James Bates (born 1991 or 1992) is an American comedian, best known as The Real Spark and known for his parody news interview videos.

Personal life and education

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Bates is based in Lafayette, Louisiana and was aged 29 in August 2021.[1][2]

He studied psychology.[3]

Career

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Bates is a driver for Uber as well as working full time in video production.[3]

In 2020, he won a YouTube Silver Creator Award.[2]

In a 2021 parody interview that went viral on YouTube and Twitter, Bates played the fictional flight attendant Alfredo Rivera.[4] The video's release followed a real incident on a Frontier Airlines flight and was misunderstood by journalist Piers Morgan as authentic, prompting Morgan to tweet "This is utterly fantastic. We need more people like Alfredo in the world."[5][6] Television program Good Morning America also misunderstood the parody to be real.[7] On 10 August 2021, AFP Fact Check advised that the "social media sensation is a comedian, not a US flight attendant"[8] In December 2021, Madison Pauly, writing in Mother Jones, described the video as "sidesplitting".[9]

In 2022, Bates released a parody video about a man being charged for indecent exposure.[10]

References

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  1. ^ "He's not a flight attendance, but plays one on the internet. Duct tape spoof goes viral". Miami Herald. 10 Aug 2021.
  2. ^ a b Houston, Molly (8 Sep 2021). "Comedian Goes Viral With Hilarious Video". Comedy.com. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  3. ^ a b Bates, James (2021-08-17). ""My fake news interviews have been viewed more than 70 million times"". Newsweek. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  4. ^ Palmer, Ewan (2021-08-06). "Alfredo Rivera parody flight attendant video viewed over 5 million times". Newsweek. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  5. ^ Spangler, Todd (2021-08-06). "YouTube Comedian's 'Alfredo Rivera' Frontier Flight Attendant Spoof Video Goes Viral". Variety. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  6. ^ Vigdor, Neil (2021-08-03). "Passenger Arrives Taped to a Seat and Is Charged With Assaulting Flight Attendants". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  7. ^ Unruly passenger duct-taped to seat after allegedly assaulting flight attendants l GMA, 4 Aug 2021, retrieved 2022-07-26
  8. ^ Savage, Claire (2021-08-10). "Social media sensation is a comedian, not US flight attendant". Fact Check. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  9. ^ Pauly, Madison. "Hero of 2021: The flight attendant who duct-taped an abusive passenger". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  10. ^ Logan, Ryan (2022-09-09). "Video: The Fake Interview Guy is Back". 94.7 WCSX. Retrieved 2022-09-10.


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