Joey Salads

Not to be confused with Joseph Saladino.

Joey Salads
Personal information
Born	Joseph Peter Saladino (1993-12-10) December 10, 1993 (age 31)[1] New York City, U.S.
Occupation	YouTuber
Political party	Republican
Website	joeysalads.com
YouTube information
Channels	JoeySalads JustViralTVvids
Years active	2012–present
Genre	Comedy
Subscribers	2.83 million[2]
Total views	554 million[2]
Creator Awards 100,000 subscribers 1,000,000 subscribers

Joseph Peter Saladino, known professionally as Joey Salads, is an American YouTube personality and prankster from New York City. His eponymous main channel, and second channel Just Viral TV have a total of 557,066,992 video views and over 10 million subscribers combined.^[3][4] He became well-known on YouTube for faking viral pranks and social experiments, some with messages that many perceived as racist.

Personal life

Saladino grew up in Prince's Bay, Staten Island, New York City.^[5][6] His former boss, the manager of a local pizzeria, has stated that Saladino "tweaked operations" to force the restaurant to run more efficiently.^[3]

Saladino attended St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School. He then attended classes at the College of Staten Island, but claims to have "learned nothing" there and dropped out to pursue his YouTube career.^[5][6] He was removed from social media platform Twitter in May 2020. A spokesperson from Twitter stated, "the account was permanently suspended for repeated violations of our platform manipulation and spam policy".^[7]

Career

Beyond the Neon

In 2022, Salads starred in the American thriller movie, Beyond the Neon. Directed by Larry A McLean and written by Marisa Dzintars and Woodrow Wilson Hancock III,^[8] the film takes on a gonzo-journalistic style that immerses the audience into the ride.

Salads was brought on to the project after the second year of R&D as the project called for someone with real-life experience in dangerous situations and social experiments.^[9] Beyond the Neon is based on true accounts and follows the story of a Las Vegas escort named Sasha (played by Gila Goodman)^[10] who is recognized by her sister Tracy (played by Cynthia Lucero) in a viral social experiment video created by Salads, who plays his internet persona.

Motivated to reunite the sisters and capture the reunion on camera, Salads and his apprehensive crew are forced into the dangerous and corrupt world of escorting, all while filming every step of their desperate effort to rescue the woman from human sex trafficking in Las Vegas.

The movie features real footage of a Las Vegas safe house for trafficked survivors, interviews from real survivors in recovery, and other organic documented experiences from the filmmakers throughout. ^[11]

Beyond the Neon had a limited theatrical release starting on October 14, 2022, and is now available to stream on Amazon Prime and other VOD platforms. Despite some controversy surrounding Salads' involvement in the film, it has been praised for shedding light on the issue of human trafficking and raising awareness of this important social issue.

YouTube

Saladino registered the Joey Salads YouTube account in 2012, and uploaded roughly one video per week. Many of his early videos were Jackass-style pranks,^[5] though his content became more political following Donald Trump's bid for President in 2016.^[3] He has described his videos as "edgy" and "dumb pranks" made to entertain.^[12]

Saladino has admitted to staging pranks on more than one occasion.^[13] He has been criticized for faking his prank and social experiment videos, as well as for promoting a narrative that portrays African Americans as violent.^[14] In his video "Black people don't like Trump", published in 2016, Saladino leaves a car with Donald Trump campaign stickers in a mostly African American neighborhood. Then several African Americans appear, break into the car, and break its windows. After receiving backlash from critics including h3h3Productions for misportraying black Americans,^[15] Saladino admitted the video was staged with actors.^[16]

One video that did not appear to be staged was one of Saladino urinating in his own mouth and placing his penis in a hot dog bun. The video has since been deleted but images remain available.^[17]

Congressional campaign

In 2019, Saladino began campaigning for the Republican primary in New York's 11th congressional district, which encompasses Staten Island and a small section of Brooklyn.^[13] His campaign raised a total of $66,704.22 during this time.^[18][19] Saladino withdrew his candidacy on December 13, 2019,^[20][21] and stated his endorsement for fellow Republican candidate Joe Caldarera.^[21] He has been accused of running to boost his public profile.^[22]

