Last updated 13:04, May 4 2018
Friends gather at the site where Johnny 'Danger' Bennett died in a motorcycle accident.
A jailbird who became the hero of the Hibiscus Coast, Johnny 'Danger' Bennett tapped into the psyche of many young Kiwis.
The 29-year-old social media stuntman died on Anzac Day after crashing his Harley in north Auckland, and his followers remain in mourning.
How did the death of this shy man with a dark past bring scores of Kiwis, most of whom had never met him, to tears?
A young Johnny 'Danger' Bennett (right) with his brothers Waynne and Steven.
Bennett's friends reckon his seconds-long video posts just had the right mix of escapism and comedy to make people happy.
Childhood friend Nina Bostock said Bennett had already proved a lot of doubters wrong, but died with "so much more to give".
Bennett was incredibly shy at primary school, friends said.
She remembered him at Auckland's Stanmore Bay Primary as an "out there" child who stood up for the underdog, yet was very shy.
She thought fans would be surprised at how shy Bennett was even as an adult – "the opposite of what you see on camera", she said.
"At school he was still cheeky, still a daredevil, always throwing himself off stuff or running around with his arse out, trying to make people laugh.
"But he never picked on people; if anything, he'd take the mickey out of himself to take the pressure off others being bullied."
Growing up, Bennett was a champion skateboarder and sportsman.
Throughout school Bennett was a sports fanatic, winning medals for feats in gymnastics, athletics, skateboarding and rugby league.
Sami Bownie became friends with the Bennett family as a teen and described it as big, tight, and somewhat wild – well known along the coast for huge house parties.
She said Bennett had always been motivated by making people happy, and that's why he made videos.
She remembered him lightening the lowest point of her life, at her dad's funeral, when a teenage Bownie was stricken by both grief and the fact she'd just found out she was pregnant.
"Johnny was the first person I told after my mum and my sister, and he just made this funny face and said 'but you're only 16, ow'," she said.
"He nudged my shoulder and I'm not sure how, but in a moment of such sadness he made me laugh."
Bennett (in the red hat), Nina Bostock (on the right), and friends at a house party on the Hibiscus Coast.
Another memory was of Bennett getting into a fight and being told he was a delinquent going nowhere by a policeman.
After leaving Orewa College early, that seemed to be the case. He couldn't hold down a job and was on the dole.
The fights were frequent and an especially big brawl at a 21st birthday party landed him in jail. He spent about two years behind bars, his friends said.
Bownie and Bostock both believed prison was a turning point for Bennett.
"When you'd look at him up until then, Johnny had this resume that'd make you think, 'oh wow, it's not gonna work out for him'," Bostock said.
"But he came out [of prison] and changed his life around. He started doing the videos and he just took off."
His videos were home-made, littered with swearing and undecipherable accents, and often looked painful.
There was Bennett tumbling out of a high-speed supermarket trolley and Bennett using a woman in a blue helmet as a jousting stick.
He rode a motorbike naked, rode a motorbike into a swimming pool, poured beer over a baby's head, christening-style, and chatted away with poodles.
Bennett did spoof interviews, for instance on the origin of his signature 'danger swig', where drinkers take a sip, then rapidly flick their head back.
"We'd been on the coke, s... loads of coke," he'd begin, then explain how the 'coke' had hurt his throat and that the only way he could swallow was with a jerk of the chin.
"I just sort of stick with L&P and sprite now, I'm off the coke," Bennett finished.
Bennett died on Anzac Day, in a motorcycle accident.
Equally deadpan, he claimed the rationale behind an infamous video of himself crossing the Harbour Bridge on the roof of a taxi was a sincere bid for fresh air.
"The taxi driver smelt that bad I needed some fresh air, so I just shot out and jumped on the roof," he deadpanned in a video.
The stunt saw him convicted of creating a criminal nuisance in 2015.
Bennett lost his licence and was charged $1000, but also became a social media sensation with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.
His fan base surged, the videos churned, he cultivated a posse of minor celebrities – and last year Bennett wound up with his own show on MTV.
The channel's Asia Pacific head Simon Bates said at the time that Bennett was a "bonafide star" worth investing in.
During the series Bennett developed his eponymous Danger Lager, which went on to become New Zealand's fastest selling beer.
Danger Lager was later dropped by Foodstuffs – which owns Pak'n'Save and New World supermarkets – because the company decided it did not approve of the reckless behaviour Bennett built his brand on.
Fast forward seven months, to the motorbike crash in Dairy Flat.
Many of his fans thought news of his death was a sick joke – not too hard to believe, given Bennett's reputation.
Hundreds of fans gathered to mourn Bennett on the side of the Dairy Flat Highway two days after his death.
As the truth sank in, they bombarded social media platforms with tributes: videos of themselves doing the danger swig, emotional recounts of that one time they ran into him at a bar in Ponsonby, and reflective posts about how his antics brightened troubled lives.
Hundreds of them gathered at the spot he died, next to a rural bus stop in Dairy Flat Highway, on the night of April 27. Mainly school aged and in their 20s, the fans vaped and cried and revved motorbikes in the chilly night air.
"Johnny Danger deserves his own f...... day, because of the amount he's done for New Zealand," shouted one fan. Others questioned how they could cope in a world without Bennett's videos.
Why did they love him? Jacci Matson thought it was because "Johnny could remove you from the everyday mundane and just make you laugh".
She first met Bennett when her son Jimmy brought him over after school one day.
"Jimmy said to me, 'mum, meet my friend Johnny. Johnny, show mum your abs'," she remembered. Five-year-old Bennett lifted up his t-shirt and lo and behold, "even at that age the little kid had abs".
A shrine sprang up at the site where Bennett died.
Matson said she treated Bennett as an honorary son from that moment on.
"He was actually quite a shy little fulla, but that kid was invincible," she described. "He would try and try and try until he'd perfect something.
"He was a calculated daredevil from a very young age," she said.
Despite his wayward patches later on, Matson never shared the policeman's view that Bennett was going nowhere.
"Johnny's always had this hidden drive within himself," she said.
"He never had any qualifications, but I've always looked at him and thought, 'you want beautiful things in your life, don't you Johnny, and you're going to get them'."
She admitted she watched some of his stunt videos with trepidation, but that he'd rarely hurt himself.
"He was a genetic freak and could get away with the crazy stunts," she said.
"He was lucky all right, until Anzac Day."
Matson was at Bennett's side 40 minutes after the motorbike accident, and stayed with his body for two days.
She reckons Bennett's life could be summed up by a saying he himself used liberally: don't let your dreams remain dreams.
"He was this beautiful free spirit here to remind us to live life to the fullest and just never give up," she said.