Joshua Block (better known as @worldoftshirts, or simply Joshua) is an autistic young man from Medford, New York who creates embarrassing but harmless TikTok videos for his millions (yes, millions) of followers, and is harassed over the internet and in real life by TikTok-obsessed teens and tweens. He recently stomped on and mutilated the corpse of a fish on the side of a busy road, describing its brains flowing around the sidewalk, sparking controversy all over the internet, but to understand what's happening you'll need to know a bit about him and TikTok.
Part I: Who is Joshua Block?
Joshua was born on August 7th, 2001 (Link / Archive), and very little is known about his early life. Like many other people documented on this site, Joshua suffers from one or more unknown mental illnesses, and it's very likely that he is somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Despite being born in 2001, he graduated in 2021, likely due to his plethora of illnesses. He went to Patchogue-Medford High School, where he was an active athlete participating in track and field as well as cross country (Link / Archive). All signs point to Josh having a relatively normal and happy childhood, due to his wealthy neighborhood and frequent trips to New York City. He likely lives with his grandfather Vincent G Lisa (Link / Archive), after his mother Laura Ann passed away in 2015. Her obituary indicates that Joshua has a brother Jacob, and a father, Allen, but I haven't been able to find any information on them (Link / Archive).
His first recorded online presence is his website, worldoftshirts on Cafepress. It's a very bizarre selection of tshirts that he likely designed. (Link / Archive). His designs are strange and childish, and very obviously made on a basic image editing application. It's just harmless fun for Joshua, and it obviously makes him happy.
Part II: Joshua Joins TikTok
Joshua's calm suburban life was about to change. According to The Tab article linked earlier (Link / Archive), Joshua formed his TikTok account "two years ago". He quickly rose to fame, inexplicably, gaining 400,000 followers within a year and currently sitting at over 2.1 million. He is followed by one of the apps most notable creators (and fellow potential lolcow) Dixie D'Amelio. Why? According to KnowYourMeme, it's due to his eccentric yet awkward personality, and generally unpredictable and unfiltered content. (Link / Archive) Let's take a look at the content that Joshua likes to upload. This is one of his earlier videos, and demonstrates his strange personality and tone of speaking, where he Enunciates Every Word Very Clearly.
Joshua also likes to make vlogs, short videos that show him doing challenges or other strange tasks.
He also likes to dance. This video is reversed for comedic effect but you get the idea.
He's most well known for going to crowded places in New York and singing "Empire State of Mind" by Alicia Keys. He uploads one or more videos like this every time he goes on vacation to New York City, which seems to be INCREDIBLY frequently.
Joshua became extremely popular due to these videos. But as his following increased, so did his controversy. 2021 has been marred by drama for Josh, his fans, his detractors, and the curious onlookers.
Part III: Joshua Becomes an Enemy of TikTok
As Joshua grew, he began to get recognized in public. This led to his first large controversy, where it was discovered that he was charging $50 to make a video with him.
TikTok teens were outraged at this, and he began to receive many negative comments. His comments were completely filled with references to this until he announced that he generously decreased the price to make an in-person video with him to $20.
Next, Joshua began to outrage the Gen Z kids even more by repeatedly decrying mask-wearing and Andrew Cuomo. He made quite a few videos like this and the response was obviously very negative.
Many users have filmed videos of their interactions with Joshua, where he is always cold and stiff, and he is frequently mocked in the comments. I'll upload some of these videos and their comments in the future when I find them, because searching on TikTok is absolute fucking garbage and I've already spent enough time on this thread. Basically, the TikTok opinion of Joshua has largely shifted from a weird kid making funny videos to a sociopathic monster trying to take all your money and elect Donald Trump into office again. He is frequently clowned on in public and private, and he has both detractors and defenders.
Here's some more milk that will be later uploaded to this section of the OP (sorry but I've already spent 2 hours on this thread and it's in prospering grounds for a reason):
-Joshua's absolutely terrible Cameos (a website where you can pay money to get a video message from a """"celebrity"""")
-Joshua's appearance on a billboard in New York City
-Joshua yelling "I'm in the ghetto" in crowded subway stations in both Harlem and Brooklyn
-Joshua yelling other things at random people for no reason
-Joshua wearing the same dirty, ripped clothing for weeks at a time
-Joshua's mysterious OnlyFans
-Joshua's music career, where he sings about his obsession with coffee and boba
-Joshua's lavish wealth, as evidenced by his residency in expensive Times Squares hotels weekly
-Joshua's assorted autistic hyperfixations
-Joshua's chaotic livestreams
-Joshua's zoom meetup, where he spouted Republican talking points and refused to answer questions and otherwise acted in a lol-worthy manner.
Part IV: The Fish Incident
This incident has transformed Josh from a TikTok sideshow to a full fledged lolcow, in my opinion, and made him significant enough to deserve a thread here.
A few days ago, this video surfaced. It quickly resonated throughout the Worldoftshirts fanbase, sparking discussion on reddit, tiktok, and youtube. It is an unknown person filming and talking to Josh as Josh throws a fish on the ground, stomps on it, picks it up, throws it again, stomps on it some more, and overall just abuses the corpse of this animal.
This sparked immediate and widespread outrage. Over the last few days, TikTok users have been raging at him in his comments. These selected comments are all from a single video.
He has made several chaotic livestreams in the last few days where he talks about the incident and is very flustered. He freaks out that he's going to get cancelled and lose his TikTok money. Youtube Link to one such video
A day ago, someone called in a bomb threat to the hotel that Josh was staying at and got him kicked out.
This kid has been a personal lolcow for a long time now, but with this fish incident there has been an absolute deluge of lols coming from him, from his stans, from his detractors, and from the tiktok community as a whole. Just think about it: this is a severely mentally ill kid who is famous, visits New York all the time and is easy to find, and has tons of money. Much more milk is bound to ensue following this fish incident. Everything is there: endless documentation, no social skills, weird obsessions, and a cultlike fanbase. Here are his social media links:
TikTok
His subreddit
OP TO-DO LIST: locate and archive the incidents listed above, investigate family history and childhood, expand on the fish controversy
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