Saladino was incorrectly identified as attending the "Unite the Right" protest at Charlottesville after a photo of him wearing a swastika armband began circulating on Twitter. Saladino was in Jamaica during the event, with Saladino claiming the image was taken from a prank video he had uploaded to YouTube months beforehand.^[23][24][25]

He filed a formal complaint against congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in response to the congresswoman blocking him on Twitter, citing a ruling that prevents elected officials from censoring speech on public forums.^[26][27][28]

References

1. "InternalServer".^{[permanent dead link‍]}
2. "About JoeySalads". YouTube.
3. Kelly, Makena (July 11, 2019). "How Joey Salads could meme his way into Congress". The Verge. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
4. "Joey Salads's YouTube Stats (Summary Profile) – Social Blade Stats". socialblade.com. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
5. Marantz, Andrew. "Joey Salads Gets Out the Vote". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
6. "Controversial YouTube prankster Joey Salads folding congressional bid". silive. December 13, 2019. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
7. "Joey Salads permanently suspended by Twitter". The Daily Dot. May 12, 2020. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
8. Grobar, Matt (August 5, 2022). "'The Horror Crowd' Gets Buffalo 8 Release Date; Sana Soni Joins Giant Pictures; IDA Logan Elevate Grantees; Castings For 'Macho!', 'Finding Nicole', 'What Rhymes With Reason', 'Site', 'Ganymede' And 'This Time'; More – Film Briefs". Deadline. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
9. "Interview with the filmmakers of Beyond The Neon". OC Movies, TV & Streaming Reviews. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
10. McLean, Larry A., Beyond the Neon (Crime, Mystery, Thriller), BNF Films, Madero Films, Magnum Opus Pictures, retrieved March 24, 2023
11. Complex, Valerie (September 30, 2022). "'The Last Of The Winthrops', 'Who Needs You', 'Finding Her Beat' Deals; Sherry Cola And 'Polly & Sue' Castings; Gravitas Ventures Acquisition; Buffalo 8's 'Balloon Animal'; Tangelene Bolton Scores Netflix Show, Documentary 'Beyond The Neon' – Film Briefs". Deadline. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
12. Burch, Sean (August 16, 2017). "Trump Fan Misidentified as Charlottesville Protester Speaks Out About Death Threats, Lost Business". TheWrap. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
13. "Controversial YouTube 'personality' Joey Salads running for Congress". NewsComAu. August 1, 2019. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
14. Sommer, Will (May 3, 2019). "Joey Salads, YouTube Star Famous for Racist Pranks, Launches Congressional Bid". The Daily Beast. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
15. "How Pranksters Are Ruining Society..." YouTube. October 18, 2016. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
16. Wendling, Mike (October 19, 2019). "'Black people don't like Trump' video was staged". BBC. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
17. "YouTuber Joey Salads Running for Congress Drank Own Urine for Views". Archived from the original on September 9, 2021. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
18. thewritingbum (July 24, 2019). "Far-right trolls are getting paid to help Joey Salads run for Congress". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
19. "SALADINO FOR CONGRESS – committee overview". FEC.gov. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
20. "Joey Saladino". Ballotpedia. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
21. Adams, Rose (December 16, 2019). "Controversial Youtuber ends bid for congressional seat". Brooklyn Paper. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
22. Chávez, Aída (October 11, 2019). "Twitter Tips the Scale Toward Incumbents by Refusing to Verify Primary Challengers". The Intercept. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
23. Kaser, Rachel (September 28, 2017). "The consequences of online vigilantism". The Next Web. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
24. Victor, Daniel (August 14, 2017). "Amateur Sleuths Aim to Identify Charlottesville Marchers, but Sometimes Misfire". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
25. Sommer, Will (September 16, 2019). "MAGA Heads Have a New Scheme: Running for Congress". The Daily Beast. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
26. "YouTube Star Turned Congressional Candidate Joey Salads Sues AOC For Blocking Him On Twitter". Porter Medium. July 9, 2019. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
27. Paul, Deanna. "Ocasio-Cortez faces lawsuits for blocking Twitter critics after appeals court ruling on Trump". Washington Post. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
28. Mays, Jeffery C. (July 10, 2019). "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Sued for Blocking Critics on Twitter". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 9, 2020.