As an awkward teenager growing up in Michigan, Anthony Dawson first found an audience by posting silly prank videos on YouTube with his high school friends.
Now better known to his more than 24 million followers as TooTurntTony, Dawson has become one of the country’s top-earning short-form creators, reportedly bringing in $15 million a year through a mix of shirtless comedy, risqué content and carefully staged family mayhem.
But former friends say there is a more troubling story behind the online persona built on beer bongs, pet ducks and viral humor.
In interviews with the Daily Mail, several people who once knew Dawson said they believe his drive for fame, attention and approval began to reshape his character well before he became an internet star, damaging relationships along the way.
Dawson, 31, was raised outside Detroit and attended Milford High School, where he quickly learned how much attention his antics could attract — even when they crossed the line.
In 2013, he and more than two dozen classmates were suspended after uploading a YouTube video showing them dancing shirtless and making pelvic-thrusting moves in what school officials described as vulgar and inappropriate behavior.
Meanwhile, a separate video posted on his YouTube channel, WhiteBoysMakingNoise, was later removed after school officials said it contained racial slurs and other offensive content.
A teenage Dawson said at the time that he and his friends simply wanted to get ‘a lot of views,’ not anticipating the blowback.
Anthony Dawson (right) is known as TooTurntTony online
Dawson grew up in Michigan and was a duck rancher
That fall, he enrolled at Western Michigan University to study film production, where, according to former peers, he was immersed in the college’s social scene.
There, he earned a reputation not unlike the persona he now portrays online – though he looked markedly skinnier, a far cry from his now ripped, tattooed physique.
A former classmate, who agreed to speak to the Daily Mail on the condition of anonymity, described Dawson as a ‘confident alpha’ and ‘Mr Cool Guy’ who between rounds of beer pong at parties would show off his six pack and attract women without having to try too hard.
‘Whenever you went out, and if it was a party even worth being at, you’d probably see him there,’ the source said.
The source, who shared classes and social circles with Dawson during his sophomore and junior years, said he always needed to be the center of attention at parties.
And if the spotlight was ever not on him, he simply disengaged, according to former friends.
‘He was always confident – borderline cocky,’ they said. ‘Everything was self-oriented. Everything he did was for himself.’
According to the source, Dawson was a ‘playboy,’ his behavior fueled by alcohol and a sense that the rules simply did not apply to him.
‘He didn’t really ever seem like he’d be a guy you’d want to date,’ they added.
Around the time he was in college, photos of Dawson surrounded by scantily clad women, chugging out of beer bongs and making vulgar hand gestures proliferated on his Instagram.
In one post from 2013, Dawson is posing shirtless, his arms wrapped around four smiling women in bikinis, with the caption: ‘I can’t be tamed.’
In another dated 2014, he is sitting on the hood of his Honda, flipping off the camera with the caption: ‘One day I will take this same pic but on a lambo surrounded by some fly b****s.’
Years later, he would go on to share a side-by-side of the photo with a current image of himself leaning against a luxe car surrounded by multiple women.
In one post from 2013, Dawson is posing shirtless, his arms wrapped around four smiling women in bikinis, with the caption, ‘I can’t be tamed’
In another dated 2014, he is sitting on the hood of his Honda, flipping off the camera
And when Dawson dated college beauty Claudia Szafranski – a blonde who was described to the Daily Mail as ‘well known around campus for being very attractive’ – those who witnessed the relationship up close say it was troubled from the start.
‘It wasn’t really the healthiest,’ the source said.
When contacted by the Daily Mail, Szafranski confirmed she ‘had a history’ with Dawson but declined to say more.
Others would soon come forward with stories of their own.
Briana Armbruster, who appeared alongside Dawson for three years in his content as the masked figure known as ‘Ski Mask Girl,’ has described their relationship as ‘super toxic.’
On her podcast F*ck It, Mask Off, Armbruster, 30, claimed Dawson encouraged her to wear skimpy outfits and partake in ever riskier and more humiliating skits, including one in which he spat beer, soup and raw eggs into her mouth through her mask.
She claimed she contracted salmonella and spent a day crying on the toilet.
The mask itself, Armbruster has said, was a mechanism of control, used to keep her from building her own profile or stealing the spotlight.
All the while, off-camera, she played the dutiful partner while he partied with other women.
Dawson did not respond to the Daily Mail’s requests for comment.
His shock-factor formula has proven incredibly effective at generating fame and wealth.
Briana Armbruster has described their relationship as ‘super toxic’
In addition to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, Dawson also posts exclusive, sometimes X-rated, content on OnlyFans
Dawson’s content is comprised of a variety of seemingly risky stunts and carefully curated skits
Dawson’s family, including his mother Lisa, father Gordon, sister Maria and brother Dominic, all feature heavily in his videos, and now reach a combined audience of 45 million followers across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
Together, they star in a carefully curated online soap opera presented as spontaneous family chaos, and share in the revenue generated by Dawson’s merchandise sales, sponsorship deals with such brands as Outback Steakhouse and Kraken Rum, his TooTurntTea beverage line and his OnlyFans account that at times veers into explicit content.
Still, a former college classmate said Dawson is effectively exploiting them: ‘I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night if that’s how I put my family out there.’
The skits are filmed at Dawson’s $535,000 lakeside home on the shores of Florida’s Lake Istokpoga, on nearby beaches and at his parents’ house in Highland, Michigan.
His online persona is built around being perpetually ‘too turnt’ – a term for someone so hyped-up, reckless or intoxicated that common sense goes out the window.
In pursuit of clicks, Dawson has filmed himself wrangling alligators, tormenting relatives with elaborate beer-bong pranks and, in one viral stunt, hunting sharks from a homemade pirate ship.
Much of the content revolves around increasingly outrageous family storylines. In one recurring plot, his horrified parents react to his plans to marry an Australian woman he claims to have barely met.
In another, he pretends to have adopted a baby girl and jokes about smoking marijuana in the infant’s nursery.
Yet such skits have helped propel Dawson from internet prankster to aspiring actor. Last year, he landed a role in the low-budget Southern Gothic horror film Skinwalker Island.
But Dawson’s stunts, while mostly staged, have also put him and others in the hospital on several occasions.
He has also appeared in court for violating wildlife protection laws, angered neighbors and been banned from Airbnb for damaging properties he had rented.
Last year, he landed a role in the low-budget Southern Gothic horror film Skinwalker Island
To some observers, Dawson’s rise follows a familiar pattern in the age of social media fame.
Ryan Simmons, who also studied film production at Western Michigan at the same time as the controversial content creator, suggested the relentless pursuit of clicks has corroded whatever moral compass Dawson once had.
‘When they get that sort of validation from the algorithm and their stuff starts catching on, a lot of people can lose sight of what is ethical and responsible,’ Simmons told the Daily Mail.
‘It can be easy to fall into a trap of getting that validation – clicks, likes, whatever it takes to get the content going.’
Toby Ingham, author of A Guilty Victim and a specialist in the psychology of online celebrity, seems to agree. He said Dawson’s trajectory reflects a well-worn – and often troubling – path taken by internet stars chasing ever-larger audiences.
He described the TooTurntTony persona as a ‘shadow fantasy’: an exaggerated performance of unchecked masculinity, sexual conquest and reckless abandon that projects confidence and power while masking deeper insecurities.
‘He’s got this charismatic, funny, creative energy,’ Ingham told the Daily Mail.
‘But it’s just energy – like a firework going off. It could go anywhere, and it could harm anyone.’
His fans, for now, keep watching. Whether the spectacle can survive its own contradictions is another matter entirely.
