Video 1444, or simply “1444”, refers to a suicide video of a Russian VK user named Gleb Korablyov, find out its origins, how it spread online on Twitter
Now-deleted YouTube channel “GORE” first reuploaded the video titled “1444” triggering a viral spread online.
What Is Video 1444 All About, Origin, Online Spread, TikTok And Twitter Spread And Search Interest Spikes
Video 1444 refers to a suicide video of a Russian VK user Gleb Korablyov who on October 17th, 2019, live-streamed killing himself with a rifle. After the video was reuploaded as "1444" by now-deleted YouTube channel.
— James (@HAILS4T4N) October 27, 2019
Hello, does anyone have information on this man? His name is Gleb Korablyov, and he is known from a suicide video titled "video 1444". I really wanna know some information about him and why he did it, but I can't find anything.
Rest in peace though. pic.twitter.com/txNWWtCIIM— sai (@JHinvestigator) November 23, 2022
⛔Watch: 1444 video gore 1444 gore video video viral video 1444 video 14444 Gore videos cartel gorecuttinghttps://t.co/6OIf4SdKNl
— Newscom (@Newscom041) December 5, 2022
The video also became very popular among Spanish-speaking users for reportedly being cursed.
Origin
The “video 1444” originated on October 17, 2019, after Russian VK user Gleb Korablyov launched a live broadcast on VK. During the live broadcast, Korablyov can be seen taking out a Saiga semi-automatic rifle, which he pointed to his own head.
He then, seemingly told a person to wait before informing his parents of his suicide and proceeded to shoot himself in the head. Korablyov made Russian suicide-related meme reference by saying “Nya, poka!” (“Nyan, bye!”) before killing himself.
Korablyov’s exact words were:
Nikita, if you’ll tell the parents [about this] too quickly, I’ll get you from beyond the grave. I know that you have their phone number. Anyway… How does the saying go? Nyan, bye!
The Online Spread Of “Video 1444”
On the same day itself, Plokhie Novosti 18+ (“Bad News 18+”) a Telegram channel and VK group posted the video. More Russian Telegram channels followed the same on the same day.
In the video, at around approximately three minutes, the guy shouts “Nyan, bye!” before putting a Saiga rifle into his head and blowing his brains out. The police managed to arrive only around two and a half hours later.
The first repost video, uploaded by GORE titled “1444”, gained over 151,000 views in just three days. YouTube moderators however, soon took down the video.
Later in October 20th, 2019, the video further received more spread through social media discussions. Spanish-speaking internet users considered the video to be cursed by the original uploader on the deep web similar to “Momo”.
According to rumours, viewers could remove the curse only by commenting the date on the video. Several users posted warnings against watching the video online. Twitter users like @irkepoc gained over 13,700 retweets and 10,900 likes in just two days for the warning posts about the video.
4chan users also noticed a rise of videos titled in a similar fashion (e.g. “1555” and “1443”), which contained obscure clips, showing child pornography and other sensitive content. An anonymous 4chan user translated a 2ch post, claiming that Korablyov committed the suicide after a quarrel with his girlfriend.
On October 20 2019, ReignBot, a YouTube channel focusing on online investigations made a report on the video. The report stated about the video’s “cursed” status. The report got over 280,000 views by November 4, 2019. An Argentinian YouTube commentator and musician Magnus Mefisto also decided to cover the video the same day, with his video gaining over 8 million views by November 2, 2019.
Most interestingly, the viral phenomenon proceeded to gain much popularity among Spanish-speaking users. A host of Spanish-speaking YouTubers, which included popular content creators like El Rincón de Giorgo and DrossRotzank covered the issue. In fact, DrossRotzank even went on to mock and criticize YouTube for striking several channels and taking down videos, which reported on the video.
TikTok Spread
Searches for the video experienced a sharp spike in early December 2019, after the video became a popular subject of the Do not Google TikTok posts. The posts seemingly baited users into searching for the Video 1444 online.
Interestingly, several unconnected videos similarly titled as 1444 also began trending online. A Vimeo video, also titled “1444”, which was filmed in Bedford, garnered over 177,000 views. Another woodcutting YouTube video garnered over 377,700 views.
Peak Search Interest
The online searches for both “video 1444” and “1444” initially peaked around October 19th-20th back in 2019. Before this Google Trends reported how searches for “1444” experienced a slight increase between January 2010 and June 2012. The increase was main recorded in Spain reportedly due to queries about some scam phone calls.
There were also some small spikes on three occasions back in November 2012, April 2014, and December 2016. The spikes correspond to online queries about winning lottery numbers of Brazilian lotteries Mega-Sena, Lotomania and Lotofácil.
Most recently, “video 1444” and “1444” searches spiked in December 2019 due to the “Do Not Google” TikTok posts.
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