The NBA season kicked off a lot like 2016-17 ended: with Fake Klay Thompson. Fake Klay has become a staple at Warriors games, but there’s a lot more to this analog than meets the eye.
Fake Klay Thompson is actually a YouTube star with more followers than you can imagine
The more you know ...
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Fake Klay might only be known among the sports world know, but he’s a YouTube superstar. A mega-star in fact. His name is Dawson, and he runs the prank channel “BigDawsTV,” which boasts 2.9 million subscribers and a not-so-small army of followers.
The “Fake Klay” gimmick is just one in a long line of pranks by Dawson, who started filming Jackass-inspired stunts over a decade ago. His latest video about Warriors’ opening night, “Pretending to be Klay Thompson” has garnered over 1.5 million views in 24 hrs.
It’s totally mindless entertainment, which is what YouTube was made for — like, “DRIVE THRU PERSON SWAP PRANK!!” in which I just appreciated how patient fast food workers are for the immense amount of crap they put up with.
Or walking around Arizona State with the biggest backpack you’ll ever see, which I don’t really understand how it’s a “prank,” but it has prank in the title.
We’re going to see a lot more Fake Klay this season, judging from videos Dawson has been sponsored by a seat-selling website, promoting him to sit behind the Warriors bench. The next time you see him, you’ll know there’s more to Fake Klay than meets the eye, and if you see him on the street you’ll probably wind up in a video millions of people will watch.
