A fake TikTok stunt appearing to show a child drowning in an inflatable pool stunned millions of viewers. The creator says he was 'raising awareness.'

• A TikToker racked up tens of millions of views with a video pretending his child had died.
• Viewers called out the TikToker for the morbid performance, which he later stated was fake.

An actor who posted a TikTok pretending his child had died drowning doubled down on the performance after viewers called him out for including a real kid in the video.

On June 9, a TikToker who goes by Lewis Saunderson posted a video that showed him loudly sobbing while he held a toddler in his arms, beneath an on-screen caption that read, "Never leave a child unattended in a pool."

The upload, which blew up with a massive 43 million views, went on to show a series of scenes that led to the fictitious drowning, which featured a child playing in a paddling pool, getting stuck beneath an inflatable, and laying stationary in the water. It was soundracked by the song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol.

Over 48,500 people responded to the performance. Many commenters seemed to realize the TikTok was fake, which the user had signposted in the hashtags, including #fiction and #awareness, but were totally baffled by the whole concept, while others were shocked that a real child had seemingly been instructed to play dead for a TikTok.

"This is psychotic," one viewer bluntly responded, in a top comment that received over 22,800 likes, alongside some commenters who appeared confused by the legitimacy of the content and wrote they were sorry for his loss.

Multiple TikTokers also stitched the video to share their reactions, which ranged from users who were lost for words, to one who appeared to sarcastically encourage Saunderson to "role play the hell" out of a baby death scenario.

A few days later, on June 15, Saunderson responded to the feedback in a follow-up video and said he was a "trained actor" and that he'd used hashtags on the original video to make this clear. He said the child in the video was in fact his nephew, and the goal of his TikTok account was to create "awareness videos" for his viewers.

The video received over 400 comments that questioned the TikToker's acting credentials as well as his motivations, as a popular comment suggested if he was really trying to raise awareness for such an extreme situation he could have included first-aid techniques.

Viewers tend to be very unforgiving of content creators who have used children in their videos to elicit strong, emotional reactions.

In 2021, YouTuber Jordan Cheyenne received a ton of backlash after she released footage that showed her instructing her already visibly upset son to look like he was crying for the sake of a YouTube thumbnail about their unwell puppy.

In recent years, there's been a general pushback of parents using their kids for content, with mom influencers such as Mada Graviet, who has over 646,000 followers on TikTok and had included her son in previous videos, announcing she would not include her child in future uploads, a decision that earned her praise from viewers.

This isn't the first time Saunderson has gone viral for his emotionally driven TikToks either.

On April 10 he shared a video that showed him acting out a scenario in which he found out his daughter had died which received 37.7 million views, and another where he could be seen dressed as a British paramedic running down a street with a boy in his arms, with a caption that suggested he had failed to save his life, which was viewed 1.6 million times.

Saunderson has 795,000 followers on TikTok. He did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.