About

TheRealSpark is the online handle of comedian James Bates, who is best known for sketches in which he performs as eyewitnesses or participants in trending news stories for local news broadcasts. This has led to some confusion among social media users, particularly after an August 2021 sketch he posted in which he played flight attendant Alfredo Rivera, a real-life crew member of Frontier Airlines involved in an incident in which he and other Frontier flight attendants duct-taped an unruly passenger to his seat, leading some to think Bates was actually Rivera.

History

Bates launched therealspark YouTube^[1] channel on June 10th, 2016. His videos consisted of reactions and pranks and received modest view counts until April 30th, 2017, when a video he posted entitled "Funny news interview!!!" gained over 7.6 million views (shown below, left). This was the first of his "news broadcast interviewee" sketches which would prove to be the most popular content on his channel. On March 31st, 2018, nearly a year after his first news broadcast sketch, he posted his second such sketch, gaining over 2.1 million views (shown below, right). He began consistently making videos in the "news interviewee" vein after that.

Alredo Rivera Video

On August 4th, 2021, Bates posted a video in which he played real-life flight attendant Alfredo Rivera, the Frontier flight attendant who duct-taped an unruly passenger to his seat in a recent viral news story. The video gained over 1.4 million views in less than two days (shown below).

The video spread online as people mistook Bates for the real Rivera. This was due in part to a tweet by @KirsterJohnson, who reposted Bates' video with the caption "Alfredo Rivera is the greatest storyteller of all time," gaining over 59,000 retweets and 244,000 likes (shown below).

"Alfredo Rivera"^[2] trended on Twitter on August 6th as people praised Bates, thinking he was Rivera, for his storytelling and bravery in the flight. Snopes^[3] fact-checked the video, confirming to its readers that Bates was not Rivera.

Online Presence

Bates has over 181,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel.^[1] He also has 71,000 Instagram followers^[4] and 4,500 Twitter^[5] followers.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References