Joey Salads

In 2022, Salads starred in the American thriller movie, Beyond the Neon. Directed by Larry A McLean and written by Marisa Dzintars and Woodrow WIlson Hancock III,[8] the film takes on a gonzo-journalistic style that immerses the audience into the ride.

Salads was brought on to the project after the second year of R&D as the project called for someone with real-life experience in dangerous situations and social experiments.[9] Beyond the Neon is based on true accounts and follows the story of a Las Vegas escort named Sasha (played by Gila Goodman)[10] who is recognized by her sister Tracy (played by Cynthia Lucero) in a viral social experiment video created by Salads, who plays his internet persona.

Motivated to reunite the sisters and capture the reunion on camera, Salads and his apprehensive crew are forced into the dangerous and corrupt world of escorting, all while filming every step of their desperate effort to rescue the woman from human sex trafficking in Las Vegas.

The movie features real footage of a Las Vegas safe house for trafficked survivors, interviews from real survivors in recovery, and other organic documented experiences from the filmmakers throughout. [11]

Beyond the Neon had a limited theatrical release starting on October 14, 2022, and is now available to stream on Amazon Prime and other VOD platforms. Despite some controversy surrounding Salads' involvement in the film, it has been praised for shedding light on the issue of human trafficking and raising awareness of this important social issue.

Salads was featured in Beyond the Neon’s teaser campaign on TikTok[12] and other social media platforms. The videos collected over 50 Million views within a week, sparking conversation and debates over the issues of human trafficking, sex work, Las Vegas Escorting, and included equal parts criticism and praise for the project as a whole. Many believed this footage to be real, expressing concern for the escort depicted in the video. The filmmakers confirmed she was an actor as their years of research would have informed the unethical and dangerous risks of tricking a real person into exposing the truth. [13]

Saladino registered the Joey Salads YouTube account in 2012, and uploaded roughly one video per week. Many of his early videos were Jackass-style pranks,[5] though his content became more political following Donald Trump's bid for President in 2016.[3] He has described his videos as "edgy" and "dumb pranks" made to entertain.[14]

Saladino has admitted to staging pranks on more than one occasion.[15] He has been criticized for faking his prank and social experiment videos, as well as for promoting a narrative that portrays African Americans as violent.[16] In his video "Black people don't like Trump", published in 2016, Saladino leaves a car with Donald Trump campaign stickers in a mostly African American neighborhood. Then several African Americans appear, break into the car, and break its windows. After receiving backlash from critics including h3h3Productions for misportraying black Americans,[17] Saladino admitted the video was staged with actors.[18]

One video that did not appear to be staged was one of Saladino urinating in his own mouth and placing his penis in a hot dog bun. The video has since been deleted but images remain available.[19]

In 2019, Saladino began campaigning for the Republican primary in New York's 11th congressional district, which encompasses Staten Island and a small section of Brooklyn.[15] His campaign raised a total of $66,704.22 during this time.[20][21] Saladino withdrew his candidacy on December 13, 2019,[22][23] and stated his endorsement for fellow Republican candidate Joe Caldarera.[23] He has been accused of running to boost his public profile.[24]

Saladino was incorrectly identified as attending the "Unite the Right" protest at Charlottesville after a photo of him wearing a swastika armband began circulating on Twitter. Saladino was in Jamaica during the event, with Saladino claiming the image was taken from a prank video he had uploaded to YouTube months beforehand.[25][26][27]

He filed a formal complaint against congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in response to the congresswoman blocking him on Twitter, citing a ruling that prevents elected officials from censoring speech on public forums.[28][29][30]