About
Peter Oakley was a English pensioner known by his YouTuber vlog handle geriatric1927, who was YouTube’s most subscribed user in mid-2006. Oakley died in March 2014 due to complications with a cancer too advanced to warrant treatment.
Online History
On August 5th, 2006, Oakley launched his geriatric1927 YouTube channel with a video titled “first try” (shown below, left). Within the first eight years, the video gained over 2.9 million views and 10,000 comments. On the same day, Oakley uploaded another video titled “second try,” in which he expresses his intent to vlog about current events and things that “annoy” him (shown below, right).
Telling It All Series
On August 11th, 2006, Oakley uploaded the first video in his autobiographical vlog series titled “Telling It All” (shown below).
On August 13th, The Guardian[2] published an article about Oakley’s videos, noting that he had reached the top of YouTube’s most-subscribed list. On February 16th, 2007, Oakley was interviewed on the BBC television show The Money Programme, in which he discussed his YouTube fame relationship with his fans (shown below).
On February 12th, 2014, Oakley posted his final video, which concluded the second series of “Telling It All” (shown below). Over the course of eight years, Oakley had uploaded a total of 443 videos to the site.
Illness and Death
On February 27th, 2014, the blog AskGeriatric[1] reported that Oakley had been transferred to a nursing cure facility and was not expected to live due to an advanced stage of cancer. On the morning of March 23rd, Oakley died due to complications with cancer.