A young couple from Arizona haven't been having an easy time since posting a video to YouTube about a "traumatic experience" that occurred a day after they moved into their Chicago apartment, prompting them to flee back to Arizona.
In response, one self-proclaimed resident of Edgewater—the neighborhood on Chicago's North Side where they briefly lived—Kevin Fergus, has organized “The Brianna and Jaelin Walking Tour” event on Facebook. In it, Fergus says, he will "re-create this important bit of local history" and include all the famous sites, "like Subway and the CVS parking lot, as well as all the brunch places, yoga studios and coffee shops that should have told the Whites that Edgewater was a dangerous neighborhood."
Let's rewind a bit. The incident started when YouTubers Jaelin White and Brianna Joy White, both 18, posted the now-viral video “The Reason We're Homeless Right Now … (No Clickbait) Storytime”—now named “Our Chicago Story”—on their channel in early August. However, as ABC Chicago notes, one criticism many have made is that the poor "homeless" couple filmed the video in a huge kitchen featuring the works: granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.
In the video, the couple describes arriving in the Windy City, unpacking and deciding to take the train to get something to eat.
"We heard great things about this public transportation," Jaelin White said. "So I'm like, instead of driving, let's just go kinda have the experience."
However, upon their arrival at the Granville train station near their new home, a man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and began asking questions like, "What's your name?" and "What do you do?"
The couple were so uncomfortable that they took refuge in a nearby Subway restaurant and called for an Uber to pick them up, but then spotted the "creepy" man outside the Subway.
"At this point I feel like I'm going to throw up—like, I literally thought I was just going to have a heart attack," Brianna White said. "His voice was so sketchy."
Jaelin White reportedly called 911 and told the man that the police would be coming. When a car that the couple assumed to be their Uber pulled up, they tried to jump in, only to have the man allegedly punch Jaelin White in the face. The couple were so terrified that they decided to move back to Arizona.
Comments for the YouTube video have since been disabled.
And that's around when Fergus decided to help show people the horrors the young couple went through.
"Bring your wallet, because everybody's either going to Chipotle or Arizona when the tour’s over," Fergus quips in the video description.
Some 3,000 people have signed up for the Sept. 6 meetup on the Facebook event page.
Read more at ABC Chicago.