Rahat Hossain

Rahat Hossain
Personal information
Born (1989-12-19) December 19, 1989
Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S
Nationality American, Bangladeshi
Occupation YouTube personality, magician
YouTube information
Also known as MagicofRahat
Channel
Years active 2007-present
Genre Magic, comedy, pranks
Subscribers 5,406,274
(February 1, 2018)
Total views 821,618,938
(February 1, 2018)
100,000 subscribers
1,000,000 subscribers

Alma mater Old Dominion University
Subscriber and view counts updated as of February 1, 2018.

Rahat Hossain (born December 19, 1989), also known by his username MagicofRahat, is an American YouTube personality, vlogger, prankster and magician of Bangladeshi descent, who produces pranks and magic tricks on YouTube.

Early life

Hossain's parents are from Bangladesh. He was born and grew up in Virginia Beach, where he showed passion for building things with cardboard and duct tape.[1] Hossain attended Old Dominion University in approximately 2009, majoring in criminal justice.[1] In college, he began uploading videos featuring card tricks. The first video uploaded with Hossain's YouTube account was named "Maxi-Twist by Rahat". He uploaded almost 50 videos of this genre before filming hidden camera pranks.[2]

Career

Invisible driver prank

Hossain posted his hit video, "Drive Thru Invisible Driver Prank," on January 9, 2013.[3] The video shows him dressed up as a car seat and fooling workers at various fast food restaurants, such as McDonald's and Chick-fil-A. Hossain said he constructed the car-seat outfit in 12 hours[4] after being inspired by an image he found on the Internet of a "guy who'd actually had a car-seat costume similar to what I built".[1]

The prank gained immense popularity and was featured on Fox & Friends, Good Morning America, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, among others. As of 2014, the video received over 40 million total views.[5]

In June 2014 Toyota featured Hossain in a similar invisible driver stunt in Europe, steering the Toyota Aygo.[6]

Homeless lottery winner

In a video posted on March 4, 2014, Hossain pranked a homeless man named Eric with a fake lottery ticket in which Eric "won" $1,000. After receiving the money, Eric tried to give Hossain half of it, which Hossain declined to take. The video was viewed nearly 28 million times.[7]

In the following days, Hossain posted another video in which he said that people (who were touched by Eric wanting to give half of the money to Hossain) asked how they could donate to Eric. Hossain set up a fundraiser, the goal being to collect a total of $20,000. The fundraiser collected more than $44,000 from over 3,000 donors. Hossain said that he wanted to "improve his lifestyle" and emphasized Eric's personality. While collecting the money, Eric moved into a hotel room and was given a job. On May 7, 2014, Hossain uploaded a video to YouTube titled "Homeless Man Gets A Home." The video shows Hossain offering to buy dinner for Eric, but first Hossain says he has to stop by "his" house to get something. It was later revealed that it was, in reality, the house paid for by thousands of internet contributors for Eric. In a matter of days, the video received about nine million views. [8]

In February 2018, a video was posted by Eric claiming that he did not have access to the money and the home needed constant maintenance. He lived in the home for 2 months and it was later sold for $61,000, $5,000 less than what was raised in the fundraiser.[9] Hossain responded on June 5, 2018 in a since-deleted Twitter post stating that the money was transferred to Eric and that he would provide bank statements to prove his innocence.[10]

On June 11, Eric stated he no longer wanted the money from Hossain.[11]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Ollison, Rashod (18 January 2013). "Local man's video drives him toward fame". The Virginian-Pilot. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  2. ↑ "Maxi-Twist by Rahat". YouTube.com. 20 July 2007. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  3. ↑ Undercoffler, David (11 January 2013). "Driverless car or ghost? Drive-through prank video goes viral". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  4. ↑ Clarke, Suzan (10 January 2013). "Invisible Driver at Drive-Thru Inspires 'Epic' Video". ABC News. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  5. ↑ "'Invisible Driver' Prank Spooks Drive-Thru Workers". HuffingtonPost.com. 9 January 2013. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  6. ↑ "Toyota Aygo: Invisible Driver Prank in Europe (video)". Toyota. 18 June 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  7. ↑ Grimes, Stephanie (8 May 2014). "YouTube prankster gives homeless man a new home". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  8. ↑ Landau, Joel (8 May 2014). "Prankster Magic of Rahat gives a home to his homeless friend". NYDailyNews.com. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  9. ↑ "Magic of Rahat you did me wrong and you know it. ERIC THE HOMELESS MAN 2018 UPDATE". Youtube.com. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  10. ↑ Twitter.com [https:/webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5dP7g8vjQVEJ:https://twitter.com/MagicofRahat/status/1004138556795875329 https:/webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5dP7g8vjQVEJ:https://twitter.com/MagicofRahat/status/1004138556795875329] Check |url= value (help). Retrieved 10 August 2018. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. ↑ "Goodbye YouTube / Magic of Rahat I FORGIVE YOU, PEACE". Youtube.com. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
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