Kyle Lamar Myers / FPSRussia

About

Kyle Lamar Myers, better known as FPSRussia, is a YouTuber and internet celebrity who portrays the fictional character "Dimitri Potapoff" (with a fake Russian accent) in his YouTube series The FPS Show. Myers and his videos are most well known for featuring various firearms and explosives at his family farm in Mason, Georgia, where he typically explains the characteristics of the weapons and their history before showing them off.

Career

Myers originally ran a YouTube^[1] channel named "klm5986" (started on May 18th, 2006), where he did commentaries while playing first-person shooters, usually Call of Duty, under the screen name “FPSKyle.” Eventually, he wanted to demonstrate how the guns featured in these video games worked, comparing them to what’s seen in games, movies, TV shows and other media. On April 19th, 2010, Myers and co-founder Keith Ratliff launched the FPSRussia channel on YouTube,^[2] where he created the character Dimitri Potapoff, who uses a fake Russian accent. Myers said that this idea came from a Russian co-worker who worked at a car dealership with him. FPSRussia’s content revolved around Myers portraying his character while showing off different weapons, shooting targets at his family farm. Though some of the earlier videos have since been removed, “THE RETURN OF FPSRussia” (uploaded on September 1st, 2010) is currently the oldest, with over 3.3 million views, 73,000 likes and 1,700 comments (seen below).

Online History

His most popular video, “AA-12 Fully Automatic Shotgun!!!,” was uploaded to YouTube^[3] on April 25th, 2011, and features “Dimitri” showing off an AA-12 automatic shotgun. The video (shown below) now has over 65 million views, 577,000 likes and 13,000 comments, which helped spread his content and renown around the web.

On June 11th, 2011, the FPSRussia channel reached 1 million subscribers and currently sits at over 6.86 million subscribers with over 911 million video views. His second YouTube^[4] channel, MoreFPSRussia, was launched on September 27th, 2011, featuring similar content to his main channel, and currently has over 950,000 subscribers and 35 million views.

On July 18th, 2011, Myers guest-starred on the Epic Meal Time YouTube^[5] channel, where he played Dimitri on a special Russian-themed episode. The video, "Russian Meal Time" (seen below), has over 8.8 million views, 189,000 likes and 42,700 comments. Myers was a guest on the show two more times in the following years.

On October 29th, 2012, Myers was featured in the “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 ‘Surprise’” live-action trailer (shown below), where he played his character, Dimitri, in a clip. The cameo was also covered in an Adweek^[6] article the same day.

On January 6th, 2013, news broke that FPSRussia co-founder Keith Ratliff (who provided many of the firearms used in the videos) had been shot to death in his Georgia gun store. Several media outlets covered the story, including the NY Times.^[7] On March 29th, 2013, Myers’ home in Georgia was raided by ATF agents and officers from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who claimed “that [Myers] was using explosives and getting paid for it via YouTube.” HuffPost^[8] and many other newspapers reported on the story. According to a Dateline report by NBC News,^[9] published December 28th, 2018, no arrests have been made and no suspects have been identified.

ATF Raid and Conviction

In August 2017, Myer’s home was raided again by federal authorities on charges of illegally obtaining drugs shipped the previous day to his post office box in Carnesville, Georgia. According to an article by the Athens Banner-Herald^[10] on August 23rd, 2017, “More than 50 firearms were seized, but no illegal explosives were found.” Allegedly 25 grams of butane hash oil was seized by the ATF, and Myers was sentenced to two years probation, two months in prison and a fine of $7,500.

Since then Myers has appeared on podcasts to discuss the events of his arrest and time in prison. On the Painkiller Already Podcast 461, later uploaded to their YouTube^[11] channel on October 28th, 2019, Myers spoke about the topic (seen below). He is also a member of the PKA podcast.

Search Interest

External References