Damn Daniel: Teen behind the viral video falls victim to swatting

Joshua Holz, the teen behind the viral video titled Damn Daniel, has become a victim of swatting. The internet sensation's Riverside home was swarmed by police on Tuesday (23 February) after they received a hoax call regarding a serious crime at the address.

The police received a call at around 1am claiming that a person at a residence in Hamilton Drive had shot his mother with an AK-47. As a result, a major team of the police, including a SWAT team and a helicopter, were dispatched, only to realise that Holz's family had become the victim of a hoax call.

"A person called Riverside Police Department dispatch centre and used some kind of a voice modification device and reported that he had shot his mother," Riverside police Lt Kevin Townsend told ABC7.

What is swatting?

According to the Oxford dictionary, the term "swatting" means "an action or practice of making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address". Many celebrities have become victims of such prank calls in the past.

Daniel Lara, the teen from Riverside High School in California, became an overnight social media star after a 30-second video surfaced online featuring him displaying his cool outfits and white vans. His friend Joshua keeps shouting "damn Daniel" while praising him for his style sense.

The video became so popular that the word "damn" became a favourite catch word to praise a person for his/her good look and outfits by repeatedly saying "damn Daniel, back at it again with the white vans!" Many memes have surfaced on the internet after the video was shared 290,000 times on Joshua's Twitter page.

The high school students were also invited to the Ellen DeGeneres show and even the popular talk show host could not resist the "damn" addiction and made a "Damn Ellen" video.

Watch it below: