Over the last few years, the supposed time traveller known only as ‘Noah’ has made headlines across the world, and the Internet, with his predictions about the ‘world of tomorrow’.
Shockingly though for anyone with even an iota of common sense it turns out Noah isn’t a time traveller at all… cue shocked gasps from absolutely no one.
Yes, it turns out that Noah is actually a 16-year-old vlogger, who isn’t even named Noah (the worst betrayal of all?), he’s actually called Denis Bel and he pretended to be a time traveller on the Internet for the same reason anyone does anything – to earn some cash.
According to Denis, who revealed all in his latest blog, the character of Noah came about when he was 14 years old after the YouTube channel ApexTV offered him money to make a fake time traveller video.
He said:
I cannot believe I’m making this video now. It’s absolutely insane that I’m actually recording this and I’m saying everything finally. It’s been so long oh my gosh.
Hello, everyone, my name is Denis and I’m Noah the time traveller, the famous viral time traveller who was all over the internet at one point.
Denis isn’t wrong about Noah being everywhere in his heyday with his ‘eerie’ predictions from the far-flung future of 2030.
His bold claims included predictions that we’d start seeing more UFOs over the next decade and that artificial intelligence would seize control of the American government (insert Trump having no intelligence joke here).
So why has Denis decided to come out as a phoney now?
Well, he claims as the character of Noah became more popular he started receiving death threats from people with far too much time on their hands who had worked out his true identity.
Why would people send a teenager death threats? Well because it’s 2019, and that’s seen as a reasonable response to a teenager pranking people these days.
He explained:
I can’t do this stupid character anymore, I have to get rid of this looming that’s above me that keeps making me scared of being exposed.
Bel also claims that ApexTV wanted him and his parents to sign a non-disclosure agreement ensuring that he’d never reveal his true identity to the world.
To the chagrin of whoever runs ApexTV, and viral news editors and journalists across the world who have to find another dead horse to beat, Denis decided he couldn’t live with the burden of being Noah any more and has retired the character.
Denis now hopes that he can move forward as a regular YouTuber without relying on the whole ‘I’m a time traveller gimmick’.
Good luck to you Denis.
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More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.