14 DAY TRIAL // Sam and Nia Rader, the popular and polarizing Christian viral vloggers who hit Internet gold earlier this month when he “surprised” her with the news of her pregnancy, are taking some time off. The decision comes on the heels of another headline-grabbing moment for them, this time of the unflattering kind: Sam got himself kicked out of the Vlogger Fair in Seattle for threatening violence against others.
Truth be told, Sam and Nia have had a very rapid and just as controversial rise to Internet fame from the start. Days after their pregnancy announcement video went viral, as doubt regarding how real it was spread, they posted another one announcing they had miscarried.
They claimed Nia had been about 6 weeks into the pregnancy and that she was having a baby girl. They never saw a doctor, neither to confirm the pregnancy nor for the alleged miscarriage, which weighed heavily in the balance against them.
Sam and Nia, over and out (for now)
The video below was shot right after the two got kicked out of the Vlogger Fair. Sam maintains that he didn’t get in any kind of physical altercation, explaining that he only yelled at a fellow blogger who had criticized his family.
He says he approached 2 different vloggers who had been very vocal in their criticism of the Rader family, particularly their pregnancy and miscarriage announcements, but only to let them know that he had forgiven them for what they’d said.
One was pretty understanding, the other not so much. Sam says that he never laid hands on the man, but he owns up to his share of responsibility for approaching him in the first place.
Towards the end of the video, he says he and Nia will be offline for the next few days, a week or maybe more, while they focus “on what’s important to us.”
Ironically, he also describes the day as “one of the hardest of me and Nia’s life, by far.” This, from a man and a woman who also lost a child this month.
Sam Rader can’t handle the heat, gets out of the kitchen
Sam Rader and wife Nia have been online for a very long time and are at their second brush with Internet viral fame. This time, though, the frenzy around them has proved too much for them to handle, because it also brought up stuff they didn’t like.
First off, even experts weighed in to say that the pregnancy announcement was fake, because you can’t take a urine sample from a toilet bowl and ran an accurate pregnancy test on it. Secondly, commenters online noticed that, despite claims they had lost a baby, Sam and Nia were their chirpy selves only a couple of days later.
As if all this controversy weren’t enough, he also got himself involved in the Ashley Madison Leak, when his name popped up on the leaked lists of subscribers made public.
And now this altercation, which, according to eyewitnesses, was completely different from what he claims it was. No wonder many are seeing in Rader’s desire to go offline for a while his capitulation after accepting that the kitchen has just gotten too hot for him.
At the next con you're not invited to, definitely don't threaten violence against other vloggers? #trash #godbless https://t.co/hnAVE6LCYV
— Meghan Tonjes (@meghantonjes) August 22, 2015
Look at all the people not getting kicked out of cons. Then look at the people who are. @carterreynolds @samandnia
— Meghan Tonjes (@meghantonjes) August 22, 2015
A conferences first goal should be to keep people safe and sometimes that means safe from creators. Congrats @VloggerFair for doing that.
— Meghan Tonjes (@meghantonjes) August 22, 2015
Never seen anyone climb so high/fall so quickly so fast.I wasn't gonna drag this dude but you wanna threaten people and then play victim?Nah
— Meghan Tonjes (@meghantonjes) August 22, 2015