Kevin Samuels has died, his mother confirmed to the Daytona Examiner. The dating coach and image consultant died at the age of 57.
While the exact cause of the influencer’s death has yet to be made public, millions of Americans across the nation have taken to Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to express their opinions and thoughts on Samuels’ legacy, and whether he, like so many other celebrities of his generation, deserves to be “canceled” or recognized.
A Little More On Kevin Samuels
Over the course of his career, Kevin Samuels had become known as a beacon of strong-willed and goal-oriented living and an inspiration to men the world over, in certain circles. In others, he was often lambasted as a crude, outdated, ill-mannered misogynist fueling the oppression of women, more specifically, black women with his “say it like it is” style of delivery.
With raw and unfiltered content much like other popular media voices such as Louder with Crowder, Joe Rogan Experience, and The Howard Stern Show, Samuels tackled modern-day relationship problems of the generation. Samuels was known for using ego tackling dialogue like:
“Women, for the last 30 to 40 years, have been told you can have it all whenever you want, no matter how you are.”
“And they’ve been given an unrealistic expectation of their actual sexual marketplace value.”
While we live in the nation that is famous for the concept of “free speech”, many individuals during Samuels’s so-called “Online Crusades” petitioned to have him silenced. This took the form of movements to have his channel removed from top social media platforms, such as Youtube and Twitter. Some even created private Telegram groups with a focus on recruiting new members who would actively report all his podcast releases on his YouTube channel, with the sole intention of banning him on the platform.
It turns out that a lot of the nation’s population, particularly women, had a collective unfavorable opinion of the YouTube personality. On the other hand, his content typically appealed to younger and middle-aged blue-collar men who portrayed him as a sort of spokesperson for the masculine archetype, and even a father figure.
A Product of Social Media
At the turn of the decade, social media platforms began developing a thriving relationship scene, with dating apps like Tinder and Bumble gaining popularity. Individuals would swipe on others they thought would be a good match solely based on a 500-word bio and a selection of their best photos to show off their personality. As a result of these shallow interactions, over the years the public has entered one of the loneliest eras of recorded human interaction.
Samuels claimed his aim for his content was based on inspiration-seeking, to restructure and authenticate modern dating solutions by first directly explaining possible reasons why an individual is having a hard time finding a romantic interest. Moreover, he redefined what the public thought of as crude or offensive, giving viewers seeking help a “reality check”.
Digging Deeper
Let’s reflect on a little more key information revolving around the public figure himself:
Casually wearing his signature glasses, suit, and tie, Samuels’s Youtube channel revolved around sitting in his chair talking to women, providing content primarily based on relationship advice. His channel was created 6 years ago, in March 2015 and, over the course of a few years, with consistent uploads and cross collaborations, saw drastic growth, accumulating 1.4 million total subscribers and 303,680,902 overall channel views according to Social Blade statistics.
His best video, The “You’re Average At Best” Video – The Full Interview, is his most viewed video, captivating the eyes of 2.9 million viewers. This is followed by his second most popular video, Tomi Lahren “Men Are Trash” | What Can Women Learn From Her? Securing over 2 million views, both of these videos were uploaded roughly one year ago on his YouTube channel.
When rumors of his death started to circulate on social media platforms, they sparked mixed reactions from those who watched and were familiar with his channel. Groups of individuals expressed seeing his content as sexist toward women, stereotypical of men, and perpetuating a divide between Black women and Black men. Others showed their support and acknowledged him as a real truth-teller who wasn’t “fake”, reacting to those expressing hate towards Samuels as an act of disrespect.
Before Kevin Samuels Was Famous
Samuels was born March 13, 1965, and lived in Oklahoma City with his mother. It is believed that his parents ended their own relationship while he was still young. Reports suggest that Samuels attended Millwood High School.
Kevin, in his youth, was reported to have an inclination toward the fashion industry. Most of the outfits he would wear were for a purpose, “a statement” he often said. He has also explained, on record, “I laid out my pajamas and made sure they were pressed. I go to sleep thinking about it. I wake up thinking about it. Yeah, I love this.”
After graduating from high school, Samuels stayed in-state to further his education at the University of Oklahoma. He was a member of the “KAPPA ALPHA PSI” fraternity. He majored in chemical engineering, interestingly enough not fashion, and graduated from Oklahoma State in 1991.
When Kevin left University to pursue his dreams and his career, he found himself working as a sales associate for Office Depot for a few years. Later Kevin moved on from this position into the marketing industry in 2013, working for a company called “The Real Yellow Pages”.
It was during this time that his National persona began to form. He started to become well known for this persona as well as the fine-tailored suits that he would sport almost daily. During this time, he was conducting an image consulting operation for an up-coming attorney on her way to becoming a judge. Samuel took his first image consulting client to numerous high-profile clothing stores and established a checklist for upholding a prestigious image. His client was so impressed, she remarked: “How much do you charge for this?”
It was at this time that everything began to come together for Samuels. He ran with the momentum of his work in fashion and image consulting and developed his skillset to the point he was able to switch careers. He launched his own brand: “Made Men Image Consulting”, with his primary clientele being men from higher tax brackets. Shortly after, Samuels’ realized he was alienating much of his potential clientele and limiting his scalability, and so included women and businesses alike to the client base.
Samuel’s main focus was upgrading the status of his client’s wardrobe while maintaining efficiency for any occasion they might come across. This, as a result, took a lot of pressure and wasted energy off of figuring out what to wear for the day for his clients, ultimately making them more comfortable with themselves and, at the end of the day, more productive. It took a few more years of dedicated work for Samuels’s brand to move him up to the status of social media personality on Youtube.
