Unmasked: the man behind one of the fastest growing far-right YouTube channels
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The Guardian has identified the self-described “national socialist” behind an openly extremist YouTube channel that in just over two months has accumulated 50,000 subscribers, seen more than 2.3m views, and likely made thousands of dollars from YouTube’s revenue-sharing monetization program.
Johnathan Christopher “Chris” Booth, 37, lives in the unincorporated community of Coral, a part of Maple Valley Township in Michigan’s Montcalm county, and is married to a senior local Republican official.
Booth has published more than 70 YouTube videos since May on his Shameless Sperg account, whose graphic design elements feature stylized SS bolts. Titles of his videos – generally a recording of him delivering his views direct to camera – include: “Why I Dislike Jews. It’s not complicated”, “Black Crimes Matter: Never Relax” and “Jews and FBI hate you and your free speech”.
Typically the videos attract hundreds of comments from like-minded YouTube users. His channel has seen such remarkable success that it has drawn apparently baseless allegations from other far-right creators that he is a “fed”. On an X account that frequently advertises his videos, his posts include antisemitic comments and in one response to a post about actor Jim Carrey he writes: “All of them deserve rope. I advocate for national socialism though, under which idiots like this would not fare too well.”
Despite YouTube’s stated policies against hate speech and content that promotes violence against individuals or groups based on race, religion or other protected characteristics, Booth’s channel appears to be monetized through the YouTube Partner Program. The channel displays ads and Booth has thanked subscribers for their financial support through the platform.
YouTube’s community guidelines explicitly prohibit content that “promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization”.
A YouTube spokesperson said: “Upon review, we terminated the channel for violating our community guidelines. Content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on their ethnicity, nationality, race or religion is not allowed on YouTube.”
According to YouTube, another account associated with Booth was terminated, and creators are no longer entitled to earn any revenue if their channel is terminated.
The terminations happened after the Guardian reached out to YouTube with questions about Booth’s activities.
Also according to YouTube, content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on their ethnicity, nationality, race or religion is not allowed on the platform.
In the wake of the ban, Booth took to X to say that he would move his content to “alt-tech” platforms such as Odysee.
Booth is married to Meghyn “Meg” Booth, the Republican treasurer of Maple Valley Township. Meg Booth has “liked” several posts with extremist themes on Chris Booth’s Facebook account with her personal account. Chris Booth’s Facebook page also features extensive racist propaganda along with iconography often employed by neo-Nazis.
The revelations raise questions about the extent to which YouTube, whose parent company Alphabet also owns Google, Waymo and other tech companies, has backslid on monitoring extremism on its platform.
Jeff Tischauser, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), said Booth’s operation across YouTube, X and merchandising platforms was a “boilerplate Nazi grift”.
“He may be earning money from YouTube, as well as hawking these racist and antisemitic items on his website like cups and T-shirts,” Tischauser added.
He said that YouTube is “the premier site that these guys look to in order to expand their following and to make money off of that following”.
Content retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/02/christopher-booth-far-right-youtube-channel.
