Adam Pacitti

In August 2008, while studying English at the University of Winchester, Pacitti launched an appeal to find "the most beautiful girl he has ever seen" in a dream of his.[2] After the dream, he woke up 'immediately' in the early hours and drew a sketch of the girl, which has drawn comparisons to Ugly Betty.[3] He subsequently created a website where people could log sightings of who they believed were his dream woman, or girls who believed they were her could contact him.[4] Pacitti spent almost £5,000 and three years on his search, and even travelled to America, Canada, France, Spain and the Netherlands, but it was ultimately unsuccessful, with him giving it up in 2010.[5]

Adam Pacitti with the Employ Adam billboard

In January 2013, when he was an unemployed graduate, Adam spent the last £500 in his bank account on a billboard in Shoreditch, London, in hopes that he would find work from it.[6][7] It promoted a dedicated campaign website, aptly-named employadam.com. The website hosted a tongue-in-cheek video promoting his marketing skills, including his first-class degree in Media Production, to potential recruiters. In one part of the video, Pacitti stated: "I am looking for work in the ultra-competitive, cut-throat and slightly vacuous industry that is the media."[8] He was successful with the stunt, being employed soon after by production company KEO Digital, where he landed a post as a junior producer.[9][10] In February, one month after, he bought another billboard space, this time thanking people for helping him. It read: "I spent my first wage packet on this billboard. Thank you for helping me." This saw The Times dub him "the poster boy for jobseekers" in a headline.[11]

After departing from KEO, Pacitti joined WhatCulture in 2015. He became a well-known figure on their wrestling YouTube channel, WhatCulture Wrestling, alongside co-presenters Adam Blampied, Sam Driver, and Ross Tweddell. Following the success of the channel, the brand decided to launch their own independent wrestling promotion, named WhatCulture Pro Wrestling (WCPW).[12][13] Pacitti served as the inaugural general manager,[14] before it was sold and rebranded as Defiant Wrestling, which seen Stu Bennett named as his successor,[15] before it finally folded as a promotion in August 2019, one year and 11 months later.[16]

On 29 September 2017, just one day before WCPW rebranded as Defiant, WhatCulture issued a statement on Twitter announcing that Pacitti, Blampied, Driver, and Tweddell had all made the decision to part ways with them, and that they would be leaving "in the coming weeks".[17] One month later, on Monday, 16 October, the group launched a new professional wrestling infotainment website and YouTube channel of their own, named Cultaholic.[18] Shortly after the channel was announced, Pacitti's then-colleague Adam Blampied had his contract with Cultaholic terminated "with immediate effect",[19][20] amidst news of sexual misconduct claims, which Blampied later publicly admitted to in an op-ed for The Independent.[21]

On 13 June 2021, a new opinion-orientated television channel named GB News launched. The channel has a right-wing political bias,[22] and upon launching, CNN reported the station were aiming to "take on woke warriors".[23] Four days after its launch, on 17 June, Pacitti – a Labour Party supporter, who has shown support for Jeremy Corbyn[24] and previously criticised the Conservative Party[25] — pranked the station. He appeared live on Tonight Live with Dan Wootton via video chat during a segment with former actor Laurence Fox and political commentator Dan Wootton whilst they were taking questions from the public. Pacitti exclaimed: "Hello. I am a great fan of your work and also a great fan of comedy. I am a man that loves to laugh. I am of the belief that either one can joke about everything or nothing at all because somebody will always be offended by a joke. What are your thoughts on that?", as he was standing direcly in front of a mirror and mooning the hosts in the reflection. They did not notice the prank, though viewers did.[26][27]