David Firth, the creator of Salad Fingers, told someone he remembered seeing smartschoolboy9 on the street. Since then, he’s been inundated with questions – and he wants it to stop.
Three weeks ago, Nick Crowley released a creepy YouTube documentary and unleashed a new internet obsession: smartschoolboy9.
This is what we actually know: the man behind the account is an adult who dresses in tight school uniforms, it’s believed he’s operated (and likely still runs) fake pages with disturbing and even explicit images of children, and its email address has been connected to David London’s Facebook.
The case’s subreddit is constantly active, making it harder to separate fact from fiction; just this week, the emergence of unsettling fake interviews prompted ‘London’ to change his social media bio.
However, here’s something that’s unequivocally true: Salad Fingers’ creator is not connected to smartschoolboy9.
Earlier this month, Firth replied to a DM after a cybersleuth asked him if he’d ever seen anyone resembling smartschoolboy9, said to come from Doncaster.
Amazingly, he had, specifically recalling a “dark-skinned guy who would wear really sloppily applied makeup… I remember him wearing a white shirt and a school tie and he had a strange posture, or walked quite leaned forwards.”
It was an extraordinary, unexpected link between a legendary internet personality and a shocking rabbit hole, but it had unfortunate consequences. People have baselessly suggested a larger connection between Firth and the alleged predator, and his inboxes have been rammed with obsessives wanting to know more about smartschoolboy9.
He saw him on the street when he was younger – that’s it. He doesn’t know anything else, and he certainly isn’t part of smartschoolboy9’s dark web.
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On X/Twitter, Firth wrote: “Please stop asking me about smartschoolboy9. I replied to a DM a few weeks ago asking if I remembered this guy who would walk around Doncaster dressed as a schoolboy with weird makeup on.
“Yes. I walked past him in the town center 20-25 years ago. I WALKED PAST HIM. That’s all.
Now I see posts and videos saying "he has something to do with the creator of Salad Fingers". No he doesn't. He was just your classic 'local lunatic' – I was a teenager at the time. I only remembered because his appearance was striking. Now my DMs are full of Tiktok detectives.
— David Firth (Salad Fingers) (@DAVID_FIRTH) September 18, 2024
“He was just your classic ‘local lunatic’ – I was a teenager at the time. I only remembered because his appearance was striking. Now my DMs are full of Tiktok detectives.”
Firth never interacted with him, nor did smartschoolboy9 approach him in any way. Oh, and another thing: “Salad Fingers is not based on him.”
“Please stop asking for information. I have said everything I remember,” he added.
Firth’s posts have left the case’s subreddit angry, with its members asking people to leave him alone. “I feel bad that people are bothering him about this,” one user commented.
“According to the internet if you live in the same general area as someone you either are a person or are close friends with them. Good f**king GOD people are stupid,” another wrote, while a third added: “F**king hell. Leave the genius alone.”
For more information, we’ve broken down if smartschoolboy9 has ever been arrested and everything else about the case, including the mask theory and tech experts’ warning to people trying to track him down. You should also check out Crowley’s Pipergate doc our list of new true crime documentaries streaming this month.