Nationality American Years active 2008-present Channel name MagicOfRahat | Pseudonym MagicOfRahat Religion N/A Name Rahat Hossain | |
Profiles | ||
Rahat Hossain (born December 19, 1989), also known by his username MagicofRahat is an American YouTube personality, vlogger, prankster and magician of Bangladeshi descent, who produces pranks and magic tricks on YouTube.
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Early life
Hossain's parents are from Bangladesh. He was born and grew up in Virginia Beach, where he showed passion for building things with cardboard and duct tape. Hossain attended Old Dominion University in approximately 2009, majoring in criminal justice. In college, he began uploading videos featuring card tricks. The first-ever video uploaded with Hossain's YouTube account was named, "Maxi-Twist by Rahat". He uploaded almost 50 videos of this genre before filming hidden camera pranks.
Invisible driver prank
Hossain posted his hit video, "Drive Thru Invisible Driver Prank," on January 9, 2013. The video shows him dressed up as a car seat and fooling workers at various fast food restaurants, such as McDonald's and Chick-fil-A. Hossain said he constructed the car-seat outfit in 12 hours after being inspired by an image he found on the Internet of a "guy who'd actually had a car-seat costume similar to what I built".
The prank gained immense popularity and was featured on Fox & Friends, Good Morning America, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, among others. As of 2014, the video received over 40 million total views.
In June 2014 Toyota featured Hossain in a similar invisible driver stunt in Europe, steering the Toyota Aygo.
Homeless lottery winner
In a video posted on March 4, 2014, Hossain gave a homeless man named Eric a lottery ticket with which Eric "won" $1,000. The cashier was also in on the prank. After receiving the money, Eric tried to give Hossain half of it which Hossain refused to take (the entire thing being a prank). The video received an overall positive reception by the public and was viewed nearly 28 million times.
In the following days, Hossain posted another video in which he said that users (who were touched by Eric wanting to give half the money to Hossain) asked how they could donate to him. For that, Hossain set up a fundraiser, the goal being to collect a total of $20,000. The fundraiser collected more than $44,000 from 3,000+ donors. Hossain said that he wanted to "improve his lifestyle" and emphasized Eric's personality. While collecting the money, Eric moved into a hotel room and was given a job. On May 7, 2014, Hossain uploaded a video to YouTube titled, "Homeless Man Gets A Home." The video shows him offering to buy dinner for Eric, but first he says he has to stop by his house to get something. It was later revealed that it was, in reality, the house was the very one paid for by thousands of Internet contributors. In a matter of days, the video received about nine million views.