Moe and E.T. have made a name for themselves by posting videos of their pranks on people at New York housing projects. The brothers say they are being entertaining; critics say they are being exploitive.
Etayyim and Mohammed Etayyim dressed as nerds for their "Do You Have a Problem in the Hood" prank video.
In March, 21-year-old Etayyim Etayyim and his younger brother Mohammed, 19, were hanging out in a Brooklyn McDonald's when they decided it'd be funny if one of them walked behind the counter and announced to the restaurant he was the boss's son.
"An idea just popped up," Moe said. "Why don't you just go pretend you're the boss's son?"
They never posted video of the original prank, but a month later, they tried it again at a Chipotle, a McDonald's, and a Quiznos in Manhattan. Moe and E.T. took turns filming and walking behind the counter to order employees around. They kept up the act until they were eventually escorted from the store.
The Etayyims cut all of the footage together and uploaded it to YouTube. The result is alarming and awkward, but it also proved to be a hit: The video currently has more than 200,000 views.
With that taste of internet fame, Etayyim, who goes by E.T., and Mohammed, who goes by Moe, were hooked. Now their goal is to break 1 million subscribers on their YouTube channel, OckTV; currently, it has around 150,000 subscribers and a couple million views in total. In their quest, the brothers have been steadily releasing videos since March. They've performed multiple versions of the "I'm the boss's son" prank. They've sat on strangers on the subway and they've swiped cigarettes from people's hands.
But it's the videos of what they call "hood pranks" that get the most attention — though not all of it is positive. The brothers say they get death threats and demands from community leaders that they stop filming in their neighborhoods.
Etayyim Etayyim using a fart machine on an unsuspecting person.
"That's been getting the most attention," E.T. said matter-of-factly when BuzzFeed met with the Etayyim brothers recently at the McDonald's in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where OckTV started. "The hood pranks or pranks where people hit us."
"A lot of our friends say, 'Yo, I'm not going to lie, the only reason I watch you guys is because you get beat up and it's hilarious,'" Moe added.
E.T. and Moe said that growing up they were always the class clowns. What they do now on the internet is something of an extension of their goofy school antics, E.T. said.
E.T. is studying science at Touro College and Moe is a liberal arts major at Kingsborough Community College. They live in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, with their parents, Palestinian immigrants, who are struggling to understand the attention their sons' videos are getting. Their dad's main concern is that they don't get hurt, E.T. said.
"In the beginning, my parents, they didn't even pay attention to what we did," E.T. said. "Then they started catching up to what we were doing. Ever since then, you know, my parents are like half-half on what we do."
"Fight Me Now in the Hood" was their first "hood prank." In the video, E.T. and Moe approach black men and women standing outside of housing projects in low-income areas like Brownsville, East New York, and Coney Island, and act like they recognize them from somewhere. Then E.T. and Moe threaten to fight them.
In one particularly shocking scene, Moe goes up to a group and starts off the conversation by saying, "Are you serious, Shaniqua?" Then he calls a member of the group a "fat-ass," uses a racial slur several times, and asks, "Why are you talking to my girl?" Moe is then punched so hard in the face that he falls on the ground.
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