission-and-an-enemy/ - https://tomsharman.com/lessons/assumptions-made-too-fast-and-risk-avoided/ - https://tomsharman.com/most-watched/