The video "Cutting Peoples Earphones, Then Giving Them Airpods" has attained over 53 million views at the time of writing (2022-10-03) making this a highly popular video on YouTube. Despite the popularity I wasn't able to find any specific evidence confirming or denying the authenticity of the video.
From a logical standpoint it seems weird that someone would document themselves committing a crime against other people.
Moreover the reactions are surprisingly tame, a fact which was already mentioned by many top rated comments. Some commenters respond to this claim by claiming that the reason they reacted in a more tame way than expected is due to the low value of the headphones being cut and also because they are worried about being stabbed by the alleged prankster's[^1] scissors.
More suspicious is the fact that in followup video titled "Cutting Peoples Earphones, Then Giving Them AirPods 5" starting at 3:46 it transitions into an advertisement. The transition to the advertisement might subjectively be referred to as smooth and one might be able to make the argument that such a perfect line may not occur naturally.
In conclusion I think there are a lot of reasons to be suspicious of these series of videos however I cannot find any solid evidence confirming or denying the authenticity of the videos.
The definition of authentic would be that all subjects/victims in the video did not communicate with anyone associated with the production of the video prior to filming in a way which would give them knowledge of the prank or knowledge of what will happen to them regarding their headphones.
[^1]: The purpose of using the term alleged prankster is to hopefully be neutral. If I use the term prankster it would be biased in favor of him being real. If I use the term actor it would be biased in favor of him being a fraud.
