The cycle of exploitation tied to Jeffrey Epstein marches on even after his death.
Influencers are now using Epstein's private island, Little Saint James, near the U.S. Virgin Islands, for their content. Their visits come as Epstein and his case dominate headlines with Donald Trump’s Department of Justice releasing millions of pages from his FBI file. That has created renewed interest in all aspects of his case, including the island where he committed some of his sex crimes.
There are at least nine YouTube videos — most of which were posted within the last month — with titles that are some variation of "I Snuck into Jeffrey Epstein's Island."
The videos all have near-identical thumbnails and similar content. The influencer flies to St. Thomas, talks to locals about Epstein, and then rents a jet ski to reach the island, after which they skitter around in the dirt and look at buildings while discussing the financier's depravity.
There are a few tweaks to the formula, of course. One creator, Ash Alk, cuts the first few seconds of his video to look like an action film. He claims to be storming the island as a way to advocate for the release of the full Epstein files. Another user, WAYOFLIFESQ, uses the fact that he is a Muslim as his hook. His video is titled "Muslim Sneaks Onto Epstein Island," and preview footage from the video shows him running around on the island waving a Quran.
The videos are pulling in viewers as well. WAYOFLIFESQ's video has more than 500,000 views as of Thursday morning, and Ash Alk's has 1.6 million.
Ahmad Aburob, a Jordan-based content creator who spoke to the Daily Mail, said the latest tranche of Epstein documents helped stir up the new video trend.
“The latest release of Epstein files, that created a trend and that trend caused YouTubers to go there to kind of ride on that trend,” Aburob said.
Many of the YouTubers who visit the island tend to focus on the "temple," a blue and white striped building with a golden dome that, according to an NBC News permit review, was constructed to be an octagonal music pavilion.
During Alk's visit to the island, he walked around the building and insisted that "ungodly things happened here."
Videos in which creators explore off-limits, dangerous, or taboo locales typically do fairly well on social media.
Nico Grigg, a creator who has his own Little Saint James video, previously posted a video where he reportedly sneaks into Bohemian Grove, a camp in California that holds an annual meeting of its elite and powerful members every July. The Grove's annual meeting has become mythologized among internet conspiracy theorists as a sort of black Mass event undertaken by the rulers of the modern world.
His Bohemian Grove video has 2.3 million views, but his Little Saint James video blew it out of the water with 12 million, proving there is an audience for this grisly new spin-off of true crime content.
Some of the creators do attempt to justify the content as its own form of journalism. Ben Lisi told NBC News that he hopes his video — which he described as "light-hearted and adventurous" — will somehow help bring justice to the Epstein survivors.
"Even though it's just a silly video and we didn't actually sneak on the island or anything, but we just saw it, I think it still brings more attention to it," he told the outlet. "And hopefully, in some small way, can bring justice to the victims and help expose or continue to bring light to what's going on behind closed doors."
The U.S. Department of Justice released millions of files related to Epstein in February which shed further light on the expansive network of high-profile figures associated with the disgraced financier.
The February documents contain some three million pages, including 180,000 images and approximately 2,000 videos attached to the case. In total, 3.5 million files have been released.
Fallout from the document dump was swift. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, was arrested by U.K. police on suspicion of misconduct in public office on February 19, just 17 days after the files were released. Four days later, Peter Mandelson, former British ambassador to the U.S., was arrested “for misconduct in public office offenses” by London police.
While the February tranche was said to be the final release of the files, the government still has approximately 2.5 million files that haven’t been released, and the 3.5 million that have been released include heavy redacting. Some of the redactions are intended to protect victims, but there is still a push from some Americans — including many in the MAGA crowd — who want to see all of the files released and to see the removal of any redactions removed unless they’re intended to protect victims, according to CNN.
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