Growth on YouTube
Samuels knew he was doing something right as his channel grew exponentially after each post, collecting a massive following one video after the other. This helped him create a base foundation in a short period of time. His channel revolved around giving his input on things like fashion, colognes, perfumes, social problems and relationship advice.
Not long after, Samuels’ created his own “Six Core Principles” for aspiring individuals to follow. They are as follows:
- A man’s ability to earn at least $10k a month.
- Earning $10k a month for over five years.
- Acceptance from a group of other high-value men.
- Access to a fraternity-like network.
- An accepted prominent position by society.
- The ability to be of use by other high-value men.
Samuels initially sparked controversy with this list of core values, the reason being that nowadays only the top 10% in the nation can fully complete this checklist. He would gain monumental online attention after a video titled, “You’re average at best” hit Youtube, in which he explains to modern-day women that “they think they’re too good for the men they qualify for”. The direct recipient of this message was a 35-year-old African American woman who was mothering a 13-year-old son, looking to be swept off her feet and ride off into the sunset. She expressed how difficult it was to find her ideal man who makes over 6 figures a year and asked the personality for advice on how to get her a catch. Samuels gave his brutally honest input on her situation, remarking:
“Average looking women tend not to get high-value men. They tend to get average men.”
Now with controversy in full swing, many women didn’t like hearing what Samuels had to say, especially older women. Another point of media controversy surrounding the personality is when Samuels said to modern woman:
- “ The older you get, the less you get.”
- “Are women wanting more than they deserve?”
- “If you have made it 35 years of age as a woman and are unmarried, you are a leftover woman.”
It wasn’t long after these statements hit the worldwide web that Samuels would suffer a fatal incident, yet to be clarified for cause, and be pronounced dead in early May 2022. In the recent wake of his death, offended viewers swarmed various social media platforms to leave comments such as:
- “Kevin Samuels has made a career off of shamelessly disgracing Black women for profit.”
- “He emboldened the most toxic individuals to project tired and harmful narratives about Black women.”
- “Dead or alive, what a disgraceful life to live.”
- “That’s all I’ve got for that misogynist.”
- “Why does Kevin Samuels continue to have a platform when it’s built on the backs of the women he hates?”
His only family, his mother and daughter, were clearly distraught by the public figure’s passing. While it still is unclear as to the exact reason for his passing, we do have a few clues as to what might have happened.
Ms. Alcantara, Samuels’s nurse at the time, made an official statement to the authorities: “Early this morning, Mr. Samuels complained of chest pain.” She also described attempting to help him, but said that he fell on top of her, whereupon she notified 911. She requested the operator to contact the front desk for a defibrillator to keep Mr. Samuels responsive until a nurse could arrive.
Medics failed to revive Samuels, arriving on the scene to find him already unresponsive. Here’s what we know for certain about about Kevin Samuels’s death:
- Officials at the Atlanta Police Department reported a distress call early on Thursday, May 5th, from a local apartment complex. When the Atlanta Police Department officials arrived, they reported witnessing first responders conducting CPR on the unresponsive man who was lying on the ground. This man was later identified to be Youtube personality, Kevin Samuels.
- Police stated that the unresponsive Kevin Samuels was transported to the nearest hospital, Piedmont Hospital. Not long after, Fulton County’s medical examiner states that while there was an autopsy on Samuel’s body conducted.
- The true cause of death is yet to be determined as results inch their way toward the public.
It wasn’t long until the news of Samuels’s death began to spread like wildfire across various media platforms. The first to have confirmed that credible news sources had mentioned the Youtube personality’s death was Revolt Black News. It was later confirmed by the friends and family, via their social media platforms, that Kevin Samuels was indeed deceased.
Public Consensus
Many people immediately took to YouTube to condemn Samuels’s life as improper, disgraceful, and misogynistic. Recognizable journalist, Ernest Owens, took to twitter to express his views on the subject.
One person reached out to tweet: “All I can say about Kevin Samuels is if you spend your time disrespecting people in life, don’t be surprised at people disrespecting you in death. No matter how cruel it may be, the legacy you leave behind will be known by the fruit you bore while you were here.”
Another Tweet seemingly against Samuels: “Kevin Samuels made a career off of bashing women and upholding oppressive gender standards and y’all want us to take the high road when we find out he passed away.”
Yet another tweet bashing the public figure’s legacy goes on to say: “Kevin Samuels was a menace. Nothing about his ideals actually made sense. His audience is made up of men that are so fragile in their masculinity that they think it’s a personality trait to degrade women… we’re not celebrating his death we’re just not mourning it”.
On the other hand, those who weren’t yet introduced to the personality reached out to express their distaste for others’ incredulous statements in the wake of his death:
“I open Twitter to see a bunch of fat, broke, sad n****s/b**ches celebrating Kevin Samuels death??? Never watched the man, but the fact that that man’s opinions hurt y’all that bad is crazy to me. He was a whole father. Condolences to his fam.”
Another wrote: “Regardless of if this Kevin Samuels news is true or not, you gotta be an evil MF to cheer for someone’s death because you don’t like some of the things they’ve said.”
Conclusion
While reporting on the exact cause of death reaches public media, the fire ensues between Samuel’s supporters and detractors, painting an online virtual war scene of sorts. Whether or not Samuels was just another ill-mannered online personality seeking fame and money or whether there was some truth in what he had to say to the masses is left up for you to decide. Nevertheless, he was a son and father who didn’t go out of his way to inflict any bodily harm on anyone. While his fame in the online world was riddled with controversy, he gained a massive following over the years, drawing a large group of followers who actively supported what he had to say.
Samuels’ last upload was made on Wednesday May 4th, titled “Modern Women Are A Party of 1” — a two-hour livestream that has since received nearly a million views and comments, led mostly by fans mourning the YouTuber, thanking him for years of advice.
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