The last humans seen with HitchBOT definitely faked the "surveillance footage" of its destruction. But did they actually destroy it? Is it OK somewhere? Do they understand what pranks are? An investigation.
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Jesse Wellen (left) and Ed Bassmaster (right). I realize that their hats, their faces and that Apple Watch don't technically constitute "evidence" of a crime, but they should.(via @Jessewelle)
Yesterday, I wrote about the tragic demise of HitchBOT, a robot and social media project that relied on nice people to carry it around the globe and send back pictures of its adventures. It successfully traversed the entire length of Canada, and road-tripped across Germany and the Netherlands as well. Two weeks ago, it arrived in America. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, however, it was promptly and brutally murdered.
At the time, it was just chalked up to Philly being Philly, but that may not have been the whole truth. As more details come to light, it appears HitchBOT's fatal mistake wasn't visiting Philly, but falling in with YouTube prank stars from Philly. Here's the video of YouTubers Jesse Wellen and Ed Bassmaster discovering HitchBOT in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum, and eventually taking it to the exact spot where it was later found destroyed:
The two are both associated with the YouTube channels BFvsGF (starring Jesse and his girlfriend Jeana Smith) and PrankVsPrank. Ed Bassmaster also has an alter ego known as Always Teste, who is an angry Philly douche. Always Teste is frequently in the habit of wearing a Randall Cunningham #12 Eagles jersey and a backwards hat.
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I (the author) would like to take this moment to say I was born in Philly and still somehow avoided ever taking a photo like this. (via @JesseWelle)
And who do you think showed up on the "surveillance footage" that the two stars went in search of after "hearing" that HitchBOT had been destroyed?
Not only have sources like Gizmodo determined that the grain on the video was added in post, sleuths have ascertained that there is, in fact, no surveillance camera where this video was taken. I'm almost 100% certain the video was taken with Jesse filming Ed while standing on this wall:
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HitchBOT was also moved a few feet between the two videos. It seems like someone would have either taken it or not moved it at all—moving it only a little implies that Wellen and Bassmaster adjusted it so you couldn't see it in the "surveillance footage," and are actually hiding HitchBOT somewhere.
Almost immediately, their "prank" of getting surveillance footage paid off, and the two were interviewed on Philly's ABC6 news (with Bassmaster in character as Always Teste):
Since then, more and more fingers have been pointed at Bassmaster as the true culprit. For his part, he's had a distinctly schizophrenic response. On the one hand, he tweeted this:
On the other, he heavily implied that his alter ego Always Teste had killed HitchBOT, both on Twitter and in an in-character Periscope video:
Now, Bassmaster is retweeting seemingly anyone who is saying "I was fooled by that prank, bruh," or some variation thereof.
So is Jesse Wellen.
All this leaves us with three possibilities, and three questions:
1) Were you uninvolved with the destruction, but lied about having "surveillance footage"? If so, how was that a prank?
2) Did you guys actually break HitchBOT? If so, how was that a prank?
3) Did you stage the entire thing? Is HitchBOT actually OK? Did you just make everyone who worked on him or helped him or followed his journey think he'd been destroyed, and make Philly look bad in the process? If so, how was that a prank?
I liked Jesse Wellen a lot more when I primarily knew him for his cookie-based raps.
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