If you’ve spent more than five minutes with a toddler in the last decade, you know Blippi. The blue and orange hat, the frantic waving, the songs about excavators that get stuck in your head for three days straight—it’s a global empire. But if you dig just an inch below the surface of the "so-educational-it-hurts" persona, you hit a very weird, very brown patch of internet history. We’re talking about the blippi harlem shake video original, a piece of content so far removed from children’s programming it feels like a fever dream.
Most parents find out about this through a hushed whisper on a playground or a random Reddit thread. They search for it, expecting maybe a swear word or a beer bottle in the background. What they find—or rather, what they can’t find anymore—is much more graphic. Stevin John, the man behind the glasses, wasn't always teaching kids about fire trucks. In 2013, he was a guy named "Steezy Grossman," and he was trying to go viral by being as disgusting as humanly possible.
The Steezy Grossman Era
Before the orange suspenders, Stevin John was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a guy trying to make it in the wild, unregulated West of early 2010s YouTube. This was the era of shock humor. Think Jackass meets Filthy Frank. Under the alias Steezy Grossman, John produced a series of videos that would make a modern PR agent faint. There was "Underwear Man" and "Turd Boy." The titles alone tell you exactly where his head was at.
Then came the Harlem Shake meme.
For those who don't remember, the Harlem Shake was a viral trend where one person would dance quietly to a Baauer song, and then the beat would drop, the camera would cut, and a whole group of people would be doing something insane in costumes. It was everywhere. Even grandmothers were doing it. Stevin John, however, decided to take the "insane" part literally.
What was actually in the video?
The blippi harlem shake video original featured John standing over a toilet. When the beat dropped, he didn't just put on a silly mask. In a hard-R rated twist that BuzzFeed News brought back to light in 2019, he proceeded to explosively defecate on a friend who was laying naked on the floor.
It wasn't a "prank" in the traditional sense. It was gross-out performance art. It was "The Harlem Shake Poop."
Honestly, it’s hard to reconcile that image with the guy who now spends his days spelling out "B-L-I-P-P-I" for three-year-olds. But it happened. He owned the domain HarlemShakePoop.com and actively encouraged people to share the "amazing visual art piece" with their friends and family. It’s a wild pivot. One year you're filming yourself on a toilet for shock value; the next, you're the most powerful force in toddler entertainment.
Why the Video is So Hard to Find Now
If you go looking for the original footage today, you’re mostly going to find 404 errors and legal notices. Stevin John has been incredibly effective at scrubbing the blippi harlem shake video original from the face of the earth. And he didn't just ask nicely.
He used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Basically, because John owns the copyright to his own "art," he can legally demand that websites take it down. He’s sent cease and desist letters to major outlets and filed takedown requests with Google to delist Russian websites that were still hosting the clip. It's a clever use of the law. Instead of arguing that the video isn't him—which would be a lie—he argues that it is his property and nobody else has the right to show it.
- 2013: Video is uploaded.
- 2014: Blippi character is created.
- 2019: BuzzFeed unearths the video, prompting a massive public apology.
- 2020-Present: Aggressive legal scrubbing continues.
When the story broke in 2019, John didn't dodge it. He told BuzzFeed: "At the time, I thought this sort of thing was funny, but really it was stupid and tasteless, and I regret having ever done it." It was a standard "I was young and dumb" apology, but for many parents, the mental image was already burned in.
The Blippi Brand vs. The Man
There’s a massive debate about whether this actually matters. On one hand, people change. Stevin John was in his early twenties. He was a marketing consultant trying to find a niche, and he eventually found one that actually helped people (or at least gave parents a 20-minute break). Does a gross video from a decade ago negate the educational value of his current work?
On the other hand, the "Blippi" brand is built on trust. When you put a video on for your kid, you’re assuming the person on the screen is a safe, wholesome mentor. Discovering the blippi harlem shake video original feels like a betrayal of that unspoken contract. It’s the "uncanny valley" of creators—the realization that the energetic man-child on screen is a calculated character played by a savvy marketer who once thought "Turd Boy" was peak comedy.
Is he still the "Real" Blippi?
Interestingly, this controversy might be why we see so much of "New Blippi" (Clayton Grimm) and Meekah these days. While John still owns a huge stake and is involved in the creative side, he’s stepped back from being the sole face of the brand. Moonbug Entertainment, the company that bought the brand for a staggering amount of money, knows that "Stevin John" has a digital footprint. "Blippi," the character, does not.
By diversifying the actors, they protect the brand from the creator’s past. If another old Steezy Grossman video surfaces, it doesn't hurt Clayton Grimm’s version of the character. It’s a brilliant business move.
Moving Forward as a Parent
So, what do you do with this information? Most parents just keep playing the videos. Kids don't know who Steezy Grossman is, and they don't care about 2013 memes. The content itself remains clean. If you're uncomfortable with the history, there are plenty of alternatives like Ms. Rachel or Danny Go! who don't have a background in shock humor.
But if you’re looking for the blippi harlem shake video original to satisfy a morbid curiosity, just know that you’re fighting against a very expensive legal team. It’s mostly gone. What remains are the reaction videos and the articles describing it in vivid, unfortunate detail.
Actionable Insights for Parents:
- Separate the art from the artist: Decide if the creator's past actions impact the current educational content your child consumes.
- Audit your YouTube settings: If the "Steezy" history bothers you, use the "Block Channel" feature on YouTube Kids to move toward creators with more consistent backgrounds.
- Check the "New Blippi": If you want the character without the baggage, look for videos featuring Clayton Grimm, who has a background in musical theater and education rather than shock comedy.
At the end of the day, Stevin John is a master of the pivot. He went from the bottom of the internet to the top of the charts. Whether that's an inspiration or a warning depends entirely on how you feel about a certain toilet in 2013.