About

Scooby1961 is a YouTuber who operated one of the first fitness-focused channels on the site, dedicated to videos on nutrition as well as workout instruction. He supplemented his instructional vlogs with blog posts and participation on 4chan's /fit/ (fitness) imageboard. Through his interaction with the 4chan community, he earned many nicknames including "the Natty King," "the King of /fit/," "gooby," and the "puzzlemaster" for the puzzles he created.

Online History

Scooby1961 launched his YouTube channel^[1] on August 1st, 2006. That day, he uploaded his first video (shown below) instructing viewers on the proper way to do pushups. As of August 2013, he has uploaded 308 videos, gained nearly 400,000 subscribers and accrued more than 187 million video views, averaging approximately 72,500 views per day. He supplemented these videos with information on his website Scooby's Workshop.^[4] Scooby's videos were first mentioned outside of YouTube on October 23rd, 2008 in a Yahoo! Answers question^[5] about pectoral workouts, in which the original poster called him "a genius." In July 2009, a thread about Scooby was created on the BodyBuilding.com forums^[6], but only garnered five responses. Throughout 2010, his videos were discussed on a number of message boards including Steroidology^[7], Neoseeker^[8] and FitDay.^[9] On June 12th, 2011, Scooby launched a Facebook fan page^[3] for his videos.

Discussion of Scooby's work continued on fitness message boards throughout 2011. By May 2012, his videos became a popular subject of conversation on 4chan boards^[10] and by July, he had begun posting on /fit/ (Fiitness)^[11] and was later given his own identifying tripcode. He also posted on the BodyBuilding.com forums, but was banned^[12] sometime prior to June 2012.

Doxing

In July 2013, a 4chan poster doxxed Scooby, revealing his home address and employer information, As early as July 16th, /fit/ posters expressed a negative response to the dox^[13], with many posters noting that his interactions were regularly positive or full of advice and did not deserve to have his privacy breached. On July 21st, after the doxing had turned into real-life harassment and hate mail, Scooby uploaded what he called his last video (shown below), claiming he was going to shut off his social media accounts for his family's safety.

That day, three separate threads lamenting the loss of these videos were posted on Reddit, with two submitted to /r/Fitness^[14][15] and a third on /r/SwoleAcceptance.^[16] A number of threads expressing both disappointment over Scooby leaving YouTube and frustration with 4chan also appeared on message boards including BodyBuilding.com^[22], MyFitnessPal^[17], GameFAQs^[18] and Mixed Martial Arts Underground.^[19] The next day, additional threads were made on the Encyclopedia Dramatica^[20] and NeoGAF^[21] forums. That week, stories about Scooby leaving YouTube appeared on New Media Rockstars^[23] and Motherboard.^[24] However, as of August 2013, he has uploaded nine additional videos to go along with his new website, Sweat4Health.^[2][25]

Search Interest

External References