Nick Crowley, the YouTube creator who dove into the smartschoolboy9 rabbit hole, has broken his silence to address the memes across social media.
Crowley’s video stands at nearly eight million views. The story of “David Alter” (which may be an alter ego) has disturbed and compelled people – to a fault – across the world, with many people ignoring the YouTuber’s warning and trying to contact the alleged predator.
Cybersleuths have been investigating every possible lead (including the Salad Fingers creator’s shocking memory), seemingly narrowing down his location in the UK. While those efforts may have their own damaging consequences, there’s been an unexpected response: “fan art” and other memes have emerged on TikTok and other platforms.
To be clear, these are memes about someone who may operate a network of Instagram accounts masquerading as fake children, full of explicit, creepy imagery, and he’s even been accused of chasing real-life kids in one of his videos.
Crowley hadn’t posted anything else on his social channels after the smartschoolboy9 documentary’s release, but he’s seen people’s jokes. “Just saw the smartschoolboy9 memes,” he wrote, with an image of Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer staring coldly into the distance.
Just saw the smartschoolboy9 memes… pic.twitter.com/gGUd7PrREk
— Nick Crowley (@NickCrowleyYT) September 9, 2024
For those who’ve not seen Christopher Nolan’s movie, Oppenheimer has a vision of how the nuclear bomb could lead to the destruction of the world; specifically, the ignition of the atmosphere.
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The implication is obvious: it’s not that he regrets releasing the video, it’s just that he didn’t account for this type of response to the documentary.
“It’s actually sick that people are joking about something as serious as that topic. Like it isn’t even funny,” one follower responded. “I can’t believe people have taken such a serious matter as this one and just exploited it for sh*ts and giggles. It’s actually insane,” another wrote.
Here’s what we know for definite: smartschoolboy9 was an Instagram account run by an adult man, full of photos of him dressed as a child in a tight school uniform. It’s since been taken down, but other alleged accounts have surfaced (though these could be copycats).
In a statement to Dexerto, South Yorkshire Police said: “We can neither confirm nor deny the name of a person who may or may not be or have been the subject of a South Yorkshire Police investigation.”
Read our full breakdown of the smartschoolboy9 investigation so far, and if you want something else to obsess over, we’ve got some of the creepiest YouTube documentaries on offer. You can also find other new true crime documentaries to watch this month.